Tea towels - how do you wash yours?

[TyneTeas]

Do people wash them separately or stick them in with an ordinary wash?

I always do mine separately, but it means they are hanging around until I have a few to do.

I'm not sure whether everyone segregates things that go on bodies from things that go on things that food goes on or if I am being a bit ridiculous...

@Stressing

With towels. Definitely NOT with underwear. Yuck.

What's the difference? You rub your body dry with your towel...lots of dead skin cells & Christ knows what else, I think one is as bad as the other.

The ones I'm using at the time go in my normal wash but I also gather all my most recently used ones and put them in with the towels too.

On their own or with cleaning cloths (which have sometimes been rinsed first eg if dusty)

Would never wash tea towels with my clothes.

I don’t often use them to dry dishes -
I use one as a hand towel in the kitchen so it doesn’t stay that clean. Don’t want Smells/oil/colours from use in the kitchen to mix with my clothes.

I don't own enough tea towels for them to have their own wash . They go in the machine with whatever is in the machine.
The only thing that's ever had its own wash that wasn't shared was when I had dc in nappies!

@draughtycatflap

I sort mine by category and do a separate load for each:

Cathedral/fancy church
Scottish Lochs
Gardens in bloom
Saucy naked men
Feline cuteness

Anything bought by MIL obviously gets chucked straight in the bin.

Draughtycatflap

I wash them separately on the hottest wash.

The only things I wash separately are nappies and delicates. Everything just goes in together!

I do them separately with towels at 60 degrees. But I know even as I say that that it's illogical really because the whole purpose of washing in the machine is to clean stuff. It's not swilling around in dirty water because the nature of the washing powder/liquid is to clean the fabric. Doesn't it 'hold' the dirt in the water in some way (sorry, I know there is a proper more scientific explanation) so that it gets rinsed away instead of soaking back into the clothes.

I’m in my sixties and have spent all my life chucking tea towels randomly in with the rest of my washing because I have had more interesting things to think about.
I have survived.
When worrying about my sluttishness I console myself with the belief that if a global pandemic comes along my immune system will be in tip-top condition.

I chuck mine in with anything, I put them in the washing machine as soon as they get too wet to dry anything, I dont let them dry out to use again.

They go in with our towels, with a bit of napisan. I did used to wait until I had a halfload of them and then do a separate wash but since having a dishwasher it would take ages to get enough.

People are weird about tea towels. MIL- whose house is so filthy that my husband goes up ahead of me and spends two to three hours cleaning before I can bring myself to join him for our annual Christmas visit (we meet his mum at his brother’s house the rest of the year)- not only washes tea towels separately but carefully irons each one. They are the cleanest thing in her house.

Everything comes out clean, so it makes absolutely no difference what kind of dirt was on it when it went in.

I wash all towels together on a 60

I sling mine in the washing machine, just before it walks there, then when I have enough other dirty stuff I do a 30 or 40° wash.
I will never understand separating colours etc because if its a cool wash nothings going to happen.

I totally see the sense in the idea of not worrying too much about germs, but I also think people vastly overestimate their washing machine’s sanitisation capabilities. If I found out for example that you wash your dinner napkins with your underwear… I would probably politely leave the napkin untouched. I also sanitise my machine and clean out the trap and powder drawer, and as far as I can reach behind the powder drawer and all around the seal, at least every couple of weeks. Washing machines get NASTY and they only sanitise if you use a sanitising product and/or the hottest wash. Just because something looks clean when it comes out doesn’t mean it actually is clean.

@IncrediblySadToo I know, right? I am in no way an obsessive cleaner, my carpets are hairier than my dogs right now, but this seems pretty obvious hygiene to me.

Don’t want Smells/oil/colours from use in the kitchen to mix with my clothes.

Don't you use washing powder / detergent ?

I put mines on with towels I dont use fabric softener on any towels as it reduces absorbency.

Separate wash, with cleaning cloths.

I don't use them, but if I did I guess I would wash with my other towels.

They go in at 90 with the sheets and towels if I'm doing them, if not they go in with whatever else I'm washing at whatever temperature.

Do mine with the towels on a 60° wash. On lock down I was washing the hand towels daily with the tea towel. Though we have a dishwasher and it probably doesn't get dirty but felt like I was doing something. I used to iron them in a bygone age though that would be a good way to sterilise them.

With normal 40 degree wash. However I change them every 2 days or so and we dont handle raw meat so they dont get very dirty.
Where i used to work they were filthy and people would wipe their mouths on them after lunch!! < not envy.

Daily, in with any old wash except cold/wool/delicates. I have been doing that for thirty years and none of us have died of unsanitised tea-towel lurgy yet.

I only recently realised that DH thinks you're supposed to wipe tables/worktops with them as if they were dishcloths. We have been together for several decades, but it does explain why they get grubby and stained so quickly and why all my 'pretty' ones look like rags after a few weeks.