Sharing towels

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

Lighthearted one here and suspect may be told this is very much a first world problem....

Towels.

When I was growing up we always had our own towels. Not just "own" in terms of not sharing a wet/used towel but I had pink towels, dsis had yellow, mum had green and dad blue. You NEVER used someone else's - helped yourself to a clean one from airing cupboard but always your own colour.

Fast forward to now. My kids have their "own" (distinctive striped/coloured/embroidered but not with a colony rule). DH thinks it's reasonable for him/me just to take any clean towel from the place we store clean towels and use it. This means he's currently got my lovely yellow white company super duper bath sheet. He says that as I've got another towel he can't see the issue. Apparent when he was growing up they just took any clean towel from the airing cupboard.

He thinks I'm weird for wanting "my" towels to be mine. I think he's weird for not wanting his own (we have loads of nice towels - don't get me into him using parts of the matching sets of guest towels.....)

So AIBU or is he?

Slightly off topic but at my DP (who I don't live with) they use a teatowel for EVERYTHING, all 4 kids pass the same towel around the table at mealtimes & use it to wipe hands,mouths,spills it's also used to dry pots, get stuff out of oven with!
I'm seriously grossed out, I even bought him some kitchen roll as a present a really shit one his kids thought it was an alien concept & it got relegated to the top of fridge!

Everyone has their own colour, just like us growing up. NO sharing. Then lots of random extras for guests. Separate swimming towels. Also no sharing. Then I know who's lost what.

Oh my, I think do whatever you're comfortable with.
We all kind of have our own & we try to wash them regularly (a nice relative term, so no one thinks we're slobs!)
In my perfect Pinterest world (where I have fresh flowers & bedding everyday) I have fresh towels everyday too, they are colour coded, EVERYTHING is colour coded/matching/clean/fresh/perfect, the sun shines all day, malteasers have no calories (sorry, totally OTT!)

I would love fresh bedding every day but I don't have it in me to do it

We have a weird colour thing that also started out with toothbrushes - kids always always choose the same colours so we kind of naturally always choose our own colours of everything now. DC2 loves everything blue, so had blue towel, blue cups, blue toothbrush so we always know it's hers and DC1 loves orange.
I went for a wacky IKEA theme where the bathmat is rainbow stripes and so the towels look quite cool in really bright colours

We all use any old towels. Apart from the dog - he has his own set.

Rainbow you just reminded me of probably the whole reason I am like this - similar in my house growing up with a disgusting dishcloth. It used to be brown and STINK. I got that wiped on my face too many times. I now cannot stand them. J cloths only in my house.

OP, I think that you should put the lovely towel through the wash and then hide it in your drawer, not the airing cupboard.

DH and I share a set of towels in our bathroom , but we each have our own bath towels - I'm not phobic about his germs, I just want to use a dry towel rather than a soggy one he's just used.

The children have their own towels that they keep in their rooms, and I put a pile of white hand towels in their bathroom for general use .

Guests get their own towels, which are kept in the spare room.

Also, we think that one of the children picked up molluscum when a relative who had molluscum used DC's towel. (We had given the relative his own towel, and nobody realised he was just using whichever was nearest while they were playing in the paddling pool).

We all have our own bath sheet. Hand towels are shared. Similar colours but hung in different places so we know they are ours.

Afraid they are not washed after one use but no one has died.

I'm also emetophobic and Norovirus spreads easily on towels before anyone realises they have it....

Colour coded here. Not washed particularly often either as we're all clean when we use them.

And no hand towels upstairs unless there are guests, we each just use our own towel.

We all have our own coloured everything here, especially and strictly enforced after poor DD caught a very bad case of impetigo from her cousins when.she was.4. I'm still not sure if I've forgiven SIL for that as she had brought her DC around to play in the pool, knowing that that had it. It ruined a holiday that we had booked with friends as they obviously didn't want their DC to catch it,plus we had to pay out a hefty medical fee as we were abroad.

The overseas doctor told us strictly no towel/bedding/flannel sharing from then on.

Norovirus is aersol droplet born. It travels through the Air in microscopic poop and vomit particles. If there's Norovirus going round the house then a towel would be the least of my worries.

Towels were shared when I was growing up and when I lived with first DP, so it came as a shock to find that other people didn't. I'm happy with having a towel each on the go; I'd rather use a dry one than a damp one, but I don't feel the need to have My Own Do Not Touch towels. DH does. He gets the right arse when I use one of his for DD, even though the cupboard is full of other, perfectly good towels.

I also don't have towels that match anything. I have towels at least 10 years older than me, and will continue to use them for as long as they are fit to be seen and functional. I don't give them that much thought - 'ooh, fluffy!' before buying a few more that I don't really need, or 'will I get them dry today or shall I do them tomorrow?' is about the extent of it.

Noro is actually spread primarily on surfaces - esp in the bathroom.

We don't share towels - I currently have a skin infection and don't want to pass it on, plus the risk of worms etc. from DD who is a toddler, etc. Also DH has a rather different hygiene acceptance level than me - he grew up in a house where his mum hardly ever did any cleaning, animals everywhere, bedding not changed often, and so on. He washes his towel about once in every two months. I'm a bit of a clean freak and don't particularly want to use a towel that DH has been wiping his bum crack on for two months But I refuse to follow him about washing his towels, so each to their own and he can knock himself out with the manky unwashed towel

Jumping on this thread, who reuses towels?

I was brought up in that once a towel had been used it went in the wash basket.

It's only when I moved in with DP and saw him hanging the towel to dry for another use that I realised this was an actual thing and at first I was a bit and I'd never reuse them - but now realise that is saves time and money and isn't unhygienic so I do it too. And how many uses is too much?

We always reuse towels. That's the way I was brought up, and it's what I do now. I get cross when towels that have only been used once are in the washing basket. It's unnecessary to change them after each bath/shower, and creates a lot of extra work.

I was so confused when I first saw it and was a bit eek about it, really silly I know but I'd just been brought up only using once. I wish I'd have known it was okay to use more because I did all the washing in my teens and would have saved me so many loads

DH has his own towels, I have mine.

I'm like CMOTDibbler. Guests get their own towel but within the family unless the towel is dirty they get used, hung up to dry and reused and washed once a week. If all towels are wet you get a dry one out.

We re-use towels, but only for 2 days.

I like mindsweeper, was brought up in a strictly 'once only' household then I met dh who was the polar opposite - his family re-used towels for about a week!

We have compromised somewhat, although our children just lob towels into the washing baskets after one use regardless.

We have a common towel pool. I have one bath towel I see as my own.

"using an unwashed towel that someone else has already dried themselves on is just revolting."
Only if it's still wet.

"How is it dirtier than sharing a bed? Sleeping in someone else's skin cells and sweat but most couples sleep together."
Quite
I was brought up in a family where we had our own colour coded towels which we used for a week before they went in the wash.
DH just picks up any towel - and he doesn't understand the difference between a small towel and a bath mat.
As many others have pointed out - as a couple we share germs anyway so I'm not fussed about using the same towel as him. I have a towelling robe which I put on when I get out of the shower anyway, so in my case it's just feet and legs - I have small towel I use on my face, and another "hand towel" one I use on my bum after I've used the bidet.

The children, however, have their own cartoon character towels - you really can't use the wrong one "by mistake" - and DS is getting more and more annoyed at his father just picking up "the first towel that comes to hand" - and using DS's cartoon one, meaning when DS gets out of the shower he finds it's already wet. It must be said that DS has skin conditions and had Impetigo when he was younger, so it does matter. He's got to the stage when he hides his towel in his room.

My gripe is with DH using my "bum towel" as a bath mat. FFS, they are completely different colours and I don't want to wipe myself on a soggy towel. Which is another problem- I don't know how he manages to get so much water everywhere, but the bath mat is always soaked after he's used it.

So I can really relate to the OP and just wish OH could be more considerate of other family members.
As for washing towels after every single use it is not environmentally friendly, and frankly, life is too short.

The towels are colour co-ordinated to the bathroom decor. We all use them and everyone is expected to grab a clean one from the cupboard when needed.