You may remember my foray into trying to make dishsoap. It was a complete failure. It didn’t cut grease, it didn’t have any suds (I wouldn’t have minded no suds but the grease ring in my sink was just GROSS) and it just plain didn’t work. All the recipes had vinegar or lemon juice in the same list with the soap, which is wrong because vinegar is what I use on my head to make sure my shampoo breaks up and rinses out well.
Because vinegar un-soaps soap. It’s what it does. Lemon juice does the same thing. (Insert chemistry stuff here that clearly explains why.) So if you’re using real soap in your hair to wash, use vinegar and let it sit for a bit before rinsing and you’ll end up with much better results.
So I was all “damn, my dish soap doesn’t work” and I searched and searched on Pinterest and the Google and the everywhere else to try and find a recipe that would work. I found one, but it involved making soap first. Real bar soap in a crock pot. I’m just not quite ready for that yet, so I’m out of luck on dishsoap.
On a quick sidenote here, I have to say the number of dishwasher powders out there and home recipes for them are about a thousand million to one to the washing-dishes-by-hand recipes. Don’t dishwashers use like a million gallons of water? Isn’t that not-very-earth-friendly? I haven’t done a bunch of research on this, so if you know, please educate me. I’m curious about the dishes in the sink vs. dishes in the dishwasher water use. It’s probably somewhere obvious but man, I’m tired and need more coffee to get through my morning and that’s one more thing I just can’t even think about looking into right now because I’ll never come back from that rabbit hole and then you’ll find me next week talking about getting rid of my refridgerator because, really, blocks of ice are really more the way to go and then I’m Alice from the Honeymooners and please kill me.
But, back to the story. I couldn’t find a not-gross recipe for dish soap so I was all, “Okay, I’ll just buy the best commercial dishsoap I can.”
Why is being earth-friendly so practically impossible? One is from Europe, one is sort of okay, my choice – the Seventh Generation Lavendar and Mint – is listed as either greenwashed or moderately safe or…well, it’s just confusing.
Then there’s the whole group of really, really loyal blue Dawn users.
Does it matter if it all rinses off? Does it all rinse off?
I kind of hate trying to get stuff that’s natural sometimes. For now, until I can find more reliable information I’m going to stick with Seventh Generation because it cleans better and cuts grease better than ANY brand of dish washing detergent (aka dishsoap) I’ve ever, ever used.
Since I make my own shampoo and it’s uber cheap compared to the shampoo I used to use, I don’t mind spending a little more on the Seventh Generation dishsoap (at my Target it’s $2.88 … $2.66 on sale) and I use a LOT less than I used to have to use with Palmolive or Dawn. So even though I was willing to spend more, it turns out that with the using less and the not-so-bad price that even a C on the Skin Deep Database doesn’t look so bad anymore.
So I’m a half-assed hippie. For now, I’m okay with that.
First, I thought that dishwashers used a lot of water too. But, I had one that drained into the sink (portable) for awhile, so I measured the water. It wasn’t as much as I thought. Plus, even with a family, I could run it once a day. That compared to sinkfuls of water was competitive for water. NOW, it may take hotter water to be effective and that can be more costly. The soap for dishwashers is VERY strong, as you’ve probably learned in your science research. I don’t have one now because there are only two of us and I don’t want to lose the cupboard space. Instead, we indulge in a lot of paper plates which I can in turn compost. I disagree with Oprah that my budget white paper plates are more expensive than dishes because then I would have to wash the china. I have some nice little picnic holders that support the plates and we just are going to go against the grain on that one.
I like some suds and was using the ‘house brand’ at the grocery, but it wasn’t suds, so I would squeeze out some more. This isn’t economical because I’m using almost the whole bottle trying to get some suds! (I NEVER exaggerate) So, I picked up a bottle of GAIN for dishwashing. Like Dawn and Ajax, it’s eating my hands, but it sure makes suds. It makes so much suds that I could put a table spoon of vinegar into the bottle when new and still have suds, but have the vinegar therapy for my hands. Maybe next bottle.
I wonder if it depends on the dishwasher, too, because mine runs for at least two hours and there is a lot of spraying sounds happening during that time. But who knows what I’m actually hearing. I have the mechanical gifts of a … no, monkeys are probably better at that kind of thing. Don’t you find that adding vinegar to your dishsoap makes it gloopy? Vinegar is supposed to make soap not work as well. But if it works for you, that’s all that matters!