5 ms·

Cookware Got Worse on Purpose: Who Owns Pyrex and All-Clad Now

50 points by xbryanx 2mo ago

al_borland 2mo ago
I’ve noticed it’s extremely common for things to be advertised as dishwasher safe, but once you open the box, the instructions recommend hand washing. I’ve started doing a lot more research when buying things because of this. It seems like every pot and pan does this, not just All-Clad.
- bob1029 2mo ago
  Stainless steel is your best bet if you want something you can put in the dishwasher consistently and not have it do anything weird.
  - al_borland 2mo ago
    All-Clad is stainless steel and there was a lawsuit over the issues related to it going in the dishwasher. I got some stainless steel pans about 6 months ago. They were advertised as dishwasher safe, but the fine print recommended against it.
    - bob1029 2mo ago
      All-Clad has issues because it is a composite of stainless and aluminum. Pure 18/10 stainless cookware is basically inert.
      - al_borland 2mo ago
        When I was researching pans, almost every recommendation was for fully cladded cookware. Stainless steel on its own is a poor conductor of heat.
- goobatrooba 2mo ago
  Maybe unit is an Atlantic divide issue, but I don't know many people that put pots and pots in the dishwasher. Putting fatty pans in there is sure to ruin not just your pipes but also the internal machinery of the dishwasher, notably if it's a water saving one
IronWolve 2mo ago
Ive been happy with All-Clad, but last ones I bought was horrible quality, this explains much. Brands living off their reputation, but private equity running them into the ground.
pibaker 2mo ago
This website is obviously AI generated down to the "Number Noun, Number Noun" section headers, "authored" by someone with a questionable background. I don't know why HN keeps upvoting articles from it.
- jchw 2mo ago
  Don't worry. A flood of half-assed excuses for genuinely bad, annoying prose is being dispatched to your comment now. The internet is becoming a joke.
- Palomides 2mo ago
  it gives HN users a chance to share their anecdotes about cookware
  - pibaker 2mo ago
    I would prefer us to do it in a way that does not benefit zero effort marketing rags like this.
- konsalexee 2mo ago
  For real, not sure why HN does not take seriously the fact the reporting farming accounts should be nowadays a baked in feature. I appreciate that it’s minimal in functionality, but times changes and slop infiltrates every single platform, HN no exception
- righthand 2mo ago
  > I don't know why HN keeps upvoting articles from it. Do we know how many HN accounts are automated bots? Probably over half at least. And moderation doesn’t do anything about it (for example, there’s an account called cindyllm that posts random comments and gets downvoted and flagged but the account lives on). Upvotes are probably nearly automated.
- LambdaComplex 2mo ago
  > The pattern in who survived is uniform: Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this construct from Claude Code.
nchmy 2mo ago
Just get cast iron
- pretendscholar 2mo ago
  Why do that when steel is lighter, easier to clean, easier to maintain?
  - irishcoffee 2mo ago
    The joy of working with seasoned cast iron cannot be overstated. Heavy isn’t bad, we could all do with a bit of exercise. Easier to clean and maintain I disagree with, if you’re willing to do a bit of work up front.
    - Aloha 2mo ago
      Just gotta stay ahead of the heat curve! Also well seasoned cast iron is dishwasher safe, there is very little you can do to kill a cast iron pan.
      - righthand 2mo ago
        A dishwasher is also overkill for cast iron, you’d probably have to re-season after the wash.
    - girvo 2mo ago
      The joy of working with a well seasoned carbon steel pan is similar, I find
      - Hikikomori 2mo ago
        Hard to get a seasoning that isn't stripped by acids, most vendors don't seem to provide the correct method either, leaving people with a blotchy seasoning.
        2mo ago
ratsbane 2mo ago
After my AllClad pans have started to get the sharp edges from dishwasher corrosion of the aluminum layer, I've been switching to Hestan Nanobond. It's not exactly nonstick, but the surface is so hard and polished that things don't stick very much and you can use metal implements without scratching the pan. But I think AllClad has switched to sealed-rims on their pans, thus making them truly dishwasher-safe?
jbdamask 2mo ago
I can't tell if this thread is real or not. But, uh, I have All Clad pots and pans and still like them. The bottoms warped on a couple so I replaced them with other brands. In general they hold up well when hand-washed. The handles are terrible though. Maybe it's a UX nudge to always use a pot holder?
throw0101d 2mo ago
While a lot of folks have a negative feelings towards the word "capitalism" in recent years, someone remarked that perhaps we should bring back the word "free enterprise". As it seems there's to be lots of consolidation, which is kind of antithetical to the free market and competition. If governments (?) better resisted consolidation and conglomerates I think a lot of this enshittification would be slowed down because of actual competition.
- isityettime 2mo ago
  The word "capitalism" is originally a pejorative epithet, coined by critics of capitalism.
c0rruptbytes 2mo ago
Hestan >>>>>
- margalabargala 2mo ago
  ...for now.
skhr0680 2mo ago
The former Japan license-holder for Pyrex still makes it as Iwaki
ungreased0675 2mo ago
I’d love to see legislation prohibiting private equity from strip-mining established brands.
- slowmovintarget 2mo ago
  How? It seems like any legal framework for attempting to prevent something like this would only have worse unintended effects. For example: every sale of a brand or a company has to go through a government committee (bribes, kickbacks, friction...). Restrictions on product changes: the new owner isn't allowed to improve the products, or stop producing older products when newer ones sell better, even if the newer ones are better. Can't shift manufacturing to China? Can't shift it out of the U.S.? How do you get such laws to apply everywhere (like Italian or French companies selling out to China)? The least harmful solution I can see is publicizing this B.S. and then having consumers speak with their wallets and dropping those brands. We've had to do that with so many brands. Aveeno used to make an oat and almond body wash that was amazing. It really helped the skin heal, feel soft, and still cleaned well. They got bought out. Boom... ammonium laurel sulfate... no oat, no almond, just fragrance, just like every other cheap body wash, and now it was bad for the skin. Same for their shave gel, same for dozens of other products. I don't know how we consumers stop it short of buying the product and not the brand. I'm skeptical of government being able to do anything about this phenomenon that isn't much worse overall.
  - ungreased0675 2mo ago
    I don’t actually know what a good government policy would be. I don’t want to add friction to normal business practices. But I’d also like to make it unprofitable to plunder well-established brands. It seems like a form of dishonesty, to sell an intentionally inferior product under a brand that was previously quality. Consumers eventually figure it out and move elsewhere, but the pirates have already cashed out by then.
    - Timon3 2mo ago
      These days, abusing informational asymmetry feels like one of the primary ways for capitalists to squeeze out the last drops from most of their customers base.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
somat 2mo ago
Pyrex was one of the great customer betrayals. Corning built the brand to promote a specific blend of glass with it's specific properties. Successfully enough that that blend, borosilcate glass became synonymous with the brand, Pyrex. Breaking this link to ride on the coattails of trust the brand had while selling a different blend with different properties was a dirty move. An interesting subject is how to differentiate borosilicate glass from tempered glass, It turns out to be surprisingly tricky, at least in a home kitchen setting. You could break it, easy but now you are can't use the dish. Color(blueish vs more clear) turns out to be a unfaithful test. There are ways to check the index of refraction(IOR) with oil, but it turns out the IOR of borosilicate and soda-lime overlap. I suspect the polarized light test to identify tempered glass stress would work, but that requires getting the polorizing filters and knowing what to look for. I sort of wish there was a requirement to stamp the formula right into the glass.
ColdStream 2mo ago
I will point out one counter example, Duralex still turn out top notch stuff are really great prices. They have been in trouble a few times but they keep finding a way through. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-want-to-save-us-help-pours-glassmaker-duralex https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-... Also anything cast iron like Lodge and Le Creuset for example are usually going to last generations. When I used to sell them, I used the line "You are buying heirlooms not land fill".

50 points by xbryanx 2mo ago

I’ve noticed it’s extremely common for things to be advertised as dishwasher safe, but once you open the box, the instructions recommend hand washing. I’ve started doing a lot more research when buying things because of this. It seems like every pot and pan does this, not just All-Clad.

bob1029 2mo ago
Stainless steel is your best bet if you want something you can put in the dishwasher consistently and not have it do anything weird.
- al_borland 2mo ago
  All-Clad is stainless steel and there was a lawsuit over the issues related to it going in the dishwasher. I got some stainless steel pans about 6 months ago. They were advertised as dishwasher safe, but the fine print recommended against it.
  - bob1029 2mo ago
    All-Clad has issues because it is a composite of stainless and aluminum. Pure 18/10 stainless cookware is basically inert.
    - al_borland 2mo ago
      When I was researching pans, almost every recommendation was for fully cladded cookware. Stainless steel on its own is a poor conductor of heat.
goobatrooba 2mo ago
Maybe unit is an Atlantic divide issue, but I don't know many people that put pots and pots in the dishwasher. Putting fatty pans in there is sure to ruin not just your pipes but also the internal machinery of the dishwasher, notably if it's a water saving one

IronWolve 2mo ago

Ive been happy with All-Clad, but last ones I bought was horrible quality, this explains much. Brands living off their reputation, but private equity running them into the ground.

pibaker 2mo ago

This website is obviously AI generated down to the "Number Noun, Number Noun" section headers, "authored" by someone with a questionable background. I don't know why HN keeps upvoting articles from it.

jchw 2mo ago
Don't worry. A flood of half-assed excuses for genuinely bad, annoying prose is being dispatched to your comment now. The internet is becoming a joke.
Palomides 2mo ago
it gives HN users a chance to share their anecdotes about cookware
- pibaker 2mo ago
  I would prefer us to do it in a way that does not benefit zero effort marketing rags like this.
konsalexee 2mo ago
For real, not sure why HN does not take seriously the fact the reporting farming accounts should be nowadays a baked in feature. I appreciate that it’s minimal in functionality, but times changes and slop infiltrates every single platform, HN no exception
righthand 2mo ago
> I don't know why HN keeps upvoting articles from it. Do we know how many HN accounts are automated bots? Probably over half at least. And moderation doesn’t do anything about it (for example, there’s an account called cindyllm that posts random comments and gets downvoted and flagged but the account lives on). Upvotes are probably nearly automated.
LambdaComplex 2mo ago
> The pattern in who survived is uniform: Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this construct from Claude Code.

nchmy 2mo ago

Just get cast iron

pretendscholar 2mo ago
Why do that when steel is lighter, easier to clean, easier to maintain?
- irishcoffee 2mo ago
  The joy of working with seasoned cast iron cannot be overstated. Heavy isn’t bad, we could all do with a bit of exercise. Easier to clean and maintain I disagree with, if you’re willing to do a bit of work up front.
  - Aloha 2mo ago
    Just gotta stay ahead of the heat curve! Also well seasoned cast iron is dishwasher safe, there is very little you can do to kill a cast iron pan.
    - righthand 2mo ago
      A dishwasher is also overkill for cast iron, you’d probably have to re-season after the wash.
  - girvo 2mo ago
    The joy of working with a well seasoned carbon steel pan is similar, I find
    - Hikikomori 2mo ago
      Hard to get a seasoning that isn't stripped by acids, most vendors don't seem to provide the correct method either, leaving people with a blotchy seasoning.
      - 2mo ago

ratsbane 2mo ago

After my AllClad pans have started to get the sharp edges from dishwasher corrosion of the aluminum layer, I've been switching to Hestan Nanobond. It's not exactly nonstick, but the surface is so hard and polished that things don't stick very much and you can use metal implements without scratching the pan. But I think AllClad has switched to sealed-rims on their pans, thus making them truly dishwasher-safe?

jbdamask 2mo ago

I can't tell if this thread is real or not. But, uh, I have All Clad pots and pans and still like them. The bottoms warped on a couple so I replaced them with other brands. In general they hold up well when hand-washed. The handles are terrible though. Maybe it's a UX nudge to always use a pot holder?

throw0101d 2mo ago

While a lot of folks have a negative feelings towards the word "capitalism" in recent years, someone remarked that perhaps we should bring back the word "free enterprise". As it seems there's to be lots of consolidation, which is kind of antithetical to the free market and competition. If governments (?) better resisted consolidation and conglomerates I think a lot of this enshittification would be slowed down because of actual competition.

isityettime 2mo ago
The word "capitalism" is originally a pejorative epithet, coined by critics of capitalism.

c0rruptbytes 2mo ago

Hestan >>>>>

margalabargala 2mo ago
...for now.

skhr0680 2mo ago

The former Japan license-holder for Pyrex still makes it as Iwaki

ungreased0675 2mo ago

I’d love to see legislation prohibiting private equity from strip-mining established brands.

slowmovintarget 2mo ago
How? It seems like any legal framework for attempting to prevent something like this would only have worse unintended effects. For example: every sale of a brand or a company has to go through a government committee (bribes, kickbacks, friction...). Restrictions on product changes: the new owner isn't allowed to improve the products, or stop producing older products when newer ones sell better, even if the newer ones are better. Can't shift manufacturing to China? Can't shift it out of the U.S.? How do you get such laws to apply everywhere (like Italian or French companies selling out to China)? The least harmful solution I can see is publicizing this B.S. and then having consumers speak with their wallets and dropping those brands. We've had to do that with so many brands. Aveeno used to make an oat and almond body wash that was amazing. It really helped the skin heal, feel soft, and still cleaned well. They got bought out. Boom... ammonium laurel sulfate... no oat, no almond, just fragrance, just like every other cheap body wash, and now it was bad for the skin. Same for their shave gel, same for dozens of other products. I don't know how we consumers stop it short of buying the product and not the brand. I'm skeptical of government being able to do anything about this phenomenon that isn't much worse overall.
- ungreased0675 2mo ago
  I don’t actually know what a good government policy would be. I don’t want to add friction to normal business practices. But I’d also like to make it unprofitable to plunder well-established brands. It seems like a form of dishonesty, to sell an intentionally inferior product under a brand that was previously quality. Consumers eventually figure it out and move elsewhere, but the pirates have already cashed out by then.
  - Timon3 2mo ago
    These days, abusing informational asymmetry feels like one of the primary ways for capitalists to squeeze out the last drops from most of their customers base.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

somat 2mo ago

Pyrex was one of the great customer betrayals. Corning built the brand to promote a specific blend of glass with it's specific properties. Successfully enough that that blend, borosilcate glass became synonymous with the brand, Pyrex. Breaking this link to ride on the coattails of trust the brand had while selling a different blend with different properties was a dirty move. An interesting subject is how to differentiate borosilicate glass from tempered glass, It turns out to be surprisingly tricky, at least in a home kitchen setting. You could break it, easy but now you are can't use the dish. Color(blueish vs more clear) turns out to be a unfaithful test. There are ways to check the index of refraction(IOR) with oil, but it turns out the IOR of borosilicate and soda-lime overlap. I suspect the polarized light test to identify tempered glass stress would work, but that requires getting the polorizing filters and knowing what to look for. I sort of wish there was a requirement to stamp the formula right into the glass.

ColdStream 2mo ago

I will point out one counter example, Duralex still turn out top notch stuff are really great prices. They have been in trouble a few times but they keep finding a way through. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-want-to-save-us-help-pours-glassmaker-duralex https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-... Also anything cast iron like Lodge and Le Creuset for example are usually going to last generations. When I used to sell them, I used the line "You are buying heirlooms not land fill".