Trader Joe's Dishwasher Detergent Gel

In order not to use a detergent in the wrong machine again, I double-checked and then triple-checked this bottle. Yep, it definitely says "dishwasher" there. And those are clearly pictures of dishes on the front, not clothes. Then, just to be sure, I had Nina verify my impression. Being thus reasonably assured that I was doing it right, I squirted some into my dishwasher.

And the dishes came out clean!

As I've said many times, I prefer cleaning products not to be scented. This one is lemon, but very mildly so--pretty inoffensive. It didn't fill my apartment with sickening fake lemon while the machine was running, nor leave the dishes reeking of it.


Will I buy it again? 

Undecided. Though it has handled several ordinary loads of dishes just fine, I have not yet tried it with pots and pans with tough, cooked-on food remnants. I also had a hard time calculating its per-load price against my usual product, Trader Joe's Monodose Packs; because the amount to be used varies with the instructions for your particular model of dishwasher, there's no easy way to tell how many uses you can get from one container. I'm also not thrilled with the idea of adding more plastic jugs to the waste stream. So I'm leaning against ongoing use for now. But if it does a great job on pots and pans, and I can figure out a good cost estimate, that turns out to be competitive with the packs, I might buy it again.