Our pick
Cascade Free & Clear ActionPacs
This convenient pod does the best job of annihilating tough messes, and it neutralizes odors with a mild lemon scent. But it doesn’t leave glassware as shiny as some other detergents.
Of all the detergents we tried, Cascade Free & Clear ActionPacs came the closest to cleaning every dish in our test loads. It wiped away baked-on egg and peanut butter—two stains that challenge dishwashers and detergents. It also cleaned glassware and stemware well, though it didn’t leave our pieces as shiny as some other detergents did.
Pod detergents like Cascade Free & Clear ActionPacs contain a dose of detergent that releases slowly during the cycle, which helps them clean more effectively than powders or liquids. They’re convenient because you don’t need to measure or pour out detergent.
The Cascade pods have extra detergent boosters that help them cut grease and enhance shine better than the other detergents we tried. They forgo dyes and chlorine bleach, which some people prefer to avoid.
Cascade Free & Clear’s mild lemon scent, which is made with essential oils, isn’t overpowering, and it did the best job of neutralizing dishwasher odors.
Runner-up
In our testing, Cascade Platinum Plus ActionPacs cleaned some of our toughest stains with ease, including peanut butter and baked-on egg and cheese. Though it worked great on greasy dishes, it didn’t quite match the power of our top pick, missing pieces of egg yolk here and there and leaving tomato juice residue at times.
The liquid detergent boosters encapsulated in the top of each pod are designed to cut grease and enhance shine. But they contain dyes (whereas our top pick does not), which may make these pods less appealing if you generally avoid dyes due to sensitivities or preference.
Cascade Platinum Plus ActionPacs have a strong “fresh” scent, which is more intense and noticeable than the lemon fragrance of our pick.
Also great
Finish Powder Advanced
This old-school powder performed well in our testing and left stemware streak-free. It costs half as much as our pod picks but is less convenient to dispense.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $8.
Powder detergents weren’t as effective as pod detergents in our testing. But if you prefer a powder, Finish Powder Advanced offered the best combination of cleaning performance and value among the powder detergents we tested. It easily wiped away messes in our testing, though not as handily as our detergent-pod picks did.
Its ability to leave glassware and stemware smooth, shiny, and spot-free—the best of the powder detergents we tested—impressed us the most.
Finish Powder Advanced is economical, too, at about half the cost per load as our pod picks. But unlike our single-dose picks, Finish Powder Advanced can be unwieldy to dispense precisely. Its lemon scent is less acrid than that of some other powder detergents we tested and neutralized general dishwasher odors well.
