Finish Dishwasher Powder

[liberatordeluxe]

This post is mainly aimed at people in the UK.

Has anyone noticed that items are not clean from coming out the dishwasher? E.g. i took some plates out and they look just as dirty as they went in. Salt and rinse aid settings are fine. I stopped using the tablets as wasn't impressed so switched back to powder. I went back to separates as didn't see the need to have all in one's when i use salt (have to due to hard water area) and rinse aid.

I have a Bosch dishwasher which i bought June 2012 so not that old really in the scheme of things although am aware they are not built like they used to be.

Anyone have similar problems?

 

[foraloysius]

Not from the UK, but I'll take the liberty to contribute. I noticed there are some negative reviews on the Sainsbury's website. I was never impressed by their tablets, so no surprise that the powder doesn't perform very well. Powders have evolved less than tablets I think. Overhere in the Netherlands Unilever's Sun products are favourite, but haven't seen those on any of the British supermarket sites.

BTW, what programme and temperature are you using? No problems with the dishwasher?

 

[ozzie908]

Finish powder ?

Is that the one in the Yellow container?

I used to use it all the time when I had a set of dishdrawers but it was getting harder to find and in the end I went back to a normal DW and I have no bother with pods or tabs.

I was going to ask if there was anything not quite right with said DW ie is it heating etc also is this the model that alternates between top and bottom racks as I have come across the issue where grit has jammed the plate in the alternator and prevents it washing either the top or bottom rack.

Austin

 

[rolls_rapide]

Modern Finish dishwasher powder is bloody rubbish! Period.

I used it a couple of years ago, and it left the inside of my 2004 machine coated in a chalky deposit. When I checked on reviews, people said the same thing happened to them. Dunno what Reckitt-Benckiser's game is, they're ruining the Finish brand.

Cut your losses and switch to something else. I find that Lidl's tablets - either the standalone detergent (50 per box) - or the multi-function ones work well.

Mum has a 2013 Bosch, with separate salt, rinse aid and basic Lidl's tablets. Normal programme of 65°C, and everything washes very well indeed.

 

[foraloysius]

Despite using tablets, I use salt too, but put my dishwasher on a somewhat lower setting. I don't use rinse aid, I put distilled white vinegar in the rinse aid dispenser.

 

[rolls_rapide]

I was reading via Google translation, Stiftung Warentest's test.de article on rinse aids. Apparently they tried citric acid, and vinegar too, to see if they were as effective as proper rinse aids.

The upshot was the best performing rinse aids were the ones which had a decent level of surfactants (5-15%). Dosage apparently was about 3ml.

Less than 5% surfactant level proved to be ineffective. Vinegar and citric acid also proved to be ineffective. I suppose with the poor performing rinse aids, you might get better results by having the machine dispense a higher dosage of rinse aid.

 

[foraloysius]

I totally dislike how my dishes feel after using rinse aid, I will never use it again. The vinegar may not help for the drying, but I like it for deodorizing, especially from the detergent scents. I guess with some salt and a good tablet, the drying is already quite acceptable.

I use Sun Expert (Unilever), it performs quite well. Before this I used Somat, but the last package didn't perform as well as the previous tablets, they changed the formula I bet. The last ones were in gel cover, before that I had uncovered tablets.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Yes, I'm sure the article mentioned via the comments section too, that a properly set water softener in the machine, would basically combat most of the evils of water hardness deposits.

Some of the modern sophisticated machines though, mix machine-softened water with unsoftened/hard tap water for the final rinse.

Conversely, older/basic machines tended to soften water for all fills indiscriminately. I imagine this type of machine might have better performance with vinegar or citric acid.

 

[liberatordeluxe]

I've swapped to Fairy tablets and find them better. Wont buy Finish again.

 

[rolls_rapide]

I have come to the conclusion that manufacturers frequently, deliberately dumb-down their cheapest detergents, in order to make their top-of-the-line detergents look as good as possible.

 

[liberatordeluxe]

Yeah i agree. I think all the technology goes into Finish Quantum gel tablets currently. The Finish brand is not as good as it used to be so won't be buying any of the products.

 

[launderess]

Don't know about UK version

But here in USA Finish powder and gel is basically an old school chlorine based (no enzymes) dishwasher detergent. Does the job I suppose, but many prefer modern technology of enzyme, oxygen bleach laden automatic dishwasher detergent.

 

[dishwasherrules]

Finish powder - UK and EU formulation

The formulation for Finish powder and gel here in the EU and UK as well is no longer chlorine-based (here in Italy chlorine-based Finish powders disappeared from the shelves in the late 90s, while the gel switched to a non-chlorine formulation just 2 years ago). BTW the basic Finish powder is crap here as well, and it is easily outperformed by supermarket brands. The basic gel performs a bit better and smells great, but can't cope well with messy pots and has no effect whatsoever on tea stains (but this happens even with their more advanced gels). I've bought a pack of the DM (Drogerie Markt) dishwasher powder recently, and it does a nice job without using too much product - the recommended dose for a full load of normally-soiled dishes is 18 mL.