Can You Put Dish Soap In A Dish Washer?

Everybody eventually ends up asking this question. Whether you’re new to the dishwasher, new to dishwashing in general, have run out of dishwashing soap, or are looking for a more economically friendly option, there are a hundred reasons why, but you will eventually find yourself stumbling onto this line of thinking.

It can’t be helped; humans are naturally curious. If you’re anything like most people, then it is inevitable that you will only realize your mistake through trial and error.

Of course, if you’re smart enough, you will do the research before being left with a messy kitchen. This is the digital age, and everyone knows that YouTube has tons of DIY videos that can help you with every question. All of this could save you the hassle of doing it all on your own but not to worry, I’ve gone through everything and put it all together for you.

There are usually two different viewpoints on this question, and some people argue that you can use dish soap in a dishwasher. In fact, during my research, my team came across more than one site stating that you can use dish soap in a dishwasher; you just need to spruce it up with a few extra home ingredients, and voila!

Many others vehemently argue that under no certain circumstances should you ever put dish soap into a dishwasher. Ever. And that includes homemade cleaning products.

Of course, some things can only be proven by testing them out, and no doubt, there are a few who can admit to having tried this out.

Table of Contents

Why It Seems Like It Should Work

The assumption is a reasonable one. Both products are made to clean dirty dishes, so surely the difference is packaging and concentration, and a bit less of the stronger one should do the job. That is exactly why this keeps happening: nothing on the bottle warns you, and the machine will not refuse the load or flash an error. It simply runs the cycle as though everything were normal.

The difference is not concentration. It is foam. Hand dish soap is formulated to produce a thick, stable lather, because that is what people want when washing up in a sink. Dishwasher detergent is formulated to do the opposite — it is deliberately low-foaming, and often contains a defoaming agent specifically to stop suds forming.

What Actually Happens

A dishwasher cleans by firing water at pressure through rotating spray arms. Foam ruins that in two ways at once. It absorbs the force of the jets, so the water stops arriving at the dishes with enough energy to shift anything, and it expands to fill space the machine does not have.

The suds keep building through the cycle until they find the only way out, which is past the door seal. The familiar result is soap foam spreading across the kitchen floor while the machine carries on running, because nothing in the cycle detects the problem. Left long enough, that water reaches the floor and can get into the machine’s electronics or the cabinetry around it, which is where a mess turns into a repair.

This is well established and does not need testing to confirm: the mechanism is in how the two products are formulated, and every manufacturer says the same thing in the manual.

The Gist of Dish Soap

Most would assume that the main difference between dishwashing detergent and dish soap is the soap suds. However, it turns out the difference between dishwashing detergent and dish soap – besides the amount of suds – is the chemicals that make them up.

And while there are many different brands of dish soap, most people have a particular bottle of dish soap that they have relied on for years because they know from their own experience that it works.

To think about it, besides the fact that handwashing the dishes is more economically friendly, most of the time when handwashing dishes, people probably aren’t using the recommended cleaning gloves to cover their hands. This inevitably means you don’t want some highly concentrated dish soap wreaking havoc on your skin. With this in mind, most dish soaps are made with ingredients that are gentle on the skin for this very reason.

Looking back on it now, the differences are like night and day.

Dishwashing Detergent in Comparison

First, any dishwasher will have an appliance guide that recommends using dishwashing detergent. Although, reading that is another matter entirely.

So, to start, the first difference is that dishwashing detergent is made with enzymes and bleach. It’s used by an appliance known for powerful cleaning, so it makes sense that the chemicals will be stronger.

Dishwashing detergent is made without the necessary chemicals that cause soap suds because these will harm the dishwasher. Just imagine soap clogging up your kitchen pipes and soap scum on the edges. It’s not a pretty image, and in the long run, it can be costly to keep fixing.

Some dishwashers require additional salt to be added to aid in the removal of soap scum during normal wash cycles.

Further, dishwashing detergent is created to clean your dishes without being mindful of the user; after all, in this case, the user is an electrically-powered machine with semi-intense sprays of water to wash away all the chemicals right afterward, leaving your dishes properly sanitized and ready to be used again.

Conclusion

No, you shouldn’t ever use dish soap in your dishwasher. Never mind how long the clean-up process is after making this mistake! Yes, there are a ton of sites offering you ways around using dish soap in your dishwasher. Just remember, if something was specifically made to be used for that one reason, then it is more than likely that it has a purpose beyond what you may think, and that might save you the damage to kitchen floors or the appliance.