It was a housekeeping disaster. After finally realizing the sources of my pitiful dishes- the spots, the film- it comes down to the lack of phosphates. I’m admittedly not a true eco-minded individual so I’m probably the last person to know that you can’t get phosphates in anything anymore. But hey, I’m recycling. Baby steps! The discovery was incredibly frustrating (I checked the garden aisle too) but it did get my dishwasher off the hook because I thought it had totally crapped out of me. And a dishwasher was half the reason we bought this house! Well not really, but it was a big selling point.

So onto the interwebs to find a new dishwasher solution, because the only other option is to start handwashing the dishes again and I would rather be shot in the head just rather not. I was going to make my own automatic dishwasher detergent (everybody is doing it right?) and I was sure I had Borax in the basement. But newsflash, Borax will kill you. So there goes my homemade detergent idea.

Next up, Googling non-Borax homemade automatic dishwasher detergent and the results were a little overwhelming… But, I stumbled onto a forum that was discussing it, and after doing some Amazon review reading, I bought the stuff they were discussing and tried it- the results are in, Lemi Shine and Biokleen are the dynamic duo, my dishes are spotless. SPOTless I tell you.

So in case you were also feeling like you would like to bash your head against your disgustingly spotted dishes, here is a lifeline. The price isn’t horrible, which only perpetuates my joy. I’ve found that Lemi Shine is cheapest at Walmart, and Biokleen is about the same price on Amazon as it is in our local natural food store. So there, the housekeeping tip of the week!

~HB