Washing towels
I’ve been having an argument with a friend for quite some time about washing towels. We differ on just how often they should be washed. I’m not going to bias you one way or another by saying what is obviously the right answer. Just vote and I’ll win the argument by the sheer force of numbers.
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}
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UPDATE: Well, I’ve closed the poll after 60 votes. That seems like a pretty good survey size. And now my view on the matter is clear, too.
September 4th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Who uses a washing towel anyway? Soap + hands + water. Why complicate the matter?
September 4th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
But I’m talking about bath towels…
September 4th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
I think towels should be washed after every use, but I usually use them twice before washing just to keep the already insane amount of laundry that I do down.
September 4th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Oh. okay. The answer to this question really depends on (1) how “clean” you actually get yourself before you dry off (2) how humid or dry your indoor enironment is (3) how good is your towel rack and towel drying technique are (4) how often you shower and (5) how hairy you are.
Another factor may also be how sensitive your nose is to the inevitable growth of bacteria in your often moist towel fibers.
I think for most cases it’s good to take a towel out of rotation every 7-10 uses. How many days is that?
September 6th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Not for nothing, I’ve voted several times for my choice and it’s still not winning.
PS: WP’s captcha sucks
September 7th, 2006 at 12:09 am
CAPTCHA’s too hard to read? I can make it easier in the config. You can avoid it by registering.
September 7th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Good God, you’re telling me that 8 of your readers wash a bath towell after EVERY USE! That is downright insane. Actually, I think every week is insane (although if you have only one bath towell, I guess it’s ok). I mean, you get out of the shower after having completely washed yourself, and you wipe the water from your body with a towell. Beyone a few molecules of skin and hair, all that gets on your towell is CLEAN WATER. Then you hang it up, and it dries off. I challenge anyone to give me a reason (besides OCD) that a towell that has gotten wet and then dried needs washing. You disgust me, Tom’s Blog readers. By the way, I was one of the two readers who said whenever. I rotate three towells through and wash them once every month or two, and I don’t smell bad or get horrible diseases, or even get sick often, and when I do it has nothing to do with my bath towells. Boom.
September 7th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
If you only take into account only the drying part, towels could be washed only once every few months. Afterall, you should be clean when stepping out of the shower. If you take cold showers I’m sure your towels will last longer without getting mildew and other bacteria on them. (Imagine your toothbrush in a bathroom with no ventilation after a hot shower.) I know people who have tens of towels and wash each one after each use and do it as if it’s the correct way (they yelled at me when they saw me hang up my used towel).
September 7th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Tom, quit holding us in suspense. What’s YOUR opinion on the matter?
September 7th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Ryan, your comment made me want to go take a shower. And dry off with a freshly washed towel.
September 8th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Okay Ryan, I’ll reveal my opinion.
Washing a towel after every use is absolutely ridiculous. As others have said, that’s clean water going on that towel! If you want to wash a towel after every use, how about dishrags? Those things are absolutely infested with bacteria, and I know you superclean women out there leave them in the sink for like 2 months.
I’m inclined to choose the “every couple of weeks” option, although a previous confession reveals that even that might be too often…
September 8th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Thank God tom, I expected as much from you. If there’s anything I can count on you for, it’s level headedness and adherence to logic in matters of personal upkeep. Jada, not the first time I’ve gotten that comment. But it’s people like you who have led to the dramatic rise in allergies in recent years (from inactice immune systems). I guess it’s over between us long before it even started.
September 8th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Can we just file this one under “water and electricity conservation” and move on? If you wash your towels after every shower you’re an asshole and a bad citizen.
September 9th, 2006 at 11:24 am
As far as the dishrag thing Tom, I don’t even use them. I have a sponge and I microwave it on high power for one minute after cleaning the kitchen after dinner. I have taken enough microbiology courses to know about the perfect conditions for breeding bacteria. And sorry Tom, but it’s not just “clean water” that ends up on your towels but the wild hordes of your bacterial flora that exists on your skin and a plethora of dead skin cells. It also seems to me be a common phenomenon that people cannot smell themselves or their own familiar objects like their pillows, sheets or towels, but others can. Your towel may smell fine to you, but after a couple weeks [shudder] it reeks to any one else.
And Ryan, the inactive immune systems have not arisen from matters of personal cleaniness, but an overabundance and misuse of antibiotics and poor genes due to watering down of the gene pool through IVF and allowing people to reproduce and pass on their genes that otherwise nature would not have allowed. The antibiotics in particular cause me to go insane and I will get violently angry if I witness someone taking them for a viral cold or stop halfway thru a cycle or offer them to me if I am sniffling.
September 9th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Sounds like Jada is a eugenist!
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:50 am
No, Jada is a whore!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The flora the live on our skin live there no matter how many times a day you shower, and you are immune to them. You ought to be ashamed of yourself if you wash your towels after every use. Think about how much fresh water and eco-damaging soap (and bleach) is going into the rivers and waters. Think about all the fish that are dying because of your stupid obsessive compulsive behaviour- and you probably eat the same poor fish! Once a week is perfectly fine. Hot water kills all dust mites (that constantly live on your skin by the way!) and eco-friendly bleach (like oxo-brite) works to whiten the whites and brighten the brights! Quit being an anti-eco-friendly person and leave some fresh water for your kids!!!!