Dishwasher detergent experiment, Part 2

Last year I compared gel dishwasher detergent to a 20 count of action packs. Both retail for the same price, but the gel gave me 45 washes instead of 20 for the little packs.

The next experiment was to compare powdered dishwasher detergent to the gel. We recently finished up a box so the results are in!

The powdered dishwasher detergent gave us 58 washes, 13 more than the gel. I'd call the gel and the powder pretty close! But the crazy thing is that the 13 washes between the gel and the powder is over half as many as you would get from one 20 count of little packs.

So what is the best value?

This time around I even bought a store brand dishwasher detergent instead of the name brand Cascade, and our dishes came out clean every time.

The specifics:
::We have a builder's grade dishwasher, nothing special
::We rinse dishes if they are going to be sitting in the dishwasher
::We only fill up the detergent dispenser that closes
::We didn't measure how much detergent, so the numbers could be slightly different

Read more of my thoughts on being an active consumer and why I started this experiment.