I first saw Seventh Generation products at Trader Joe’s years ago — and I remember being a little scared off by their name — I thought “Seventh Generation” sounded like some weird biblical cult name, and I thought “Nah, I don’t think I’m going to buy that.” But then I bought a lovely new dishwasher a year ago that only takes powder detergent, so I had to give up my fantastic Method dishwasher cubes (which I highly recommend by the way) because they wouldn’t fit in the detergent-pocket, and find a CCIC-approved powder dishwasher detergent. I looked through the list for a bit, and eventually found Seventh Generation Natural Automatic Dishwashing Detergent.

I looked up the Seventh Generations webpage, and it turns out that Seventh Generation is not some weird biblical cult — they’re more a holistic, hippie-ish non-cult that is concerned with the environment. The name comes from the Iroquois saying that

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

Basically, they’re committed to producing very environmentally safe and nontoxic cleaning and paper products. They distribute environmentally safe and cruelty-free cleaning products to thousands of natural product and grocery stores nation wide, and have won 15 environment-preservation awards. All their products are cruelty free, biodegradable, and nontoxic. They have a very interesting blog about green consumerism and designing environmentally friendly cleaning products.

According to the Seventh Generation website, the Automatic Dishwashing Detergent is biodegradable, nontoxic, safe in septic and greywater systems, and contains no chlorines, phosphates, artificial fragrances, NTA, or EDTA. I’m not entirely sure what those last two are, but apparently phosphates cause algae blooms in lakes and ponds that can lead to the death of water plants and animals, and chlorine leads to the creation of dangerous toxins that accumulate in people and animals.

I think nontoxicity and environmentally-friendly ingredients are all great, but how well does Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwashing Detergent work? Well, so far,the best thing about it for me is that it makes dishes clean and sparkly. It’s not a soap — it’s a detergent — so it does not leave a dull residue (I should probably emphasize here that my new dishwasher cleans very well — I haven’t tried Seventh Generation in a mediocre dishwasher, like my previous one — it may not work as well in that situation. Nothing cleaned very well in my old dishwasher).

So, overall, Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwashing Detergent is a great detergent. It cleans well, it’s inexpensive ($8.99 for 45oz at Amazon.com — though if you buy a pack of 8 in bulk it’s 8 for $49.77 which is really inexpensive plus is eligible for free shipping). It’s also available at Trader Joe’s and most natural grocery stores (or it used to be — I’ve only bought it online so far), and it’s environmentally-friendly. It’s a 5/5 star detergent.

Ingredients:
Water Softeners, Cleaning And Water Spot Prevention Agents, China And Dishwasher Protection Agent, Processing And Flow Aids, Multiple Soil/Stain Removers