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A while back, I tried some laundry detergent from Dollar Tree. It was incredibly cheap — the cheapest detergent by ounce that I’ve ever seen — and came in 42-ounce bottles that are smaller than what you typically get with detergent. The laundry detergent worked fine and I was impressed by how affordable it was.
When I found some liquid dish detergent under the same brand, I bought some to try at home.
LA’s Totally Awesome Liquid Dish Detergent cost $1.25 for a 30-fluid-ounce bottle at Dollar Tree. That comes out to about 4 cents per ounce.
For comparison, a 40-ounce bottle of store brand Great Value liquid dish detergent from Walmart cost about 7 cents per ounce at the time of writing. That’s also the same price I pay per ounce for Aldi dish detergent. If you want a name brand, you’ll pay even more. A 38-ounce bottle of Dawn went for about 15 cents per ounce at Walmart at the time of writing. That makes the Dollar Tree detergent a good deal.
The Dollar Tree dish detergent comes in Lemon, Citrus, and Fresh Apple scents. I bought the Lemon and Fresh Apple versions. I did notice that the amount of detergent in the two bottles I bought is noticeably different when you set the bottles next to each other, but it’s not a huge amount. This is phosphate free and made in the U.S. It advertises an “advanced grease cutting formula.”
What is LA’s Totally Awesome?
The LA’s Totally Awesome brand is not a Dollar Tree exclusive. It’s actually a company based out of Buena Park, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. They make cleaning products, including everything from laundry products, bathroom cleaner, drain cleaner, carpet cleaner, and all-purpose cleaners, to liquid soap, automatic dishwashing gel, fabric refresher sprays, pet products such stain and urine odor remover. They also produce automotive products such as car wash and window glass cleaner.
LA’s Totally Awesome has manufacturing and distribution centers in West Memphis, Arkansas, and Orange County, California. Their products are sold in various discount retailers including Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Food 4 Less, Superior Grocers, and 99 Cent Only Stores. So you might find this brand in other dollar stores besides Dollar Tree.
LA’s Totally Awesome’s website states:
Our goal at Awesome Products is to provide amazing quality for a price that no other company can compete with. We are proud that all of our products are manufactured and made in the USA, providing hundreds of jobs in all of our facilities.
This dishwashing detergent contains fragrance allergens, and the bottles state that for more ingredient information, you can visit the website for LA’s Totally Awesome or call 1-800-482-2875.
Ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
As you might expect, this is not intended to be used in dishwashers, and it should not be mixed with chlorine bleach.
In case of eye contact, rinse thoroughly with water. If swallowed, drink a glass of water to dilute. Keep out of reach of children.
Using the Dishwashing Liquid:
So how well does this liquid dish detergent work? As far as getting dishes clean and cutting through grease, this works okay. It’s adequate, but I don’t know that it cuts grease quite as well as name brands or as well as Aldi detergent (what I usually use). When I use it to clean up skillets and pans after cooking bacon and eggs, it works fine. It does seem to be a little thinner in consistency than other brands. It also doesn’t get as sudsy and bubbly as other brands. For those reasons, I feel like I have to use a little more to get things clean.
My biggest challenge in using this detergent is that the bottles at 30 ounces are a bit larger than what I’m used to, so they can be a little unwieldy to manage with one hand when they’re mostly full.
In terms of scent, these smell fresh and clean, and they throw out a fair amount of scent. However, they don’t exactly smell like lemon or apple. The lemon detergent smells more like lemon, but the apple detergent doesn’t really smell like apple; it just smells clean. They don’t smell bad, though, so I’m fine with using these.
The Verdict:
LA’s Totally Awesome Ultra Deluxe Liquid Dish Detergent is made in the USA and comes in three scents: citrus, lemon, and fresh apple. They’re the cheapest liquid dish detergents I’ve found anywhere. They have a thinner consistency than other detergents, and they don’t make suds and lather as well as other detergents. They do an okay job of getting things clean, though.
I’ve used the LA’s Totally Awesome dishwashing liquid and found it to be OK. My husband likes to water down dish soap with water to make it “stretch,” though (not my preference!), so I suspect he prefers it when I can get a good deal on name-brand dishwashing liquids, like the 3-bottle packs of Palmolive and Ajax at Family Dollar for $5.
This brand of dish detergent is so watery already that I don’t think the trick of adding extra water would work well. That definitely makes more sense if you’re going with a name-brand detergent.
I can’t stand the smell of Oxy-Ultra’s original scent. Leaves a smell on the dishes. Only reason I bought it they were out of Dawn where I usually shop. Won’t ever buy again.
Use Dawn.Maybe more expensive but you use less.The Totally Awesome brand does not work you use way more.
You definitely use more of the LA’s Totally Awesome brand. I’ll probably stick with Aldi dish washing liquid, which has a good balance between quality and cost.
Way too thin (as of November 2023) when I tried this stuff. Have to use a lot more compared to a brand like Dawn. A bottle of Dawn platinum that I bought for less than $5 lasted me almost three months (there’s only two of us in this household). I’ve been on the LA’s Totally Awesome for two weeks and almost a third of the bottle is gone. Takes a lot more scrubbing to get dishes clean with this stuff too. I still sometimes find a thin film of grease of dishes after they’ve dried. I wouldn’t recommend this junk to anyone. Once the bottle is gone, I won’t buy it again.