Customer Reviews

Cascade Complete All in 1 Pacs, Phosphate Free, 48-Count Container

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I'm not one who likes to do dishes as soon as they hit the sink. After I have cooked a meal for the family, the last thing I want to do is wash all of the dishes. So my dishes will often sit and the food will attach itself to them. I am not into prewashing either. Of course I don't put dishes with food still on them into the dishwasher, but I'm also not like my mother, who fully washes all of her dishes by hand before placing them in the washer to be cleaned again.

So when I do put my dishes in the dishwasher, I need the best detergent out there. And Cascade Complete All in 1 is it.

If I buy anything else, I end up with spoons that have peanut butter still on them, bowls with rice hardened to them or cups with lipstick still on the rim. Then I have to run the dishwasher again. Which makes buying a cheaper brand of detergent a wast of time, because I end up using twice as much product, twice as much hot water for the dishwasher and it takes twice as much time.

I am able to find the Cascade Action Packs in stores, but unable to find these Cascade Complete All in 1 packs (with the swirl design) anywhere other then Amazon. I absolutely love them and enjoy how well they work. I very rarely ever have a dish that doesn't come out clean on the first go through. Even pots and pans come out spotless.

Cascade Complete All in 1 is the best stuff out there!

I hardly ever write reviews but I thought I should for this wonderful product. I was ready to throw out my 5 year old dishwasher due to the horrible film that was being left on my glasses and plastic over the last 6 months. I had been using the regular Cascade powder in a box and recently read that the formula was changed just 6 months ago, about the time my dishes started getting so filmy. I even had my dishwasher serviced (was told nothing is wrong). I also tried adding vinegar to the rinse cycle. Nothing worked. We started looking for new dishwashers...

Finally, after doing much research on line, I bought Dishwasher Magic to clean my dishwasher deposits (highly recommend that product too) and then started using this Cascade product instead of the powder in a box. Voila, my dishes are as good as new and the film is gone. I am sooo happy! My dishwasher is working perfectly again and Amazon ships the Cascade boxes to me via Prime for free each month. I am so excited to avoid spending $1500 on a new dishwasher!

I initially thought this was a marketing ploy, but you can actually tell the difference between Cascade Complete and even normal Cascade. You don't have to pre-wash and the dishes are cleaner, even if they had dried-on food. It's worth the extra money.

**Update to my review**

Someone in the comments to my review suggested vinegar to help with cloudiness, so I ran an empty dishwasher load with 2 cups vinegar in it, then filled the rinse aid dispenser with vinegar. This seems to prevent cloudiness from occurring on new glasses, but hasn't yet removed the cloudiness that DID happen on my older glasses. I've found that my water is indeed very hard with lots of minerals. Taking the vinegar tip one step further, I took the nastiest, most clouded clear glass short tumbler we had and put it in a 4 cup measuring plastic cup, then filled it with distilled white vinegar. This way, the tumbler was surrounded inside and out with vinegar. I let it sit for an hour, then pulled the tumbler out and gave it a quick scrub with a scrubbie sponge, then rinsed it. The tumbler looks like new, no trace of white cloudiness. YEAH! I keep a big bottle of vinegar just for cleaning, so I pour the vinegar back into the bottle so I'm not wasting a lot just to clean a tumbler or two.

**Original review**

Hate to be the naysayer here, but I don't think I'll be repurchasing the Cascade Complete All in 1 pacs unless they redo the phosphate free formula. I've used 30 of the 48 pacs in my container, so I really did give it a chance. It does clean the dishes well, but leaves a film on the dishes, most noticeable on the clear dishes. I have both regular glasses and clear polycarbonate tumblers that quickly developed a cloudy film when I started using these Cascade pacs (previously, I'd been using Kirkland's dishwasher gel, the kind that had loads of phosphates, but we ran out of our supply). The cloudy film cannot be scrubbed off. We're on city water, it isn't very hard water, nor is it very soft water. Middle of the road water. And this film isn't etching, I'm sure of it, it's just a... cloudiness.

My main problem with the cloudy film is yeah, I could live with it, but I'd hate to offer a guest or visiting family one of these cloudy glasses and have them think the glass is dirty. The glasses are clean, but they just look awful. I've tried adding JetDry even though the pacs supposedly already contain a rinse aid, but this didn't help. Consumer Reports rates these pacs as one of the best of the phosphate free dishwasher detergents, so maybe the cloudiness is just something I'll have to learn to live with.

I bought a big tub of this because it was on sale at the warehouse store. I usually get the Finish tablets.

I noticed right away that my dishes do not come out as clean and they are often covered with grit when they come out. I have to hand wash my glasses and bowls after they are done in the dishwasher.

They are also pretty expensive.

The only good thing is that the exterior packaging of each tablet dissolves. so you do not have to peel it like with the Finish tablets.

I paid $75 to have a repairman come and check my dishwasher after it started depositing grit all over my glasses. He explained that my dishwasher was operating properly. A new law went into effect (summer of 2010) removing the phosphates from consumer dishwashing detergents. Most of the major brands have been reformulated to be phosphate free so that they can sell them in all 50 states. Cascade is an example of this. These gel tabs are now phosphate free. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't do enough testing of the new formula. If you have hard water (which is most people), this product will leave grit all over your glasses. While I haven't yet found anything that's perfect, the liquid detergents leave far less grit than this one does. I am running my first load with Finish Quantum right now and hoping that I will get even better results. In any case, stay away from Cascade Complete if you care about having grit-free glasses.

We moved to a house with well water, heavy on the lime, and I had been unable to get clean looking dishes from the dishwasher even after trying different powder detergents and adding a cup of vinegar to every load (although that did totally remove the thick mineral build up on the heated-dry element). I was completely washing every dish before loading it and still it seemed they would come out spottier than they went in. I was contemplating simply using the dishwasher as a dish rack and handwashing everything. Using these packets I've been freed from 0.5-1 hour of dishwashing a day. I've loaded dishes with all sorts of food residue on them and every last thing has come out clean, even bbq sauce on the outside of bowls. Our glasses are spot free too. We have a 2009 Whirlpool Gold.

Cascade Complete all in 1 is one of the best out of the new formulas. Finish power ball is also a very good one out of the new phosphate free. I have tried both on egg dried of course and the both did a very good job.

These are fantastic. They don't leave a trace, they clean the dishes perfectly, and they are compact and easy to store. I love that there is nothing to unwrap or dispose of aside from the plastic container that houses them, since they fully dissolve in the dishwasher. The 48-pack is a great size and lasts a long time. I will never again mess around with liquids and powders when this great option exists.

Since phosphates were removed from dish soap formulas, I've seen a buildup of chalky residue on my dishes. I've been cleaning the residue off with a vinegar and water solution, but that's no fun. I was hoping these pellets would help, and they do, but at a price. Not only are they more expensive than a box of generic soap (or even a box of Cascade), but I've also found significantly more food stuck to my dishes than when I was using straight powdered soap. I'll use the rest of the box of these things, but I won't buy more.