# What happens if I put Tide in my dishwasher
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 26, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713 "2004-11-26T05:12:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/1 "2004-11-26T05:12:36Z")
So I’m running low on Cascade, and the delirious, experimental part of my brain is going \*it’s just detergent. You wash your laundry with detergent. Detergent’s detergent. \*
And the sensible part of my brain is going _he’s got some good ideas. You’d save money. And really, what’s the difference between dishwasher detergent, and laundry detergent anyway, except that they come in different sized boxes?_
So, what’s is the difference between detergent? Is the smaller, more expensive box just a scam by certain companies to fleece customers? If I put Tide in my dishwasher, will I really, really regret it? What the heck _is_ detergent anyway, and how does it differ from soap?
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### Author:  [@Fuji\_Kitakyusho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji_Kitakyusho)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/2 "2004-11-26T05:25:59Z")
If you do this you will end up with a kitchen full of soap suds.
(or maybe that was liquid dishwashing soap?)
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/3 "2004-11-26T05:57:55Z")
That’s liquid soap, at least, but I don’t know if it will happen with laundry soap as well. (But I can personally attest to the liquid dishwashing soap thing - my college roomate got our kitchen closed with that one.)
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/4 "2004-11-26T06:19:33Z")
It’s mainly the the low suds formulation, also DW detergent usually has some stiff in it to reduce glass streaking. DW detwergent also has much lower concentrations of phosphates, polyacrylates, and phosphonates than laundry detergent does.
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### Author:  [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/5 "2004-11-26T07:31:58Z")
> [@Barbarian](#):
>
> What the heck _is_ detergent anyway, and how does it differ from soap?
I was always told that soap uses animal fats, while detergent uses a petroleum derivative.
Of course, I was told this in school, so take it as it comes.
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/6 "2004-11-26T07:42:14Z")
> [@Barbarian](#):
>
> So I’m running low on Cascade, and the delirious, experimental part of my brain is going \*it’s just detergent. You wash your laundry with detergent. Detergent’s detergent. \*
>
> And the sensible part of my brain is going _he’s got some good ideas. You’d save money. And really, what’s the difference between dishwasher detergent, and laundry detergent anyway, except that they come in different sized boxes?_
>
> So, what’s is the difference between detergent? Is the smaller, more expensive box just a scam by certain companies to fleece customers? If I put Tide in my dishwasher, will I really, really regret it? What the heck _is_ detergent anyway, and how does it differ from soap?
Foam galore
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### Author:  [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/7 "2004-11-26T07:42:33Z")
[Here’s a site](http://www.thediaperhyena.com/clothdiaperarticle_soapordetergent.htm)that appears to go into quite some detail. Also, from [this page](http://www.kcpc.usyd.edu.au/discovery/9.5.5-short/9.5.5_soapdetergent.html):
> [@](#):
>
> What is a Soap? What is a Detergent?
> There is a certain amount of debate as to whether soaps are synthetic or natural products. Many people claim that soaps are a natural product as they are made from naturally occurring fats and oils such as palm oil and olive oil. Soaps such as sodium oleate are only a couple of steps away from the original natural products. As chemists however, we consider that the step of producing the soap molecule from these oils is still a synthesis step; soaps are thus synthetic products as well.
>
> All of the soaps (sodium oleate etc) are fatty acid salts (later on, we will recognise them to be a type of anionic surfactant). They are characterised by:
>
> a long hydrocarbon chain, which may be monounsaturated (i.e. has one double bond, like sodium oleate), polyunsaturated (i.e. more than one double bond) or saturated (i.e. no double bonds) a carboxylate group at the end.
>
> Any surfactant that is not a soap is a detergent.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/8 "2004-11-26T16:51:46Z")
Within just the range of dishwasher detergents, there is a _wide_ range of quality. Check a Consumer Reports review of them. There are a lot of special little additives that make a world of difference. Rinsing well without etching glass is a big one. Some brands recently changed forumlations and have resulted in increased dulling of silverware. So they’re trying to fix that.
And that’s just for stuff designed for dishwashers. Go outside that group and you are most definitely will have big problems.
In short: forget it.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/9 "2004-11-26T17:26:29Z")
Sodium hexametaphosphate, the main ingrediant in Calgon bath products, is an excellent automatic dishwasher detergent.
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### Author:  [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/10 "2004-11-26T17:28:41Z")
I pit regular dish soap in the dishwasher all the time. The one time I instructed my brother to do this, he filled the kitchen floor with bubbles.
You can use dishsoap, just don’t use too much.
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/11 "2004-11-26T18:46:47Z")
> [@Ca3799](#):
>
> I pit regular dish soap in the dishwasher all the time. The one time I instructed my brother to do this, he filled the kitchen floor with bubbles.
>
> You can use dishsoap, just don’t use too much.
This is GQ. If you want to pit regular dish soap, this is the wrong forum. 😉
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### Author:  [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2004, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/12 "2004-11-27T13:11:51Z")
When someone starts talking about anionic surfactants, I tend to glaze over. I like chemistry, but not _that_ much.
And I know that dishwashing soap would be a very bad idea, but the consensus seems to be that putting Tide in the dishwasher would get my dishes clean-- even it may scratch my glasses. But since my glasses get banged around and scratched anyway just from being put in the machine, that’s not a horrible price to pay.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/13 "2004-11-27T13:54:55Z")
There are certainly chemicals in laundry detergent that don’t make much sense in a dishwasher – I’m thinking the “whiteners” in particular. After washing, you’d probably have trace amounts on your dishes, and while they’re almost certainly not toxic, why ingest more chemicals than you really need?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/14 "2004-11-27T15:35:59Z")
Try washing dishes WITHOUT any soap or detergent. The hot water, spritzing action, general internal turbulence and multiple fill/empty cycles seems to do most of the work, even for greasy dishes. I can’t tell the difference after a soap-less rinse or a soap-full wash.
Still, I usually use something. I guess the detergent companies have me brainwashed. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-i-put-tide-in-my-dishwasher/276713/15 "2004-11-27T17:26:34Z")
I haven’t used it with a dishwasher, but when I was staying with my aunt and uncle once I washed dishes by hand using laundry detergent. (They ran out of dish soap, and my aunt said just to use the laundry stuff, because that’s what they did). From what I recall, the laundry soap didn’t seem to get the dishes clean and left sort of a soap film on them.