When Dishwasher Soap Packets Are Overkill
Premeasured dishwasher soaps are convenient but overkill almost everywhere—and particularly unnecessary in places where the water is soft.
WASTE NOT | When my four-year-old European dishwasher crashed a while back, I called in a repairman who made an eye-opening comment about my dishwashing detergent. “You use that stuff?” he asked, pointing at the Electrasol Dishwasher Detergent with Powerball Tabs I’d bought in a convenient 100-tab tub at Costco.
“Yes, and I love it. It’s so easy,” I chirped, citing a no-mess no-fuss defense and explaining how my dishes looked at least as sparkly clean as they had with other detergents I’d employed.
“You use that stuff, too?” he added pointing to my little bottle of rinse aid. “Absolutely.” I’d grazed the manual enough to know that my energy-efficient machine dried dishes by evaporation and that a few drops of this agent dispensed by my dishwasher during the rinse cycle actually helped get the job done.
Overkill On All Counts
“Well, then, that’s overkill on two counts,” he stated matter-of-factly. “These premeasured tabs are made for the hardest water conditions; we have soft water here.” Plus Electrosol includes a rinse aid, Jet-Dry, embedded in the tabs—although unless it is time-released, some of the component (and a lot of its clout) might be washed away before the rinse cycle ever starts.
He then suggested that I break the tabs in half and chuck the pre-soak balls, saying they were “overkill too” unless I washed baked-on-lasagna pans in every load. “How dirty are most of our dishes anyway?” (THIS New York Times article estimated that people everywhere use 10 to 15 times the dishwashing detergent they need.)
I did what he said and broke the tabs in half and didn’t notice a decline in the cleanliness of my dishes. And I recently switched back to a liquid detergent because, while I love the convenience of the Electrosol tabs, liquid detergent allows me easier control over how much (or little) detergent I use.” —C. Rule
Photo: Thermador
I’ve heard the same goes for laundry detergent. What the detergent company recommends is overkill, particularly in soft water areas. We had an issue with our towels getting a funky smell after only one use. I looked online and the general internet consensus was to do one wash of the towels with a cup or two of vinegar and to use way less detergent. Worked like a charm and now we use barely any detergent for all of our laundry. (We did the vinegar thing just one time, it’s not every time we wash our towels. We’ll repeat the vinegar if they start smelling funky again.)