TikToker puts camera inside dishwasher to show viewers how it really works

‘So the dishwasher is actually a dish rinser?’

The TikTok account How It Actually Works demystified what happens when you put your dishes in the dishwasher and viewers were shocked after watching footage that captured the process.

In the dishwasher TikTok explainer, the creator showed two minutes’ worth of footage capturing the machinations of a dishwasher at work, and the footage, to say the least, is eye-opening.

At first, we see footage of dirty dishes and cups sitting in the appliance’s racks as streams of water pelt them from below. Blades circle the sides of the machine as the water goes back and forth, coating the dishes. One plate, in particular, that’s covered in sauce loses the lion’s share, but some of the bits remain.

Although people use the appliance daily, the way a dishwasher functions isn’t well-known. In the comment section, one user wrote: “[You’re] telling me the box doesn’t fill up with water and makes a water+soap tornado?!?!”

Another user commented that they had been “waiting for a brush to appear all along”, meanwhile, one viewer remarked: “As a kid I [thought] the dishwasher worked the same way as washing machine.”

“So the dishwasher is actually a dish rinser?” one perplexed user wrote.

Many people were under the impression that dishwashers would fill to the brim with water, but according to USA Today, a dishwasher is, in fact, “closer to a car wash than a swimming pool”.

Hot water is a crucial component of the sanitization process, with temperatures reaching about “as high as 130°F-140°F”. At the bottom of the dishwater, a mix of hot water and detergent pools and is unleashed towards the dishes via spray arm mechanisms. The dirty water trickles down to the pool at the bottom, “where it is filtered, reheated, and sent back out into the spray arm again”.

In order to maximize the dishwasher’s effectiveness, Popular Science recommended that people not rinse their dishes beforehand because the dishwasher detergent needs to cling to food residue. The outlet spoke to Richard Tarrant, the category director for Bosch dishwashers, and he said whether or not to rinse is, according to their research, a “contentious” issue in most households. Sixty-one per cent of Americans argue over whether dishes need to be pre-rinsed, Bosch reports.

How you load the dishwasher is also important for maximum cleanliness. USA Today noted that “dishes loaded in the wrong place could block a spray jet’s access to other dishes”.

Many people were also wondering how on earth the How It Actually Works account was able to capture the footage, and according to The Daily Dot, an account representative clarified that they used a GoPro HERO7 Black to film the action.

How it Actually Works typically goes out of its way to unpack different things ranging from tattoos to toilets to ingrown toenails. By way of videos and diagrams explaining the various processes, the account can educate viewers.

When asked about their account’s goal, they said: “We try our best to explain things that we may not typically think about!”