Washing up!! Wipe the suds or rinse them?

[Dom Tuk]

I have seen many English and Irish families in the UK and elsewhere adopt this method while washing up. They fill the tub with water, add washing up liquid generously, scrub clean the dishes and the either drain the suds off or wipe off with a dish cloth. There is no rinsing of the dishes to take off the soap suds. Asian familes usually always add a rinsing step before wiping the dishes dry. How do you do it at home. Are there any health concerns with wiping the suds off....there will always be a film of soap left.

[Solarjunkie]

I don't rinse - can't see the point. I do always pour water (from the bowl) over each item to remove the suds

I've never noticed any difference in taste between food on my unrinsed dishes or from mother-in -law's carefully rinsed plates.

The amounts of detergent ingested are certainly too small to worry me - possibly the most laid-back person in the world! (Also I don't use gallons of the stuff as some people seem to.)

Oh, I don't dry either (why bother, they dry all by themselves if you leave them in the rack!) and my rinsing m-in-l was married to an American.

[rod]

We always rinse with hot water the washing up dries quickly that way, we never use a tea towel.

[indian]

well i never! every english family i knew never rinsed, so i thought it was only us asians who do it. a very enlightening thread.

[Artful]

In Hastings? I don't know. I would have asked my uncle who ran a guesthouse there but he died and then his wife climbed into the oven - don't know if it had anything about rinsing the disheds after washing them.

As for tea towels - I have one for sutlery, one for glasses, one for crockery and another for whatever else there is. Obviously the 'wrong' may be used for the category but it goes for making sure things become clean and sudless! Do you follow?

[brachiopod]

Rinse (obsessively) and air dry.

I tend to wash everything in one bowl of water, pile it up on the drainer, then run a bowl of very hot, clean water with a single drop of wahing-up liquid and then rinse them all in that (glassware first).

Don't use a tea-towel to dry.

Oh, and Welsh by the way.

[catanory]

hey jackanory :o))  love the government web site hehehe.  nb: always rinse, always air dry - and now, always rinse thoroughly before washing, so water doesn't get contaminated x

[Jackanory]

Just revisited that gov website & re-read it.  It is a bit funny!  I think aliens are trying to confuse us!!

Hey catanory!  Do you think we are related?!  :o)

[flaming]

If anyone is still looking at the thread I would like to point out that Smudge's granmas did not have their full lifetimes  taken up by use of washing-up liquid.  Either one might have had a dish-washer with rinsing cycle at some point in their housewife days.  Or, assuming they were 19 before doing washing-up regularly they could have jogged along until washing-up liquid came into common use in the 50s .... whichever way you look at it they used wahing-up liquid for maybe half of their years, less if both had a dishwasher!   All we rinsers seem to be saying that whilst one is at the washing-up, rinsing doesn't take much longer and makes the stuff look nicer (glossy, no smears) especially if it is not wiped.  Not wiping is prefereable, most of us think although the pro-wipers understandthe importance of clean cloths.  I have one friend whose cloths are look quite unsavoury! I've had a go at her, but things are only marginally improved, AND she slings them over chair-backs.