We put a 25-year warranty on every Charingworth set. That tells you how long we expect our cutlery to last. What it doesn’t tell you is how little the cutlery asks of you in return. A sensible detergent, a bit of thought when loading the dishwasher, a dry cloth for the knives. That’s more or less the whole job.
Still, questions come up. Can it really go in the dishwasher every day? What are those rainbow smudges? Why do the knives mark when nothing else in the drawer does? This guide answers the lot, using the same care guidance we pack with every set, plus a few tricks borrowed from the hotel kitchens that put our cutlery through commercial dishwashers morning, noon and night.
First, a Word About 18/0 Stainless Steel
Charingworth cutlery is made from 18/0 stainless steel. The 18 is chromium. The 0 means no nickel. It’s the chromium doing the heavy lifting here, because it reacts with oxygen to form a thin protective film right across the steel. As long as that film is there, your cutlery won’t rust in normal use. Scratch it, and it repairs itself.
Which means cutlery care really boils down to two things. Don’t wash your cutlery in anything that attacks the chromium layer, and don’t leave it sitting wet for hours on end. Everything else in this guide is detail.
Is Your Cutlery Dishwasher Safe?
Yes. All of it. People sometimes assume good cutlery has to be hand washed, and honestly, it’s a myth we’re happy to bust. The machine itself does no harm at all. The trouble only starts with the wrong detergent, careless loading, or cutlery left to air dry in a damp machine.
Loading the Machine
- Handles down, always. And give the knives their own compartment, away from everything else. Most of the scratches we get asked about come from knife blades rattling against forks through an entire wash cycle.
- Don’t cram the basket. Water needs to drain, and the pieces need a little breathing room. Overload a compartment, and you trap residue while everything grinds together.
- Give the rinse and hold cycle a miss. It leaves cutlery sitting damp in a warm box, which is exactly the environment food acids and hard water minerals enjoy most.
Leave the Salt Compartment Alone (Sometimes)
Here’s one that catches people out. If you’re using 3-in-1 dishwasher tablets, don’t fill the salt compartment at the bottom of the machine. The tablets already contain salt. Add more, and you get excess residue in the wash that the rinse cycle doesn’t always clear, and salt sitting on stainless steel is a fast road to spotting.
Dry the Knives First
When the cycle finishes, take the knives out and dry them with a clean cloth before you do anything else. The blades are made from a different stainless steel to the rest of the set. It’s a harder grade, chosen so the edge lasts, but it’s also a touch more prone to rust marks if left wet. Half a minute with a tea towel. That single habit will save you more bother than anything else on this page.
The Detergent Rule You Shouldn’t Break
If you take one thing away from this guide, make it this: never use detergents with a lemon base or anything containing hydrochloride. Both are corrosive to stainless steel. And the damage is sneaky. Nothing shows after one wash, or ten. Then one day the surface just isn’t what it was.
The lemon part surprises people, given half the detergent aisle smells of citrus. To be clear, the fragrance isn’t the problem. Citrus-based cleaning agents are, because they’re acidic enough to eat into the chromium layer the steel depends on. Read the label. If in doubt, pick a plain premium detergent and move on.
While we’re on the subject of things to avoid: chemical dip solutions, the ones sold for reviving old silverware, should never go anywhere near stainless steel cutlery. They can stain knife blades. In some cases they etch them permanently, and there’s no coming back from that.
How to Remove Stains and Marks from Cutlery
Even well cared for cutlery picks up the odd mark over the years. The good news? Nearly all of them sit on the surface, and you can sort them out at home with things you probably already own.
Rust Marks
Genuine rust coming from within stainless steel is rare. What you’re usually looking at is rust transferred from something else in the wash. A tired baking tray, say, or a chipped pan sharing the cycle. A little Autosol Metal Polish on a soft cloth lifts it off. Wash the piece as normal afterwards and you’re done.
Rainbow Marks
A faint blue or bronze shimmer across the surface. Detergent residue causes it, as do air drying, hot fats, vinegar, wine and citrus juices. The fix couldn’t be simpler: mix white vinegar and warm water half and half, somewhere around 40 degrees Celsius, and soak the pieces for up to 2 minutes. Wipe clean, wash thoroughly, and the shimmer is gone.
Chalking
A cloudy white film, most common in hard water areas or when cutlery has been left to air dry. Same remedy as rainbow marks: two minutes in the 50/50 vinegar and warm water mix, then a wipe and a proper wash. If chalking keeps coming back, drying by hand straight out of the machine will mostly put a stop to it.
Pitting on Knife Blades
Tiny dark pits in the blade, caused by salt and food acids sitting on the steel for too long. This is the one mark on this list that can’t be fully undone, because the pits go into the surface rather than resting on top of it. Autosol will buff away the dark spots and tidy up the finish, but prevention is the real answer here. Rinse knives soon after use rather than leaving them pressed against salty plates overnight.
What Professional Kitchens Do Differently
Our cutlery earns its keep in hotels and restaurants, going through commercial dishwashers several times a day across thousands of covers a year. The guidance we give those kitchens is built around one goal: stopping cutlery from scratching itself. Worth knowing even if you’re only feeding a family of four.
Pre-Soak by Type
The moment dirty cutlery reaches the wash-up area, it goes into separate pre-soak tubs. Forks with forks, spoons with spoons, knives with knives. Mixed tubs are where prongs and blades chew each other up. Use a premium pre-soak solution at the correct dilution, and keep the water no hotter than 40 degrees Celsius.
Emptying the tubs matters just as much. Tip one out from the top of a deep sink and the drop alone will scratch the lot. Instead, lower the tub right down to the base of the sink and turn the pieces out gently. A rubber mat at the bottom of the sink helps too.
Vertical Baskets, Heads Up
Forks, knives and spoons go into separate vertical baskets, side by side on a horizontal tray, with the heads facing upwards. Flat horizontal baskets are a false economy. The cutlery slides around freely in them, and fork prongs and knife blades scratch every piece within reach. Simply keeping the three types apart cuts scratching by as much as 60 percent.
Reverse Osmosis, If You Can
Kitchens that want cutlery coming out of the machine ready to lay use reverse osmosis dishwashers. These strip the minerals out of the water before it ever touches the cutlery, so pieces dry without water marks and nobody has to stand there polishing before service.
Built to Be Used, Not Babied
None of this is complicated. Choose a detergent without citrus or hydrochloride, load the machine with a little thought, and dry the knives when the cycle ends. Do that much, and a Charingworth set, whether it’s the bright gleam of a mirror finish or the softer, lived-in character of Fiddle Vintage Satin, will quietly outlast most of what sits around it on the table. We back every set with a 25-year warranty. Follow this guide and chances are you’ll never need it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is stainless steel cutlery dishwasher safe?
Yes. You can run cutlery through a dishwasher every day and it’ll be perfectly happy. A few things to keep in mind though: put the pieces in handles down, keep knives well away from the forks and spoons, don’t jam the basket full, and take the knives out for a quick towel dry once it’s finished. That last one matters more than people realise.
What detergent should I not use on cutlery?
Two things to avoid. Anything with a lemon base, and anything containing hydrochloride. Both are hard on stainless steel, and the damage builds up slowly over wash after wash. Chemical dip solutions, the type you’d normally use on silverware, are worth avoiding as well. They can leave permanent marks on a knife blade.
How do I remove rainbow marks from cutlery?
Mix white vinegar with warm water, roughly half and half, get it to around 40 degrees, and drop the pieces in for a couple of minutes. Two minutes is plenty, no need to leave them longer. Then wipe them down and give them a proper wash. Those rainbow shades are usually just detergent residue, or hot fat, or a splash of wine or vinegar that dried on. Nothing serious.
Why do my knives rust when the rest of the set does not?
It’s the blade. Knife blades are a harder grade of steel than the rest of the set, and there’s a good reason for that. Harder steel holds an edge for longer. The trade-off is that it corrodes a bit easier too. So take the knives out first, run a tea towel over them, and you’ll rarely see a rust mark again.
How do I remove rust marks from stainless steel cutlery?
You’ll want Autosol Metal Polish for this. A little on a soft cloth, rub it gently into the mark, then wash the piece as you normally would. Worth knowing: the rust probably didn’t start on the cutlery. Something else in the wash, an old baking tray usually, shed a bit of rust which stuck to your knives and forks. That’s why it comes off so easily.
Can pitting on knife blades be repaired?
Not really. The pits go down into the steel, so there’s no filling them back in. What Autosol will do is buff out the dark colour so the blade gets its polish back. Better to prevent it in the first place. Salt and food acid left on a blade overnight is what causes pitting, so a rinse straight after eating is really all it takes.
Does 18/0 stainless steel cutlery need special care?
Not necessarily. 18/0 has 18 percent chromium in it, and that chromium reacts with the air to build a thin protective coat over the steel. Any scratch to that coat, and it repairs on its own. So all you need to do is stay away from lemon-based or hydrochloride detergents, and don’t leave the cutlery sitting wet for hours. That’s it, honestly.
Should I fill the dishwasher salt compartment if I use 3-in-1 tablets?
No, leave it empty. Those tablets have salt built in already. Top the compartment up as well and you’re just doubling the dose, which leaves a film behind that the rinse can struggle to clear. That film is one of the main reasons cutlery starts showing spots after a while.