Best Measuring Cups That Say How to Wash Them

How the Five Compare on the Numbers

Eight listings sit on the fact sheet and three are left off. Pyrex is a pair of glass liquid jugs rather than a nested dry set, so its cleaning story is about nonporous glass and a microwave and not about a stack of cups. TILUCK publishes dishwasher safe in the same plain words three picks here already use. EWFEN publishes a removable ring and no washing claim at all, which is the silence OXO demonstrates more starkly.

What decides this page is what each maker actually instructs. One publishes a numbered two step procedure. Three publish dishwasher safe, two of them tying it to a ring that comes off. One publishes nothing about washing anywhere on the listing, and it is the one whose handles contain magnets.

The table cannot give you the size of any of these sets, because every dimension figure in the pool was filed as a package. Not one of the eight listings publishes the dimensions of a cup or of the nested stack, so a drawer cannot be measured against them, and the pack figures range from 2.6 by 5.3 by 3.5 in to 8.7 by 3 by 5 without describing the same kind of object.

What the Makers Actually Instruct

The One With Numbered Steps

YILIHCIA publishes the only real procedure in this pool, and it publishes it as advice with two numbered steps: hand wash promptly and dry thoroughly, and if using a dishwasher, use a gentle cycle and dry immediately afterwards. That is a conditional permission rather than a claim, and it is the most useful sentence on this page because it tells you what the risk is without naming it.

The risk is water spots and dullness on thin steel, which is consistent with what else YILIHCIA publishes: cups formed from 0.7 mm stainless steel, the only thickness figure in the pool, with dual pour spouts and engraved size marks. A maker that publishes a gauge is a maker that knows how thin the metal is, and the care bullet follows from it.

Three Plain Dishwasher Claims

Hudson Essentials states dishwasher safe twice, once as part of a rust and corrosion claim and once at the end, and adds that the cups will never rust or corrode. Martha Stewart gives it a bullet of its own headed care instructions, and says nothing else about it. Farberware states dishwasher safe and then adds the part that matters on a set held by a ring: the ring is detachable for thorough cleaning.

Those three are all doing something slightly different. Hudson is arguing from the material, Martha Stewart is answering the question, and Farberware is identifying where dried batter collects. On a nested set the join between the handles is the awkward part, and Farberware is the only listing that says so in the context of washing.

The Set That Never Mentions It

Magnets, and No Care Bullet

OXO publishes six bullets and not one of them concerns cleaning. What it publishes instead is the mechanism: magnetic handles that keep the cups together for storage and allow one cup to be removed at a time, permanent etched measurement markings, and soft non slip handles on stainless steel. All of that is a good description of a tool and none of it answers whether it goes in a machine.

The magnets are the reason a buyer would ask. A magnet in a handle is a component rather than a surface, and a soft non slip grip is a second material bonded to steel, and the listing publishes no temperature, no cycle and no restriction for either. This page records that silence rather than guessing at it, because nothing else on the listing supports a guess.

Plastic Against Steel

Farberware is the only plastic set here and it is the one that publishes the most about cleaning, which is the opposite of what the material would suggest. It publishes thick plastic that resists cracking, color coding instead of etched marks, a detachable ring, dishwasher safe, and a bonus coffee scoop of 2 tablespoons. At 0.28 lb it is also the lightest set in the pool by a wide margin.

Color coding rather than marking is a cleaning decision as much as a usability one, since printed or etched numbers are what fade. YILIHCIA and OXO both publish marks they describe as engraved or permanently etched, Hudson and Martha Stewart publish no markings claim at all, and on a steel cup that has been through a hundred cycles that is the detail that decides whether it is still a measure.

Where the Published Figures Stop Agreeing

Two Four Piece Steel Sets, Half a Pound Apart

OXO and Martha Stewart publish the same four sizes, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1 cup, both in stainless steel. OXO publishes 0.79 lb and Martha Stewart 0.51. That is more than a fifty percent difference for an identical size range in the same material, and neither listing publishes a thickness that would explain it. OXO’s magnets account for some of it and probably not all.

YILIHCIA publishes 0.77 lb for ten pieces, four cups and five spoons and a scraper, which is less than OXO’s four cups alone. Hudson publishes 1.06 lb for six steel cups, the heaviest figure here and the only one that scales the way the count suggests it should. Farberware publishes 0.28 lb for five plastic pieces.

Five Packages, No Products

Every dimension figure in this pool belongs to a carton. OXO’s reads 8.7 by 3 by 5 in, Farberware’s 3.54 by 8.46 by 2.36, Hudson’s 2.6 by 5.3 by 3.5, Martha Stewart’s 4 by 7 by 3 and YILIHCIA’s 3.27 by 6.5 by 1.77. Those five describe boxes of very different shapes for sets that all nest into a similar stack.

None of them is the measurement a buyer needs, which is how tall the nested stack stands and how wide the largest cup is with its handle. Hudson comes closest to addressing it in words, saying the cups nest inside one another so they store in any drawer, cabinet or cupboard, and even that is a claim rather than a figure. Six cups nested is not the same drawer slot as four.

Which One Fits Your Kitchen

Steel you intend to keep bright. YILIHCIA, the only pick with a numbered care procedure: hand wash promptly and dry, or a gentle cycle and dry at once. Ten pieces including five spoons and a scraper, in 0.7 mm steel with dual spouts and engraved marks, at 0.77 lb.

A ring that comes off for washing. Farberware, five plastic pieces including a 2 tablespoon coffee scoop, color coded rather than marked, dishwasher safe with a removable ring holder for thorough cleaning, at 0.28 lb.

Every size a recipe asks for. Hudson Essentials, six steel cups covering 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 and 1 cup, nesting inside one another, with a steel pour spout and dishwasher safe stated twice, at 1.06 lb.

A plain answer and nothing else. Martha Stewart, four steel cups at 0.51 lb with an easy open ring and a care bullet that reads dishwasher safe. It publishes no markings claim and no rust claim.

Marks that will not wear off. OXO, four steel cups at 0.79 lb with permanent etched measurements, soft non slip handles and magnetic handles that hold the set together. It publishes nothing at all about washing.

What We Could Not Verify

Every figure above is from the maker’s own listing. These are the things we went looking for and could not source in any of the eight.

• OXO publishes no washing claim of any kind, on the one set whose handles contain magnets.
• Not one listing in the pool publishes the dimensions of a cup or of the nested stack, so every size figure here is a carton.
• No listing publishes a measurement tolerance, so accuracy after washing cannot be judged at all.
• OXO and Martha Stewart publish the same four sizes in the same material at 0.79 lb and 0.51 lb, with nothing to explain the gap.
• Only YILIHCIA publishes a material thickness, 0.7 mm, so the other four cannot be compared on how thin the steel is.
• Hudson Essentials and Martha Stewart publish no markings claim, so whether their numbers are etched or printed is unstated.