On a whim, I decided to mix hydrogen peroxide with my dish washing liquid.
Normally after I get through washing the dishes, I clean the sink with a little hydrogen peroxide. It scrubs the stainless steel sink clean, leaves a great shine and it also disinfects the sink, sponge and counter top area.
One day while washing the cutting board after cutting chicken, I wanted to disinfect it, so as usual I poured the hydrogen peroxide on it, let it fuzz, foam and disinfect, rinsed it off then washed it as usual. Then I had a thought, being a busy mom, why not kill two birds with one stone. I had ¾ of a bottle of dish washing liquid left in the bottle so I filled it up with hydrogen peroxide and shook it.
Quite a bubbly mixture until it settled down, but I noticed that I don’t have to use as much dish washing liquid because the hydrogen peroxide seems to help the soap do its job better. Using a smaller amount of soap on the sponge produced much more suds and the dishes are just as clean if not cleaner.
The mixture is a great way to disinfect and clean the dishes at the same time. Not only that, the sponge gets disinfected too. A quart of hydrogen peroxide costs about a dollar a bottle (it used to be 85 cents but with the way prices are rising, it’s more expensive now).
Mixing hydrogen peroxide to a generic brand liquid dish washing detergent, not only stretches the mileage on the detergent, it boosts its cleaning power. Why not give it a try? You’ve got nothing to lose and all to gain.
Note: Even though the sponge gets disinfected using the liquid detergent, I still disinfect the sponge the old way when cleaning up after handling raw meat.
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Felicia, I wonder if white vinegar would do the job just as well as would h.p. I think it would cost about the same, perhaps a tad bit less than the h.p. but, what do you think?
I’m seeing myself gravitate towards the vinegar a lot lately, even drench the sponge with it before boiling it alive in the hot water as you stated in your article.
I haven’t tried vinegar. What I have been doing lately, however, is diluting the dish detergent with plain old water. I find that dish washing detergent is very concentrated and works just as well if its been diluted a bit with water.
I guess I had better do a little more research.
In the meanwhile, it seems to be working just fine for washing my dishes, however, I will have to take a trip back in time to pull out my old chemistry books to brush up on HO’s properties.
Thanks for the info.
I remember from good ol’ chemistry class that HO (hydrogen peroxide) is a very unstable compound. If you expose it to light, it turns into water. That’s why it’s sold in dark bottles. I think also that if you shake it up, it turns into water. It doesn’t take much for HO to have a breakdown from what I remember.
I’m not trying to rain on your parade. I’m all for stretching products to make them last longer and for creating our own mixtures for cleaning purposes. (I’ve been making my own laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent for years.)
But I’m just wondering if the chemistry would back up your hypothesis that the HO makes the detergent work better and disinfects the dishes and your sponge.
A great tip to know. Also, a lid of peroxide mixed with water is a good mouth wash and teeth brightener.
I agree with you. Check out my post on Hydrogen Peroxide. It’s good for a host of things.