Sunday, April 11, 2010

Lesson learned and a PSA.

Recently, a good friend of mine told me of the usefulness of baking soda. The cleaning aspect, the freshness aspect. I also discovered the money saving aspect of it as baking soda is merely 50 cents at Walmart!

In my grocery shopping excursions this weekend, I neglected to buy dishwasher soap. And, since I am a mother of three and we have five people in our family, dishes (and laundry!) are the bane of my existence. I hopped on the computer to see if anyone out in the 'net has used baking soda in their dishwasher. I mean, it cleans pans, it cleans and freshens the sink...it could do both in the dishwasher. Right??

Not wanting to overdo it, I half-filled the lidded compartment of the dishwasher with baking soda, turned it on "heavy load" and let the magic begin. Later, as I went to unload the clean dishes...I was horror-struck.

My dishes looked like this (click for closer view):



Baked on baking soda.

Let me tell you. This stuff does NOT come off. Not even after re-running the dishwasher twice. Ask me how I know.

In order to get this lovely baked on film off of my dishes, I had to SCRUB the heck out of each and every dish. Rinsing them off simply does not work. My arms ache, my back aches, I have cramps in my fingers, and my water bill is going to be sky high this month.

So, take it from this wanna-be Martha: Baking soda in the dishwasher? NOT a good thing.

5 comments:

Tracy said...

hahaha so sorry. But that does suck.
Now you have triple the work to do. Not fun.

Lorie said...

Oh no! About.com actually says you can use it, but you only use like a tablespoon and a half and you add some borax too.

http://housekeeping.about.com/od/environment/qt/bksd_dishwasher.htm

Marlene said...

Oh my. Is it bad that I'm trying really really hard not to laugh???? Sorry - but, I'm just glad it wasn't me!!!! :)

Jenn said...

hi, thanks for stopping by my blog and thanks for the baking soda tip! Sorry you had to learn the ahrd way.

Anonymous said...

Maybe try soaking the dishes in vinegar? Then maybe the reaction would have cleaned them.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...