Procter and Gamble, the corporate empire best known for creating so many household products it often competes with itself, has come out with an innovation that claims to remove stains from plastic dishes and even the inside of the dishwasher. Cascade Plastic Booster is a creamy chemical that is added to the detergent in the dishwasher, and enough comes in the bottle for about three uses.

  I tested Plastic Booster by placing a plastic spoon and spatula that had both gotten red stains from cooking, a plastic sink liner that had a red sauce stain, several Tupperware dishes that had sticker residue on them, and even a couple of dirty golf balls into the dishwasher. I used the recommended amount of the solution and a normal amount of detergent, and let the dishwasher do its thing.

  First I will say that Cascade Plastic Booster neither claims to, nor succeeds at removing sticker residue. The residue was still on the Tupperware and I ultimately had to use Goo Gone to remove it. The spoon and spatula were both unimproved after one usage, and very slightly improved but still noticeably stained after a second. The sink liners and golf balls, after twice being given the Plastic Booster treatment, didn't improve at all. And as for the dishwasher itself, the drain is still stained yellow. I took "before" photos expecting a dramatic change, but as it turned out Cascade Plastic Booster just did not have any significant effect on the stained plastic. The very disappointing results I got couldn't have been any better than running the dishes through the dishwasher twice without the additive. The only real good news is it didn't seem to damage anything.

  It is for these obvious reasons that, in my opinion, Cascade Plastic Booster is not the revolutionary product it claims to be. The limited results I got from it were so minor that I could have just as easily gotten the same results by running the dishwasher two times without any additive. At $2.99 this is a very affordable product, but considering that it does nothing, it's a very bad value.