I know you’ve had this happen: I ran out of dish liquid. Is there another household soap that will do? How about running out of other soaps? Which can be used instead of each other with what effect?
Liquid laundry detergent works well and rinses nicely. It takes a couple tablespoons per sinkful of dishes. If desired, bleach can be added to it for stubborn tea and coffee stains.
Even dry laundry detergent works, just dissolve it in hot water first. Any kind of soap works. Even bar soap.
It’s all pretty interchangeable. Most of the differences are just marketing.
Dish soap may “work” (i.e. clean things) but will froth up, escape the dishwasher and chase you across the kitchen!
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Shampoo has a similar consistency and foaminess.
I think the OP was speaking about hand washing and not dish washing machines.
If you have “soft” water, you can use ordinary soap for this purpose. For that matter you can use ordinary soap with “hard” water, except you’ll waste a lot of soap on neutralizing the water and it won’t rinse off as nicely (soap scum buildup). For one use, you can just live with soap scum.
If you have some cheap shampoo, that would be easier and maybe better.
I use dish soap for pretty much everything. Shampoo, body wash, refilling hand soap pumps, about the only soaps I buy are dish soap, laundry soap, and strong ammonia. And in a pinch I could use the dish soap to do laundry.
We used soap in a soap saver when I was little, because my dad was quite an environmentalist, and thought dishwashing detergent did horrible things to the environment (I have no idea whether dishwashing liquid is ACTUALLY worse than plain soap, but that was the reason. In recent years I notice they have in fact joined the modern world)
It kinda sucked. You had to stand at the sink shaking the thing back and forth for ages under the hot tap to produce minimal suds. But it did get things clean. I guess.
Buy new real dishwashing liquid as soon as you can
I used to work for a major haircare company, and this is the answer. Shampoo and dish soap use very similar surfactants.
If you’re cheap, you can do the reverse, and use cheap dishwashing soap for shampoo (I’ve known several people who’ve taken pride in doing this). It’s comparatively harsh, with a high detergent level compared to most shampoos, but it works.
Interesting to know, Kenobi, thanks.
Bronner’s will also work in a pinch though it’s not as good as the label would have you believe. I prefer it (diluted 50/50 with water) as a body wash.
Don’t ever use dish soap in the dishwasher. Learned the hard way.
Yeah but I bet everyone else was thoroughly amused. 
I have extremely oily hair, and in a time of poverty used dish soap for shampoo.
I have never used anything else since.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it was far less common for Americans to wash their hair on a daily basis than it is today. As far as I can tell, my grandmother rarely, if ever, washed her own hair; she went to the beauty salon once a week for a “wash and set,” and my understanding is that that wasn’t uncommon.
Combine that fact with many women using heavy-duty levels of hairspray at that time, and shampoos back then often had substantially higher levels of detergent than today’s shampoos. At that time, Prell was one of the top-selling shampoos in the U.S., and it had a particularly high detergent level – as one of the chemists at my first job described it, “it’s a stripper!”
As American started to wash their hair more often, shampoo manufacturers followed the trend, and detergent levels were gradually lowered. Given that, if you’re someone who wants or needs a high-detergent shampoo, it’s darned hard to find now.
Being a compulsive label reader, this is true. Dish soap tends toward higher concentrations of sodium lauryl sulfate than shampoo does, but in the main, they’re composed of pretty much the same stuff, with shampoo having a blend of detergents/surfactants that’s easier on the hair and skin.
You can, you just need to use a few drops.The mistake most people make is to fill the little cup(s) with liquid soap. Literally about three or four drops will clean the dishes just fine without also cleaning the kitchen floor. That’s what’s in those expensive gel pacs.
If you have hard water, a 1/4cup of salt and/or washing soda will help. And you can use white vinegar instead of “Jet Dry” to prevent white spots.
You can use liquid dish soap in a dishwasher – you just don’t need very much. A teaspoon would be plenty. (EDIT: I see what **TrueCelt **wrote … just a few drops seems a little light, but it wouldn’t suprise me if that amount worked fine).
I also use liquid dish soap in our clothes washing machine from time to time with no issues. Again, a small amount will do (maybe 1/4 cup).
When I was a young 'un, Saturday night was bath night in the household. By the time I was six (1962), I had six siblings. Rather than fill and empty the bathtub six times, Mom filled it once with hot water and a scoop of laundry detergent, and had us take turns.
So, yeah, dry laundry detergent is pretty versatile.
I use Prell. (I use other shampoos from time to time, but mostly Prell.) It’s not hard to find at all. It even smells the same.