Viral Tweet About What’s ‘Dishwasher Safe’ Leads to Dishwasher Disaster Stories

Twitter users are cleansing themselves of their poor dishwashing decisions.

On Sunday, Twitter user @phiamenina shared her husband's viewpoint on dishwashers: “everything is dishwasher safe if you don’t care enough about it” - my husband,” she tweeted. The result was a slew of users who appreciated both the woman’s take on her husband’s position as profoundly relatable.

By Tuesday, the post garnered over 480,000 likes and thousands of comments on the social media platform, with many users sharing disastrous lessons born from the belief that dishwashers can handle anything.

Cast-iron pans, fancy cutlery and even rubber chickens were among the household items that have fallen victim to the appliance's vigorous cycle.

“I think it’s a ploy to have me take over loading the dishwasher,” one user theorized in response to the tweet. “See before dishwasher and after several runs through the dishwasher. My good knives," with a photo of a destroyed steak knife.

Relating to the original poster’s husband, one user re-shared a tweet about her lesson learned, writing, “So I didn’t realize that I couldn’t put those 64oz water bottles in the dishwasher," with a picture of her warped bottle — and that wasn't the only warped bottle in the replies.

“I put most things in the dishwasher. If it doesn’t survive, it wasn’t meant to live in my house,” one defiant Twitter user mused. “Exceptions include knives, anything wood, cast iron, carbon steel, sheet pans.”

Another Twitter user apparently didn't get the no-cast-iron-in-the-dishwasher memo, though: "Don’t be like me, and put a cast iron frying pan, in the dishwasher!" they tweeted with a photo of an extremely rusted pan.

And then there were those debating whether or not dishwashers are necessary at all, especially in a small household.

"Who needs a dishwasher, with a lovely husband like him? Seriously, why have a dishwasher. Unless you are a family of 6, eating 3 meals a day, or you run a restaurant," one person tweeted.

"There are two of us, and we only got a dishwasher a couple of years ago. I love not having dirty dishes piling up on the bench, everything goes in the dishwasher and we run it once a day. Handwashing dishes is a pain — literally if, like us, you’re tall and the sink is low," another person replied.

And then, as Twitter threads are wont to do, things went a bit off the rails when one user admitted to putting food in the dishwasher to make meals.

“My school runs potatoes thru the dishwasher for baked potato bar,” one user wrote. “No soap, but a really good scrub.”

“Wait. We are washing potatoes now?” one commented in response. “I don’t have time in my life for all this cleanliness!”

"I know people who cook salmon on the top rack of their dishwasher (wrapped inside aluminum foil). No joke," someone else replied. (By the way, it is possible — we once tried it — but we wouldn't recommend it.)

Of course, what items can and cannot withstand the power of a dishwasher has long been a heated debate among home cooks.

In 2020, Ina Garten sparked both awe and dismay online when she shared a photo of her own fully loaded dishwasher on Instagram.

“If you’re not sick of unloading the dishwasher, could you please come unload mine??” she wrote in the caption of the post at the time. Called out for her inclusion of fine knives and a spatula with a wooden handle, the Garten replied, “EVERYTHING goes in the dishwasher!!”