NEVER Put These Things In The Dishwasher!.

Welcome back to the Clean My Space channel. My name is Melissa Maker. I am an accidental cleaning expert, which means I hate cleaning, but I've been doing it since 2006 professionally, and I know the most efficient and effective ways to get the job done right the first time so you don't waste time. And where's one place we waste time? The dishwasher, trying to figure out where things go, and if we can put certain things in there. And the truth is, there are many things that cannot go in the dishwasher that perhaps we don't all know about. So that's what I'm going to cover in today's video. And at the end of this video, I'm going to give you three extra tips that you can use to keep your dishwasher performing at its peak. And just a quick reminder, if you haven't done so already to subscribe to the Clean My Space channel, this video today is brought to you by the letter C. C is for clean, and it's also brought to you by the Maker's Clean Scrub Square, which just came out. It is such a hot product. The reason we love it is because it replaces your traditional disposable sponge. It's machine washable. It doesn't smell. We're obsessed. You can learn more about it at makersclean.com. I know it's tempting because we use them all the time, and who has time to hand wash? But if you are a fan of having insulated beverages, this one was a Christmas gift from friends a couple of years ago. It's our little BFF mug. It does not go in the dishwasher. The reason being is because anytime you put an insulated item in the dishwasher, it affects the vacuum seal, and this will not be able to keep your hot toss and your colds colds. So hand wash. A lot of small kitchen appliances and their associated accessories claim to be dishwasher safe or top rack dishwasher safe. In my experience, I've always found that it wears the item down faster. And let me know if you've had a similar experience in the comments down below. I have had my blender. It's a Blendtec blender. I've had it since 2015, and I've had to replace the blender jar three or four times. And you know when I have to start replacing it? It's when I get lazy and I say, I can put it in the dishwasher just this one time. And then I do it again because it worked fine last time. And then I do it again and again and again. And the next thing I know, my blender stops working. And then I'll call the company and they ask me to do a test. And they tell me it's the bottom of the blender jar. And did I put it in the dishwasher? Even though it says it's dishwasher safe over time, these things don't age well when they're put in the dishwasher. So as annoying as it is, these small appliances and small appliance accessories, I will hand wash. I asked for this cast iron pan many years ago as a gift, and I've been taking good care of it ever since. Can't you tell? No, seriously, I have. Because I don't use soap with it. Because soap would take away the years and years of work that I have put into building up a beautiful patina on this pan. Now, the other thing that can really mess up a cast iron item, whether it's a frying pan or anything else, is putting it in the dishwasher. Because it'll take off that patina that you've worked very hard on. But also, cast iron gets rusty. And if you leave it in a dishwasher, say overnight and for several hours, you will pull that item out. And there is probably like an 87% chance that you're going to see rust on it. So this is something that you want to hand wash. What I do, I take a scrub square. I put a little bit of water on it when the pan is warm, and I just give it a wipe down. Another thing you can do is just sprinkle some coarse salt on the bottom of the pan after you're finished cooking with it. Add a little bit of water and deglaze the pan with a wooden spoon. And what this does is it kind of scrapes things up that shouldn't be there, but it leaves that beautiful oily coating at the bottom. And for the people who kind of panic and say, oh, that sounds kind of gross. Well, don't worry. The next time you heat up your frying pan, it's going to kill anything that was on there. Anyway, I don't care what your dishwasher manual says about washing stemware and how many of these little flaps it comes with. I don't trust it. And I'll tell you why. I've washed many of my beautiful wine glasses in the dishwasher, and I've had a few of them just break on me. You know why? Because they're delicate. This is skinny. And if it gets knocked around during the washing process, if something falls over, guess what? You have no control over it. It's broken. That's why we've switched to stemless, quite frankly, stemless glassware for our regular casual weeknight wine. Because you know what? You can throw it in the dishwasher and you don't have to worry about it. When the friends come over and we're bringing out a nice bottle of wine, yes, I'll hand wash. Guys, I'm not that lazy. And we'll bring out the fancy stuff. But truthfully, I like putting things in the dishwasher as much as possible, which is why I like to have options. When I talk about cleaning plastic containers, I will often get asked about those white marks that seem to appear on plastic containers that people can never get rid of. Those are just marks that happen because you're putting your plastic in the dishwasher. It kind of just happens over time. Most of us know we're supposed to put our plastic on the top rack because bottom rack is generally where a heating element is for many dishwashers. And that can straight up melt the plastic. I have seen it in my business. It is not pretty. So that's why we rely upon the top rack. But even still, there are reasons why I would not put plastic containers, especially ones that you care about, into the dishwasher. Case in point, my daughter's lunch bento box. I hand wash this every day. There was one time where I was like, I'm going to put this little sandwich thing into the top rack of the dishwasher because I just want to give myself a break. And look at this. It worked. That one time, gone. It's just, it's done. I mean, this is its life from now on. So that's why I hand wash things that I care about. Things that I don't care about, fine. They can go in the dishwasher. And I've also switched a lot of my containers to glass because I'm sick and tired of my stuff smelling like dishwasher and warping. You might have heard people say don't put knives in the dishwasher. So let's settle the score. Knives, like paring knives, steak knives, you know, things that you don't care so much about but want to make sure you're not going to hurt yourself with, you want to put those facing downward in the cutlery basket. But anything that's too large to go in the cutlery basket that you would have to put on the top rack, I want you to think twice about it. And here's why. First of all, if anything knocks around during the dishwashing process, it can dull the very fine edge of the knife. And you know, for an expensive kitchen knife, you don't want that to happen. Second, and what's a little bit more worrisome, is if you put the knife in such a way where it starts to hit against the coating on the top rack, it can hack away and get to the metal. And what this causes over time is rust. And then you're going to notice that there's rust in your dishwasher and it's really gross and it's very hard to repair. The other other thing you want to think about is just safety. When you go to unload your dishwasher, if a knife falls, if you accidentally move your hand in such a way, it's just not good to have a knife in the dishwasher. So do yourself a favor and hand wash your beautiful big knives and your small ones, leave it for the cutlery basket. If you've been upping your efforts to avoid disposables, then you probably have reusable straws and a lot of these insulated mugs or travel mugs or what have you, water bottles, you know, anything to port your liquids around. Well, here's the thing. It's very easy to toss all this stuff in the dishwasher, except for the fact that these pick up the flavor. You know that dishwasher flavor? And it totally markedly affects the flavor of whatever it is that you're drinking. Water, coffee, tea, juice, smoothie, you name it, it doesn't taste good. So what I've decided to do is to spend extra time just hand washing these things. And another hot tip is to use an unscented dish soap. That way, these don't pick up even the scent of like frosty meadows or tropical fruits or anything like that. You just want it plain and simple so that you don't have any soapy or dishwashery flavor going into your mouth and into your olfactory receptors when you're just trying to enjoy a drink. Something I know a lot of people do is they put their sponges in the dishwasher. Now, a couple things to know about this. First of all, you can never get a cellulose style sponge perfectly clean and bacteria free. That has been proven by tests done by the very companies that produce these. Cellulose basically means it's like a holy, holy structure that exists within the sponge material. The other reason you don't want to do that is because the high temperatures melt the glue that binds the webbing to the sponge, rendering your sponge eventually useless. This is why we really love our scrub squares. This one is actually from my sink from this morning. And unlike a traditional disposable sponge, these can be washed, but you wash them in the washing machine with regular detergent and cold water and not in the dishwasher. They would not be happy in there. What's great about this is we've kind of rethought what you actually need in a sponge. You need a soft side for wiping and you need a slightly scrubby side for getting your everyday cleaning tasks done. So these have been very useful in my kitchen and a lot of people have become totally obsessed with them. You can learn more about them at makersclean.com. And now three surefire ways that you can get your dishwasher working better. First, don't overload it. I know it's tempting. I know. But trust me on this one, the more you shove into your dishwasher, the less effective it can be. You also want to make sure that any arm of your dishwasher can do a full rotation. Next, you want to make sure you're using a great detergent. While I would love to use like an eco green detergent, I have tested them. They just don't work as well as traditional detergents. And you know what's not eco-friendly? Having to re-hand wash something or rerun a load. And finally, you want to make sure that you're cleaning your dishwasher on a fairly regular basis. Because going back to my second point, if your dishwasher is not giving you clean dishes, you're just going to waste more time and more energy and more water re-cleaning those dishes. So that means getting into the filter, giving it a scrub and using a dishwasher cleaning tab once a month, once a quarter, depending on how frequently you use your machine to maintain it. Well, now you have a little bit more insight on how to master the art and science of your dishwasher. And that brings me to this week's comment question, which is Sisyphus, more so than me, wants to know, what job do you hate more? What Sisyphean task do you hate more? The dishes or your laundry? Now, if you want to learn more about Sisyphus, I will give you a link down below. But basically, it's this very sad character in Greek mythology who had to push a very heavy rock up a mountain every single day, day after day. Kind of sounds like dishes and laundry, doesn't it? Anyway, let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. Want to know more about how to properly load your dishwasher and how to clean your dishwasher? I got you. We have a whole dishwasher playlist that you can check out right over here. A couple of ways you can support the Clean My Space channel. You can, of course, subscribe and you can also check out Makers Clean, which is where we sell all of our premium microfiber cleaning tools. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time.