Americans were left horrified after seeing how a Brit washed his dishes, but it seems like many are on his side, and it’s the way they’ve been cleaning their whole lives
Washing dishes is quite self explanatory, right? You just use some dish soap, hot water and make sure you’ve scrubbed all the bits off whatever you’re trying to wash. Well, it turns out there could be a cultural divide between how Brits and Americans wash dishes – and it’s left people quite horrified.
In a video posted to TikTok, Brit Paul Johnston-Naylor showed himself washing dishes – and it turned out his method was very controversial. His original video, which was posted back in 2024, saw Paul with a bowl of hot soapy water, which he scrubbed dishes in, before putting them on the drying rack.
But in the comment section of the video, people noticed something – that he didn’t rinse the dishes after he’d scrubbed them in the soapy water. People pointed out that in America, and other places in the world, it’s important to rinse the dishes off with clean water afterwards.
One American user even reacted to the video with her own, asking: “Have you seen how British people wash their dishes? They don’t rinse.”
Reacting to her clip, Paul recently posted a new video, with the caption: “A year ago my no rinse dishes caused a storm.” He explained: “This is how I wash up, this is how I’ve always washed up. I’ve never known any different. And in the last 72 hours it seems 99% of the world rinses their dishes. [….] The way that I was up has been fine for me so far.”
And many Brits backed Paul up in the comment section: “No need to rinse,” said one person. “Rinsing your dishes just wastes water,” said another. “Yeh and?… I’ve done it like this for years… Never been ill,” said another.
However, others were horrified by what they saw. “Are you serious you don’t rinse after scrubbing?” asked one person. “But yall don’t care about soap taste that dries on your dishes?” asked another. And a third wrote: “I mean are they not clean bc your not RINSING THE FILTH OFF, just mixing it with soap.”
Backing Paul up, one Brit shared a video of themselves washing dishes, and wrote: “Just washing my dishes in the UK without rinsing the soap off,” and captioned it: “Controversial apparently.”
“The dishes are NOT clean if they don’t get rinsed off with clean water after washing with hot soapy water,” said one person.
“I’m so confused. Do you use a certain soap that doesn’t have to be rinsed off or something? How does your food not taste like soap???” asked another.