# Dishwashing liquid



## squyars (Sep 25, 2013)

I recently made some dish washing liquid using a recipe I found online, but it never gave any suds.  Kept squirting more on my sponge because I wasn't sure if I was really cleaning my dishes.  The only good part about it is my dermatitis cleared up.  

I could really use a good sudsy recipe if anyone has one they would share.  Thanks.


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## Robert (Sep 26, 2013)

squyars said:


> I recently made some dish washing liquid using a recipe I found online, but it never gave any suds.  Kept squirting more on my sponge because I wasn't sure if I was really cleaning my dishes.  The only good part about it is my dermatitis cleared up.
> 
> I could really use a good sudsy recipe if anyone has one they would share.  Thanks.


Traditionally people have used suds as an indicator of whether they have enough soap in the water, but couldn't you learn to tell by other means?  Such as whether the water was slippery?  Or whether the last greasy item going in came out without grease?

What was the recipe you found?

We could give you very sudsy recipes, especially if you'll allow the soap to have certain additives.  For instance, there used to be, maybe still are, commercial mixtures of DEA soaps with fatty DEA amides that stabilize foams; the Monamines were such a brand, just needing a little pH lowering for use in hand washing of stuff.  Or you could just use a regular liquid soap recipe and add such a fatty diethanolamide.  But no way to be sure they won't bring your dermatitis back, and here you've already got something that apparently worked and didn't give you dermatitis.


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## savonierre (Sep 26, 2013)

I made some a few years ago and it didn't suds either but the dishes were clean, you can tell by the feel and look of them..


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## squyars (Sep 26, 2013)

Yeah,I think it is very psychological.  I will squirt my homemade soap on the sponge, but it disappears, so I'm not sure if there is any left, so I keep squirting.   

I suspect my family started putting a bit of commercial detergent in so they could see a few bubbles.  I really don't want to introduce anything unpronouncable into my soap, so perhaps they can have their commercial stuff, and I will use my own homemade soap.  

Thanks for the help.

Williamsburg, VA


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## lsg (Sep 26, 2013)

I too like a lot of suds with my dish detergent. I have found a recipe for a powdered hand wash dish detergent that has lots of suds and the ingredients are easy to get. Just pm me if you want the recipe.  I keep a small jar of it on the sink and sprinkle 1-2 tsp. in my dish water.  Works like a charm.


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## Robert (Sep 27, 2013)

I sometimes use my liquid formula on dishes.  It's plenty sudsy, not surprisingly when you consider I invented it as bath foam, and very mild.  However, it's soapless, so it's only liquid "soap" rather than liquid soap.

Most of the time, though (ssshhhhh...), I wash dishes with a big-brand bar soap.


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## Margaret_Yakoda (Jun 17, 2014)

lsg said:


> I too like a lot of suds with my dish detergent. I have found a recipe for a powdered hand wash dish detergent that has lots of suds and the ingredients are easy to get. Just pm me if you want the recipe. I keep a small jar of it on the sink and sprinkle 1-2 tsp. in my dish water. Works like a charm.


 
Well, apologies for resurecting an old thread...  but I'd like to try this recipe please?


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## lsg (Jun 17, 2014)

Here it is:

 1 cup sodium lauryl sulfoacetate powder
1/4 cup clay (you can use kaolin or whatever cheap clay you have)
3 cups baking soda
1 Tbsp lemon essential oil
Mix dry ingredients together, I use an old flour sifter and run the dry ingredients through it to get rid of the clumps. Be careful though because the SLSA powder is light and may bother anyone with asthma. I wear a nose and mouth mask or tie a clean men's handkerchief around my mouth and nose when using SLSA. It is a mild surfactant but it does have a potential to be a bronchial irritant when inhaled. After it is mixed with the other ingredients it is easy to work with. 
After the dry ingredients are well mixed, add the lemon essential oil and blend well. I put some in a small jelly jar next to the kitchen sink and use a tsp or so for each wash. The remainder I keep in a plastic cool whip container.


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## lady-of-4 (Jun 21, 2014)

You can very well make an all purpose Cleaning soap using coconut oil soap. I make my laundry and dish detergent with it, borax and washing soda, and it suds wonderfully. Every time I squeeze the bottle,  little bubbles pop up.


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## lsg (Jun 21, 2014)

That's great if it works for you, but real soap does not work well for dishes in our hard water. It leaves a film on my dishes.


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## lady-of-4 (Jun 21, 2014)

We have hard water.  Severely hard water. That's why borax and washing soda are used.  They act as chelating agents to bind metals,  thus allowing soap to perform better in hard water situations.


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## CaraBou (Jun 23, 2014)

Thank you for sharing that recipe, lsg.  I might have to try it. If you're only using 1-2 teaspoons for each sinkful, it seems a batch as described above would last a very long time.

What does the clay do in this recipe?


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## lsg (Jun 23, 2014)

I am not a chemist, but from my understanding clay's role in a cleaner is to bind to grease and oils, helping you rinse them away more easily.


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