The search has been long and spotty.  My poor husband has endured many a “rejected” dish pile from homemade dishwasher detergents and frugal attempts.  I have come to the firm belief that you cannot have a homemade dishwasher detergent unless you want to seriously prerinse all your dishes, which ends up questionably using a lot of extra water and time, thus expending resources from your pocketbook, environment and personal stamina.

I don’t prerinse.  Not one little bit.  My dishwasher is full of GUNK.  (See this post if you don’t believe me!) I need a serious dishwasher detergent that is able to work with my laziness. I also want the dishwasher to be a safe place, because my daughter ADORES it.  It’s the lure of the off-limits for her.  The more we tell her “uh-UH!” the more she wants to wash her hands in the water droplets on the open dishwasher door.  Ugh.  I cannot have toxic detergent in there. I just cannot.

Since homemade just isn’t cutting it, I decided it was time to branch out into the world of natural cleaners, spending more than I would in a grocery store, but at least keeping Lovey Girl and the good green Earth a little safer.  (Did you know dishwasher detergent is one of the more toxic basic cleaners in your house?)

I approached the Mrs. Meyer’s company and asked for a sample, and they were generous enough to let me try out their product (and they’ll share with you, too!).

I received their dishwasher detergent packets, dishwashing liquid, and room freshener spray.  I couldn’t wait to run the detergent through its paces (especially since I was literally OUT of Cascade and had run the DW once using the previous “acceptable” method of 3 drops of dishwashing liquid and a ½ cup of vinegar in the bottom.  Lots of rejections!).  I was glad the mail came quickly!

Mrs. Meyer’s Dishwasher Detergent

I loaded the dishwasher as usual:  totally full, nothing rinsed, (yes, not even melty cheese or egg!).

I almost cringed as I opened the dishwasher door the next morning.  We’ve had so many failures!  I nearly cried tears of joy when I saw…clean dishes.  My heart sunk to the floor when I realized the next time I ran the dishwasher that, for a rare occasion in this house, I had used “normal” wash instead of “light”.  Oh, dear.  I knew it was too good to be true.

With great trepidation and trembling fingers, I ran the ol’ DW on “light wash”.  Trying to keep any expectations at bay, I slowly opened the dishwasher, holding my breath…  What can you say about a dishwasher detergent other than:  the dishes were clean. No food left behind.  No grease.  No streaks.  ‘nuf said.  I’m sold!

The detergent comes in little plastic packets, and you put the whole thing in your dishwasher cup without puncturing it.  Come to think of it, I don’t know where the plastic goes (but right now I don’t care!).  That’s probably wise for people like me who would always push the envelope and use less and less powder, right?  This way the dishes are always clean, and I’m a happy girl.  We’ve been using it for two weeks now without a complaint.  The scent I tested is lemon verbena, which is very pleasant.

Mrs. Meyer’s Dishsoap

Mrs. Meyer’s sent lavender dishsoap, which is actually aromatherapeutic (read:  strong!).  It smells great in my opinion, but if you’re sensitive to fragrances, I’d go with their “fragrance-free” version.  I’m also duly impressed with the dishsoap.

The suds stayed through washing a whole night’s worth of dishes, even a nasty, oily mayo container.  I even had enough suds after washing dinner dishes to put baby’s glass in, and her bib. That’s saying something, because usually the rule is to do drinking glasses first because you expect the water to get worthless at the end.  Mrs. Meyer’s dishsoap has powered through some serious piles of dishes at our house (the only deficit to lots of home-cooking-from-scratch = more dishes!).  Would you like her to come to your house, too?  Read on!

Mrs. Meyer’s Room Spray

I laughed when I saw that Mrs. Meyer’s threw some room spray in my box.  I’m really not a spray-the-room kind of person. I grew up with a mom who was really sensitive to fragrances, and the habit rubbed off on me.  I didn’t think I’d do much with it, maybe give it as a gift, until that very night a skunk visited our neighborhood. With our windows open for summer breezes, the whole house smelled awful before we could react to close the house down.

I decided to spray some Mrs. Meyer’s lemon verbena in our bedroom, then I closed my husband in there and took off to finish off some blogging.  I did notice that I could smell lemon in other rooms, so “point” to MM for being pervasive (what people want in fragrances, right?  I don’t do this kind of thing!).  When I walked in the bedroom after the door was closed for an hour it smelled like…skunk plus lemon verbena…which is more pleasant than you’d think!  Well done on the staying power and the covering power - they never promised to eliminate odors, so the product does exactly what it should.

The Giveaway!

Mrs. Meyer’s will bless TWO happy readers with a gift package! Please visit Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Home and leave a comment below with your fav fragrance for your first entry:  You could win a bottle of dishsoap and their new book, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Home. The book makes all of the “real” Thelma Meyer’s tips and tricks available to any and everyone.  Hmmm…do you think I can win my own giveaway?  Just kidding.  You can all tell me how it is when you win it.

I see they’re having a sale until Sunday, too, so shop around!  (Disclaimer:  I am not a Mrs. Meyer’s affiliate and receive nothing for that little shout out.)

Mrs. Meyer’s is a new love of mine – See what other people love at Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries.

If you’d like more chances, you can get up to 11 entries by doing the following and leaving a separate comment for each task completed (if you receive KS via email, you will need to click over to the site to leave a comment):

1. Subscribe in a reader or via email to Kitchen Stewardship (or tell me if you already do).
2. If you have a blog or website, post about this giveaway linking back to this post (TWO entries for this one – leave a comment with the link plus another comment).
3. Tweet about it.
4. Write about it on Facebook.
5. Stumble or Digg this post.
6. Email 5 friends (who don’t already read Kitchen Stewardship) about the giveaway.
7. Choose your favorite Monday Mission (click here for a list) and email the link to 5 friends (can be the same 5 as above).
8. Stumble or Digg your favorite post or recipe at Kitchen Stewardship.

Be sure to tell me everything you did in your comment.  There are a possible 10 entries!  If you can handle completing all 10, I’ll give you a bonus entry just for being perseverant (but tell me if you do in another comment so I’m not up counting all night).

I still trust the honor system.  Just be honest about what you’ve done – giveaways should be fun!  I will use random.org’s integer generator to choose the commenters who win (by comment number – this is why you leave one comment for each task completed).  The giveaway is only open to U.S. residents.  Entries will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, July 30th, and I’ll post the winners the following day.  GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED.  THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

A Sampling of Monday Missions:

• Memorize the Dirty Dozen
• Rethink Plastic Food Storage Containers
• Search Out Trans Fats
• Increase Omega-3 Fats
• Get Rid of Triclosan