Despite your best of intentions, you could be doing real damage to your favourite kitchen kit by cleaning it the wrong way. From tarnishing tableware to damaging non-stick pans, here are 31 things to avoid doing next time you're deep cleaning – and some helpful tips on how to get sparkling results.

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the common mistakes people make when cleaning kitchenware, counting down to the worst of all. 

We've based our ranking on how bad the error is, and on the opinions of our well-travelled (and well-fed) team. The list is unavoidably subjective.