Last updated June 20 2026
I love Dawn Powerwash Spray. It saves a ton of time and energy and reduces the dread of dishes. It is the only cleaner I’ve found that can get grime off my granite countertops easily and clean my stainless-steel sink quickly without friction. It has extra cleaning boosters and surfactants not found in regular dish soap. It makes cleanup so easy and less fatiguing.
The only problem is that it’s somewhat pricey at $4-$5 per bottle. There are sites that publish a homemade recipe version of it, but I found it was only those to be 50-60% as good when using the cheap regular Dawn soap.
With some more experimentation, I found a recipe that’s nearly just as good as the name-brand stuff. I still keep a bottle of the real Dawn Heavy Duty version for bad messes and really stuck-on stuff like in the fridge shelf. But this homemade version is my daily driver.
Distilled water is recommended because water that is hard or high in minerals can clog the nozzle.
With a few minutes of passive sitting, this spray gets peanut butter off easily, which even my dishwasher doesn’t fully remove. About 5-10 minutes of this spray can easily clean a hard-stuck pizza cutter, with cheese and tomato sauce practically glued on. My stainless-steel sinks, after about a week, has a thin layer of grime that regular soap, water, and scrubbing has difficulty purging. This spray attacks it well, I love it.
It’s excellent for cleaning the shower, toilet, and glass.
One person said spraying directly on ants and roaches can kill them on contact, or slow down other bugs.