According to TikTok, popping a ball of tinfoil in your dishwasher is a great way to shine your cutlery. As you can imagine, I had my doubts. Regardless, I’m a woman of the people—and if the people want shiny silverware, I’m going to find out if tinfoil in the dishwasher is the easiest way to get it done. I followed the directions of many TikToks and am here to present my findings.
Tinfoil in the dishwasher: the method
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Flatware. pre-tinfoiling.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
Per the hacksters and Cleantokkers, what you want to do is ball some tinfoil up and stick it in the cutlery holder in your dishwasher. That’s easier than most hacks, as it requires just one ingredient and a minor tweak that’s super simple to do, so that’s already something working to this trick’s benefit.
When I opened my dishwasher, though, I had a few questions. First, the average cutlery holder has numerous compartments. Does the tinfoil being in just one of them affect any flatware in the other slots? My compartments were smaller than average, too. Would that impact the effectiveness of the technique?
I consulted more videos and learned that it’s not a physical shining that takes place, but rather a chemical one, so a ball of tinfoil in one compartment won’t have an impact just on any silverware it’s sharing the space with; it will, per the purveyors of the trend, affect all the flatware all around.
Placing tinfoil in the cutlery holder.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
That in mind, I placed three pieces of flatware in one compartment and a scissor in another, then shoved my tinfoil ball into the compartment with the fork, spoon, and knife. I ran the dishwasher as normal.
Tinfoil in the dishwasher: the results
I’m not going to beat around the bush: It didn’t really work. My cutlery was clean when I took it out, but I attribute that to the dishwashing it underwent. If you want to shine your silverware, you should use a different hack, like rubbing some toothpaste on it. (That one makes sense, since it’s a little abrasive!)
Clean, but underwhelmingly shiny, flatware.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
The hack probably stems from an older, more involved one: You wrap tarnished silver in tinfoil and put it in super hot water that also has baking soda in it to trigger a reaction that shines it up. The differences between this approach and the dishwasher tinfoil ball probably account for why the older hack has withstood the test of time and the newer one didn’t work (for me, at least). When wrapping and submerging your tarnished silver, it stays in the hot water a long time and the water/baking soda/aluminum foil combo is constantly at work on it, which is not true in a quick dishwashing cycle.
The good news is that besides not really working, I can’t identify a drawback of doing this. It didn’t make any extra noise or seem to have a negative effect on any of my dishes. It’s benign, if anything, and I encourage curiosity and exploration, so go for it if you want to prove me wrong on this one.