Sick of spots, bits of food and other grime on your dishes? Don’t put all the blame on your dishwasher. It could be the detergent you’re using.
Consumer Reports testers cleaned hundreds of dirty dishes to reveal the top dishwashing detergents on the market.
“We soil glassware with an emulsification of 17 different ingredients,” said Joe Pacella with Consumer Reports.
The mixture of peanut butter, egg yolk and other sticky foods is smeared onto glass dishes, baked on, and then loaded into dishwashers to the find the grime-busting best.
“The best detergents will remove the soil completely, there will be no food deposits on the plates and there won’t be any water spots,” explained Pacella.
Among the recommended detergents are familiar names like Finish Powerball tabs as well as Cascade Complete Actionpacs with Dawn. Both are excellent for removing caked on food.
If you want clean dishes while saving money, the top performer was Costco's Kirkland Signature Dishwasher Pacs. They’re less than half the cost per pod as Finish or Cascade, proving a higher price doesn’t always make a difference.
And if you're still pre-rinsing your dishes, stop. Many of today’s dishwashers have soil sensors so they actually perform better if you leave the food on and let the machine and your detergent do their jobs.
