to only wash bath towels once a month?

[starkadder]

or less

DH is in charge of washing his own towel and I am sure he never puts it in the wash more often than once every 2 or 3 months...

DS's goes in about once every 2 months (but it barely touches him as he likes to run around naked pretending to be a train driver straight after his bath, which dries him quite effectively).

I usually wash mine about every month but have realised that I haven't washed it since coming home from hospital with DD, who is now 5 weeks...in my defence, there is one HECK of a lot of other washing to do and it just won't ever fit in the machine....

We do wash out clothes (!) and sheets once a week. And I do the kitchen hand towel every week or two - it gets quite grubby and also fits in the machine with another wash easily.

But are we grim and disgusting when it comes to bath towels? How often do normal people wash bath towels?

My God I am reallfussy it seems! I use TWO clean ones a day....one for hair and one for body....then they're in the wash!

THe DDs have one each after their bath and then thoe get washed and DH has 2 showers daily...he uses the same one a few times I think.

When his FIL came to sta for weekend I put three clean towels in his room and DH said "Just leave one or you'll confuse him" Now I see why! I am over clean towel woman!

My washer is always on! sometimes 4 or 5 washes a day.

I have loads of spare towels and four of us all with long hair but a small bathroom with two short towel racks. I use a clean towel every time I shower and I'm pretty sure the DDs do too. Otherwise you don't know if the towel you are using was used by someone else (all towels are white). I do a separate towel wash on hot once a week, and put them in the dryer on hot too. Sheets and pillow slips -- I just have one spare sheet set and do everyone's bed once a week.

OP I am a minger, but as mingy as this.:)

mumble thank fanny for that, thought it was just me.

I'm at the level of rankness.

Tut,tut.

Could you use smaller towels to make washing them easier?

Clean bath towels after every bath or shower, every day

Clean bath mat every day

Clean bathroom hand towel every day

Several clean kitchen towels a day

I do a load of towels/bath mats/tea towels every day as the are seven of us living here. Can't stand the thought of moist towelsnlaying everywhere.

Have decided this morning I am actually a minger as I do not clean bath mats and hand towels enough.

I am going to go into work and do a poll on how often people wash towels next week and see if as many people own up to being completely clatty in RL you all know.

Grim.

I feel manky for washing our towels once a week, but a month???? Ewwww! Also as I haven't trawled through all 16 pages I have no idea if this has already been addressed but... you say you recently gave birth? My towels were being washed virtually every day because they were rather ahem, bloody and stuff after a shower/bath. Sorry for tmi!

Yuk. We change kitchen towels every day, bath towels at need (every few days) and sheets no less than once a week. Don't understand how sheets particularly could be left any longer.

Some people are going ott using a clean towel each day , creates more work tbh. I change mine, unless dirty, once a week.

I buy towels the way some people buy candles, and only having a household of three we have plenty of towels to go around.
Even when I can't get to washing them - clean towels (kitchen, hand, bath) are replaced every other day (they are used a lot) and are washed in my 'towel wash' once a week.
I am quite anal about my wash cycles

MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll 'My washer is always on! sometimes 4 or 5 washes a day'

Wow, that's a lot, even for me!

I have just thought about this and had a shock. I use the bedroom en suite, husband uses the family bathroom, rest use other en suite. I wash my towels all the time but apparently judging by the mank in the other bathrooms, others beg to differ. note to self not to rely on anyone to change their towel when they have just told me that they like towels that smell "familiar".
By the way, am not stealth boasting about bathrooms, company accomodation, comes with the job otherwise we would still be living in one bedroom craphole in England.

Hmmm but if you have ever given your DP oral sex you cant have been a million miles away from his arse- and didnt die or get cooties?

Exactly!!!

I share towels with people in my family not some filthy random strangers! One of them a shag and exchange bodily fluids with on a regular basis and the other I grew and then he came out of my body - can't get much more intimate than that! Sharing a towel doesn't even register on my 'ewwwwww' scale

We all have our own towels in this house too. And I was the girls every week but mine and dh ibhave no idea how often sometimes monthly sometimes weekly. And the towel I wrap round my hair god knows I dread to think how often that has (or hasn't as the case may be) been washed.

Once a week here. We shower/bathe every other day, so they are used 3 times before washing. I change. bedding once a fortnight, weekly in a hot summer. Oh and we get 2-4 wears out of clothes, obviously apart from socks and underwear. Often wear a pair of jeans or pajamas for a week at a time. Proud to do my bit for the environment :)..

I could probably wash towels once a month if I really wanted to, because I have LOADS of towels. But it would mean having a big pile of dirty towels waiting to be washed for most of the month... Once or twice a week here, one wash with just towels in.

I am a bit obsessive about towels in that no matter how often they were washed they always seemed to smell even if line dried, I was about ready to chuck em and but new until I tried putting a bit of milton in the final rinse. now they last longer before smelling manky. all I need to do now is train the rest of the household to hang them properly and I might not be washing them every couple of days.

Mathanxiety, why not give everyone their own colour for towels, to take away the worry of using anyone else's one? That's what we do and it works well. Happy to share hand towels with DH and DS, but nonot bath or flannels.

We don't have colour-coded towels here. Though it does sometimes lead to confusion because DH is apparently incapable of recognising which towel he used the day before, and several of ours are varying shades of green.

OP, I'm definitely on the side of the skanks, but perhaps if you recently had a baby, changing your towel more often is a good idea. I had to change mine daily for a few days after giving birth as I was bleeding like a stuck pig.

Our towels get washed every couple of weeks. I know we should probably aim for weekly but hey. Nobody's died yet. Sheets. Well. You don't want to know about sheets.

But look, a few posters have said that they'd expect a clean towel in a hotel or spa or hairdresser, so why not at home. Why NOT? Um, because the planet's going to hell in a handcart as it is. Can people really justify washing towels after one use? Hotels are increasingly asking patrons to hang onto towels if they stay more than one night, anyway. The main and obvious reason you get clean sheets and towels in a hotel is because someone not known to you used them last.

Seriously, reading these sorts of threads makes me realise that there are people out there who must spend their entire lives constantly doing several loads of laundry a day, and remaking beds freshly all the time. Why? Do you not have better things to do?

Mumblingandbloodyragdoll, don't you feel a tad guilty for using your washing machine 4 or 5 times a day?

I can honestly say I have no washing machine/drier guilt what so ever!

DH, DD1 and I have a bath towel each. DD tends to just look at hers and air dries after her bath. DH takes his into the shower so it gets more damp than it would ordinarily. I wrap myself in mine and am dry pretty quick. All the towels get put on the airer or heated towel rail after use and are dry by next time. I probably wash mine at most every 3 weeks or so too. DD's less often and DHs more often as it gets whiffy-er sooner. In winter I shower every other day and daily in summer. I can't for the life of me understand the thinking in washing a towel after one use - you are clean, the water is clean - how dirty can the thing be? 2 or 3 loads of washing a day? No wonder people's electric and water bills are so high. Kitchen hand towel gets changed every few days and the tea towels too as I don't really use them for drying up. Bathroom hand towel lives on the heated towel rail and gets changed every few days.

If your clean washing is still smelling damp or musty even after correct drying/airing it is probably because you are washing too often a low temperatures. It is better for the environment and your electricity bill, but it is not good for the machine or the washing. There will be a skanky build up of soap residue inside the machine that really stinks (you can be forgiven it is a blocked toilet if you've ever smelt a badly bunged up machine!). It is good to run a boil wash through the machine once a week or every couple of weeks at least to keep the insides fresh. I do this with my dishcloths and teatowels. You can also run some biacarbonate of soda through the machine evey few weeks as well.

You speak sense Fellatio - even towels that haven't been washed for a while don't smell in this house.