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Before writing for the Strategist, Jenna Milliner-Waddell covered home décor for Forbes Finds. Now she finds the best-rated products you didn’t know you needed, from placemats to puzzles. Gloves Dishwashing
Before writing for the Strategist, Jenna Milliner-Waddell covered home décor for Forbes Finds. Now she finds the best-rated products you didn’t know you needed, from placemats to puzzles.
There’s nothing quite like dishwasher-clean — steamed, sanitized, sparkling — dishes, but that’s not always an option. If you’re living without a dishwasher, or otherwise choose not to use one, you know how time-consuming a task this can be (not to mention a straight-up unpleasant one). You’re on your feet, picking off baked-on food, covered in splashes of dirty water, only to get your dishes half as clean as they would be out of a dishwasher. The latter, we can help with. We’ve rounded up all the best things we’ve written about on the Strategist for hand-washing dishes — and talked to some new cleaning experts — about the best stuff out there to help you wash your dishes, including the best soaps, the best sponges, and the best gloves.
According to our experts, though, more important than having the right equipment is creating good habits around this chore. Ty Rosa, of A Sparkling Clean Life, and Jessica Haizman, podcast host and cleaning expert, both recommend cleaning dishes as they get dirty instead of waiting for the end of the day. “Quickly wash something, dry it, and put it away, and once it’s out of sight, it’s completely out of mind,” says Rosa. “Those are the things that really make a difference in people’s lives. Not thinking about those dirty dishes in the sink all the time as you walk by it sort of helps you open up your mental bandwidth to handle the other important things that you have to do.”
Household Latex Gloves With that in mind, here are the more tangible things that will help you hand-wash your dishes and get them as close to dishwasher-clean as possible.