Boring one… do you have separate tea towels / hand towels in the kitchen?

[fulltimeparttime]

We need a better system in our house as we’re getting through too many tea towels and I’m sick of washing them so frequently.

What system do you have in your kitchen?

We don’t have a downstairs WC so use the kitchen sink often for hand washing. We use tea towels for all sorts, drying hands, wiping up spills, drying up the pots that don’t go in the dishwasher, taking dishes out the oven. I’m sick of them having so many uses and want to buy some separate hand towels but would like to know what other people do for all of the above.

Thank you!

We tend to use the tea towels as oven gloves and never to dry dishes so they are often not the cleanest, I wouldn't want to dry my hands on them.

Until recently we used kitchen roll to dry hands and the few dishes that needed it, which is hygienic but so wasteful and expensive. I bought some of those small square hanging shaggy cloth things for drying hands, they're brilliant and we have one each. They hang on a little hook on the side of a cupboard.

Definitely separate hand and tea towels here. Tea towel rarely used (have a dishwasher so not much need to dry things); hand towel used — and changed — much more.

We do have this problem too but it’s my DH and DS who are the main culprits. Really annoys me.

We have always had two towels in the kitchen; one for drying hands, and one for drying dishes.
I'm with you OP in getting fed up with washing dish towels.
In the nice weather, I hang the dish towels on the line to dry them.
They don't actually get dirty, they just get wet.
The hand towels though I do wash when they get soppy, and who knows how thoroughly hands are washed before drying?

You lot are the reason I’ve just put a tea towel wash on

We have tea towels and small hand towels in the kitchen

This is monstrous OP. 😱 How can you even ask?

Lots of tea towels, get used for everything, new one every day. They get washed with whatever is in the washing machine. I do get a fresh tea towel if I need to dry something up (but I rarely do because we have a dishwasher).

I'm a slattern compared to many on here though. Oh well.

Your freshly washed, clean hands?

Reading this thread has made me realise that my kitchen towel set up is quite complicated...

Tea towels for drying dishes
Glass cloths (linen or fine cotton) for drying glasses
Hand towels
Sponges for washing dishes
White knitted cotton dish cloths for wiping surfaces
Floor rags for spills on the floor
Kitchen roll for anything deemed too messy or disgusting for cloths

Erk.

I have tea towels, which are of the kind specifically sold for the purpose, and hand towels which are of the kind specially sold for the purpose (ie not just towelling tea towels). I hang one of each up next to each other in the kitchen and blithely assumed for some years that their respective use was obvious until one day we had this conversation.

"Can you pass me a tea towel please DH? I've got both hands full"
"Here you go DW"
"Thanks sweetie, but I wanted a tea towel"
"This is a tea towel"
"!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

Blimey. I have tea towels on the kitchen rail for dishes spills etc.

If I pee in the downstairs WC (no sink) I just rinse my hands under the kitchen tap and wipe on my jeans 😀

Now I'm seriously wondering what the 2 DS and guests do. Tbf they rarely use it

Same here.

Yes and no. I have 2 towels on the go, they're both technically tea towels but the 'loopy' ones are for drying hands, the smooth ones are for drying dishes. To us, it's obvious. Anyone visiting has to be told the navy ones are for hands!

Tea towels for everything except oven stuff.
it starts the day for hands, then gets used on the surfaces maybe, then possibly a water spill, tea spill, then in the wash.
but we have a downstairs loo with a hand towel.

Doesn't matter what I do, DH will dry his hands on anything. I once caught him drying them on the kitchen curtains, he's a bloody animal. I would blame his mother, but she would've been equally appalled at this behaviour. I just make sure to change the tea towel every day, and the washing up goes in the dishwasher anyway.

Dishcloth for cleaning sides, hand towel for hands, tea towel for drying dishes.

We have separate ones. Thin teatowels - for handling anything food-related or for drying up - live over the rail of the cooker. Hand towels, thicker and obviously more 'towelly', though small in size and not actual bathroom towels iyswim, live over the backs of two kitchen chairs. Works for us. We even have one hand-drying towel each (it’s just me and DH) which we started during Covid for hygiene reasons and just never stopped doing.

Oh, and blue roll for mopping up anything messy/spillages obvs.

Hand towel for drying hands.
Tea towels for drying washed dishes or sometimes to lay out with wet pan on if v big to dry
Dishcloths to wipe counters etc down and spillages.
Sponge for washing up.
Floor cloth or occ paper towel for floor spillage

Dishcloths and tea towels go in the machine in the short 15 min wash most days

And sponge

I always used to, for years and years. Then DH turned up and I have been unable to train him to tell the difference between a tea towel and a kitchen towel. 20+ years later and I have basically given up now.

Separate towel and tea-towel. I have an old-fashioned roller towel screwed to the back of the kitchen door. I am surprised that more people don't use them, it's very convenient. It's a big loop of towel that's threaded on a roller.
Like this:-

Yes we have a hand towel (changed daily) and a couple of teatowels (changed as needed but not often used as we have a dishwasher) plus different cloths kept under the sink for spills and wiping.

My mil only has the one cloth in the kitchen and it makes me feel queasy that she uses the same cloth to wipe her hands and dry up crockery and anything else she needs a cloth for.

We have an ikea rail of hooks that the towel & teatowel hang from and a cupboard stocked with clean replacements to grab whenever needed.

We have a downstairs loo but still use separate towels and tea towels. They're towelling material and linen so much obvious. We have some hooks on the wall for them and change them daily.

We have tea towels for drying dishes, hand towels for hands and cloths for mopping up drying work surfaces etc. Kitchen rolls for messes. Very often the ones in use get thrown in the wash daily with whatever else is in the wash, usually I do a wash of some sort every day.