Washing Dishes...everyone's favorite thing to do....

I have had this dish detergent recipe for a while, but I was hard pressed to find a key ingredient - citric acid in powder form.

So I started hunting around the good ol' internet for a substitute.  Lo and behold, there is this stuff called Lemi-Shine that is a good replacement, if you can't find it.  I could not find either locally, so I ordered the Lemi-Shine off of Amazon.  Because Amazon has everything.  No really, they do.

This recipe was toted as a "dishwasher detergent".  I tried it.  It didn't work.  But this morning, pulling my half washed dishes out of the dishwasher, and not wanting to wait the three hours to run the washer again (That is how long mine takes to run a load.  It sucks.), I decided to give it a go in the sink with some vinegar and water.

DANG!  Ok, this stuff rocked the pizza crust right off my pizza pan.  I had a few things that I was dreading scrubbing.  The cheese grater, the pizza pan, the pan I used to make my daughters breakfast yesterday morning.  Ugh.  I hate doing dishes by hand.

But hey, I needed clean dishes, right?  Right!

SOOO.... I filled up the deeper sink with hot water, a splash of vinegar, and a tablespoon of this home made detergent.  You know those tv commercials that show grime lifting off of dishes like magic?  That is pretty much what happened.  Even the cheese grater just needed a single wipe on each side and it was clean enough to pass Ned Flanders' "squick test".

So even this stuff is made of all natural stuff, you still want to give your dishes a good hot rinse, because you probably don't want dried borax water on your dishes the next time you eat.

Ok, here you go, and enjoy!  You will need:

A 32 ounce container (I like re-using the tubs that my daughter's prunes come in, but yogurt containers and large soup containers from chinese take out places work, too)
Borax
Washing Soda
Lemi-shine or Citric Acid.
coarse Kosher salt

Add:
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Lemi-Shine or Citric Acid
1/2 cup coarse Kosher salt

Put it all into your 32 oz container, put the lid on, and SHAKE.  Shake it up reeeealy good.

Use one tablespoon per sink load.

The citric acid will make it get a little clumpy, but that's ok.

I read today, that if I run my dishwasher empty with it that it will boost your dishwasher's efficiency.  I'm doing that now, so I'll get back to you on that.  My dishwasher sucks, so I am not crossing my fingers.

Being that my dishwasher sucks, and that this recipe got rave reviews on DIYNatural.com, I'd say it probably wont hurt to try it out in yours.  It could just be me.

Good luck, have fun, and keep looking for ways to free yourself from the bonds of that overly scented, brightly colored cleaning aisle at the grocery.

Cheers!