Product Review

I'm not one for product reviews on the blog--unless it's something I really, really like. But this is a warning. The new Cascade Gel (with Dawn) is an idea whose time should never have come. It's been on the market for some months now and the chorus of complaints grows by the day. See some of them here.

J, who does our grocery shopping, brought a bottle home last week. When I attempted to squeeze it into the soap holder, nothing came out. I squeezed harder. A tiny drop. I called the bigger, stronger J into the kitchen. With much huffing and puffing, he squeezed enough out for me to do the dishes. We assumed that we'd gotten a bottle from a defective batch, and J returned it to our local Nugget for a replacement. The second bottle worked properly one time, but when I attempted a second wash, I had the same problem. And when I shook the bottle, I could hear crystals.

So I picked up a bottle at Target. It worked. Once. I don't know if it will work again, and I don't care. It's going back to Target for a refund. The stuff can leave a white film on your dishes. Of greater concern though is the white film it may leave on the workings of my dishwasher, a white film that might clog up my dishwasher, rendering it useless for its intended purpose. That would mean that I would have to do dishes by hand. No,no,no.

What shouldn't amaze me, but does, is that the makers of this defective product didn't test it before putting it on the market. Or if they did, there was no one brave enough to say "how are people going to get it out of the bottle?" or "it seems to be crystallized and is leaving a film all over the dishes," or "the dishwasher pipes seem to be clogged with little crystals."

Update: J sent an email to P&G, and received a response. It suggested that we give the bottle a warm bath to loosen up the liquid. I do not give my cleaning products warm baths or massages or talk kindly to them. I expect them to work without coddling.