Happy Monday everyone!
Hope you had a great weekend! Today's Melaleuca Monday post is about dishwashing detergent!
First, if you are new to the blog and haven't heard of Melaleuca, you can click here to read more about it. Each "Melaleuca Monday" post is meant to EDUCATE not to scare, even though the facts about ingredients found in name brand products can be down right scary sometimes!
The second most troubling fact I learned regarding name brand products, before becoming a Melaleuca customer, was about Cascade dishwashing detergent! (the first being that Johnson & Johnson baby products contain formaldehyde!)
Cascade is BANNED in Europe because of the toxic ingredients it contains.
*Sidenote- For a complete list of over 1,000 ingredients that are banned in Europe because they are proven toxic and bad for your health, click here. The FDA has only banned 9 ingredients in the US.
Back in 2010, many states enacted a ban on detergents that contained phosphates, this included laundry and dishwasher detergents. So, as of 2010 Cascade with phosphates has been banned in 16 states and climbing. You can read more about that here. But in 2011 as the new phosphate free replacement formulas were hitting the shelves in these states, people started to notice that their dishes were not coming out of the dishwasher as clean. So basically Cascade did not improve their formula for consumers but removed the phosphates because they were forced to.
Cascade received an F rating by the Environmental Working Group because it contains ingredients that are known to cause asthma/respiratory problems, skin allergies & irritation, developmental & reproductive toxicity, cancer, and environmental concerns. You can read the full report here.
Melaleuca makes their own brand of dishwashing detergent called Diamond Brite. It is phosphate free and works GREAT!!! Even before when I was using Cascade because I didn't know any better, my dishes had white residue on them and cloudy lines leftover from the liquid. Also, our wine glasses smelled very strongly of bleach because it was obviously still clinging to the glass after washing. Sidenote* Any kind of chemical smell left over on your dishes will be ingested into your body if you eat or drink from them, especially if and when the dish is re-heated by either warm food or the microwave. Ever since switching to Diamond Brite, I have not seen 1 streak or smelled a harsh bleach or chemical smell on any of our dishes. This goes for the liquid and the pods.
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| This liquid gel dishwashing detergent is highly concentrated and only requires half the amount of detergent per load as Cascade. |
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I also use the pods in the washing machine for really gross loads like kitchen towels or sweaty gym clothes and socks.
I plan to do a separate post on this later. |
The last thing I want to do is wash my son's sippy cups with bleach, naphtha, alkaline, diethanolsamine, and phosphates for him to ingest continuously throughout the day, but I also don't want him drinking from a cup that is not 100% clean and is stained with old milk spores and food residue leftover from being improperly cleaned.
That's why I love Diamond Brite by
Melaleuca! It's safe and it works!
There are other safe alternatives out there, you just have to make sure they are effective. I never had to go through a trial and error period with detergent after switching from Cascade to
Melaleuca because of Diamond Brite's enzyme performance technology.
Well that's it for today! Have a good week!
Remember, when life hands you lemons, turn them into something lovely.
-Marci
Labels: cascade, diamond brite, dishwasher, dishwashing detergent, dishwashing liquid, dishwashing pods, Melaleuca, melaleuca monday, non-toxic, phosphate free
