DIY Dishwasher Detergent Tabs or Powder at HALF the Cost of Store-Bought!

A few weeks ago I linked to an article on making homemade dishwasher tablets and figured since we’re trying to be more frugal that I would give my own DIY dishwasher detergent tabs a shot myself.

My first attempt didn’t work out so well and I wound up making dishwasher powder which still seemed to work just fine but I still wanted to make tabs because, well, I wanted to!

How to Make DIY Dishwasher Detergent Tabs…

I wanted to start small and ensure this actually worked so I choose make 1/6 of the following recipe which, for me, equated to 12 dishwasher tabs:

• 2 cup borax (buy TWO boxes to make the math work out below)
• 2 cup super washing soda (buy TWO boxes to make the math below work out)
• 1 cup Epsom salts (for 2 lb box)
• 1.5 cup lemon juice (for two 48 oz. bottles) Note: I used 2-3 actual lemons to make .25 cup of juice so you would need 12-18 lemons for this batch if you were to do the same. I’d imagine, however, that you can use commercially-made lemon juice too.
• 5-6 cheap ice cub trays (depends on if they make 12 or 16 ice cubes)

If you wanted to make about a dozen tabs at a time then you’ll need:

• 1/3 cup borax
• 1/3 cup super washing soda
• 1/6 cup (or ~2.5 tablespoons) epsom salt
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 ice cube tray

Honestly, I’d buy this stuff at your local Walmart or grocery store as it’s likely less expensive there and the costs calculated below will come down even more. Anyway, assuming you purchase two boxes of borax and super washing soda as suggested, one bag of Epsom salts, and two 48 oz. bottles of lemon juice, the limiting factor is going to be the Super Washing Soda so you’ll wind up with a bit of the other ingredients leftover.

If you do buy a second box of Borax and Super Washing Soda you should be able to make almost seven batches–but not quite–or roughly 500 one-tablespoon dishwasher tabs, assuming I did my math correctly. At about $60 for the ingredients (I think they’re all free shipping with Amazon Prime) that’s right around 12 cents per tab! You could pay twice that (or more) for commercially-purchased tablets.

Of course, don’t try to make them all at once as as they don’t seem to last that long. Do one or two dozen at a time and store in a well-sealed container and you’ll be in good shape for a few weeks.

The process is relatively easy to do but here’s a few photos to help and my comments below:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together, then mix in the lemon juice. It WILL fizz a bit which is good… move fast!
2. Spoon the mixture into your ice cub trays. Now, this is important, be sure to smash the mixture into the trays REALLY good otherwise they will break apart when removing from the tray; I used a small 1×2 piece of wood shaved down a bit which fit relatively well. Let sit overnight to dry and harden.
3. If you just want to make a powder you don’t have to use an ice cub tray. You can just mix it together and place in a sealed container then use about one tablespoon or so in each dishwasher load. This, incidentally, is what happens when you don’t properly follow the other instructions, specifically the smashing part. I should also mention that the powder may not keep nearly as well as the tabs because I noticed that the liquid began to separate from the solid just a bit over the course of a week or two that I kept it and so I had to stir the powder a bit before use.
4. These are the “perfected” dishwasher tabs.  I should note that in addition to smashing them really good into the ice cub tray I ALSO choose to place the tray mixture in the freezer thinking that would help them harden and, so, I’m not yet sure if it was the smashing into the trays and/or freezing them afterward that worked but I had no problem getting them out of the tray this time and they look good too. 🙂 Maybe try half and half to see what worked. Thought I didn’t plan it, each tab is approximately one tablespoon.
5. Now go marvel at your work! And start to use them. Place in in a well-sealed container for longevity or at least keep the moisture away.

As a first attempt I’m fairly happy with my DIY dishwasher detergent tablets and, thus far, I think “the boss” is too. That said, after about a week I noticed they started to crumble around the edges and about a week after that they completely crumbled. Maybe I didn’t smash them down enough. I’m not quite sure. Either way the powder works fine too but I’d like to make the tabs stay tabs for as long as possible.

Now I just have to conquer laundry detergent and I’ll be making nearly all of our cleaning supplies.