Homemade Chemical-Free Dish Detergent (No Borax!)
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The other day I went on a quest to find a chemical free dish detergent recipe that I could make at home. We have been slowly switching everything in our house to chemical-free products and this month it was time to switch our dish detergents!! My husband had bought some Seventh Generation dish liquid the other day but a small bottle cost about $4! With the amount of dishes we go through in our house I can’t imagine that it would last very long! So I thought I would share the one I made and use.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. Lemi-shine
1 1/2 c. washing soda
1/2 c. baking soda
1/2 c. sea salt
Directions:
Mix it all together! Voila! Use 1-2 Tbsp. per load.
Now in addition to this I also poured about 1 Tbsp. of white vinegar in the rinse compartment of our dishwasher. I am very pleased with the result! There were no weird smells coming from my dishwasher and everything was clean! Making the detergent was the easy part- finding the materials was the hard part.
Lemi-shine runs around $3.53 in stores (you can purchase it on Amazon but it is very pricey) and you do use the entire container for the recipe above. But it wasn’t nearly as cost effective as I was hoping for so I have since cut my Lemi-shine in half for each recipe. It cleans best, however, when you use the entire bottle so you may want to try it out and see what works for you.
Although the Lemi-shine makes this recipe a bit more expensive than I would like I LOVE it and I LOVE knowing that it is non-toxic. There is no Borax, bleach or other harsh chemicals involved. For the Washing Soda and Baking Soda I can find those both in our laundry detergent aisle.  I use sea salt, but I have read many other recipes that just said table salt….so the verdict is out on this one!
I have never thought about making my own Homemade Dish Detergent. This sounds very interesting indeed!
The recipe I found shows to use about 10 packs of Lemonade, which is cheaper than the Lemishine, if you might want to try that. I haven't made it yet but I intend to. We've been doing our own laundry detergent for months and I'm very pleased, especially with the savings!\
Thanks for sharing!
Great recipe! I've always wanted to try my own detergent! 🙂
I'd be interested to know if it works on the really tough messes. Like holiday dinners! Very cool though!
Sounds great! I am always on the lookout for a "Greener" way to clean! Thanks for sharing!
I've actually been thinking about making my own dishwashing detergent when my current stuff runs out. I'll be on the lookout for the other recipes you try.
Hi! You left a comment on my blog about this recipe, so I checked it out right away! I’m definitely interested in trying your recipe the next time I make dish detergent, but have a few questions first… have you tried making it with only 1/2 lemi-shine to make it cheaper? Also, have you made it using table salt instead of the sea salt yet? Thanks!!!
No doing it with 1/2 lemi-shine was my next option once my batch is gone! And nope I didn’t try table salt instead of sea salt either. I find it very cheap at Big Lots… 🙂 If you try it out let me know what you think!