Homemade Dishwasher Tablets

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my post about making DIY dishwasher tablets. Seriously, I don't know why I was suddenly inspired to make this. I am beyond stocked up on laundry detergent from some couponing deals, but when I saw we were nearing the end of our tablets, I decided to go for the homemade option. I seriously had the ingredients on my shopping list and while shopping with Jake he says "We need dishwasher detergent" and I'm like "Oh that's what all these ingredients are for!" He definitely gave me the side eye with that.

First off, let me say so far the tablets work great! Granted, I've only used them a couple times, but so far so good.

I decided to try this recipe from the site Say Not Sweet Anne (found on Pinterest). When looking at recipes, it seemed like there were either ones that used Borax or ones that proudly claimed "No Borax here!" Now, I don't personally have anything against Borax and tried to do some research to find why people are so anti Borax. In the end, I didn't have conclusive info and decided to just go with the option without Borax.

I also avoided recipes needing castille soap because that stuff is expensive and I didn't want to invest in that much initial cost with just trying something out.

The recipe I link to above is one of the simpliest I found. Here is a look at the ingredients and where to find them.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups washing soda (laundry aisle & apparently you can make from baking soda if you want)
1 cup baking soda (found in baking - at my store the small boxes were cheaper by ounce than the large box)
1/2 cup kosher salt (found in baking with other salts)
2 packets lemonade mix (found with drink mixes) ** This may be my favorite part of the recipe...I kinda wanted to add in like 4 of these for extra lemon smell!
1 cup water (I added a liiiiitle bit of vinegar instead of the full cup of water)

I had read that sometimes people have problems with residue left over on the dishes and needed to add vinegar to the liquid rinse space. I REALLY DID NOT WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT so I opted to add a little bit instead of the full cup of water. Several recipes I looked at did include vinegar so I figured I couldn't throw the recipe off too much.

The Process:

This was SO easy. Seriously add all the dry ingredients. Add the water (and vinegar in my case). Stir together. This video shows the initial reaction and me trying to mix everything together. I apologize about the awful camera work, stirring a thick sand-like mixture while holding a phone is quite difficult. **Side note, the background music is Jake playing his guitar. I was seriously confused when first watching the clips and thinking "How did I add music already??"

Setting Into Tablets:

If you have some spare ice cube trays or any kind of molds, I'd use those! (Just make sure they will still fit in your detergent compartment.) I did not have any trays (I must have gotten rid of them in the move) so I was planning to use a tablespoon to scoop out the portions.

The tablets drying on the countertop.

Now, my mixture was initially VERY wet. There was no way I could separate this out into tablets.

This may be because of the Florida humidity or maybe I added too much vinegar or maybe I just needed it to set a little bit. I added small amounts of each of the dry ingredients to thicken it up and just kept mixing. Finally, I decided to just let it sit for a few hours.

This helped A TON! Suddenly the mixture was very moldable.

I actually had filled my tablespoon with some and THAT was a perfect tablet having dried in the mold. Hence why I'd recommend the trays. You can immediately work with the mixture and pack it in. I had to go back a couple times as the mixture loosened up as I worked with it more and then I'd need to let it dry again. Once the mixture was TOO dry so I just added a tiny bit of water and things worked fine.

(I also have to mention that I made the mixture right before Jake and I were going to bed because you are supposed to let it sit out for 24+ hours. Then my pregnancy insomnia kept me up and so I finished this project throughout the night when I'd get up. :P)


In the end I made about 40 tablets. Some are prettier than others but overall I'm pretty pleased! :D  I am just storing them under the sink in the container from my old tablets.