When we moved down to Texas last summer, one of the things we noticed right off the bat was how the water tasted .... odd. Very very odd. Then my hair was reacting oddly to the water as well. It's now much drier than it used to be (thanks Infusium for their conditioner! It's the best for me & my girls' hair!). Then, I noticed that my dishes were hardly coming out of the dishwasher spotless. It had some kind of white residue leftover, and it was just GROSS!
Hard water... hate it! Sadly we don't have a water softener system. And how embarrassing it was everytime we had people over to our home I had to gush "oh, I truly did wash my dishes, it just doesn't look like it!" only to have my friends smile and say "oh, I have the same problem!" I tried LemShine (or something similar to that name).... and it didn't work. Finally we tried white vinegar, adding it to the final rinse of the dishwasher, and IT WORKS!! Voila! Clean, CLEAR dishes every single time! Wahoo!
Now, the tricky part is for me to actually hear the final rinse cycle so I can dump the vinegar in. And we don't always catch it, and we end up w/ spotty dishes again. :(