To think towels need a hot wash?

[FirstOfHerName]

Recently I was staying with my parents on holiday and I noticed that my mum washes everything (including towels and bedding) on a cold half-hour wash. I told her that towels probably need a warm wash at the least and she got annoyed with me, saying that she used a special washing detergent formulated to work in cold water. They're her towels so I left it at that and said no more.

However, whenever she's stayed with me, she's told me it's grim that I wash towels and bathmats together. Well it would be if I did them on a cold wash, but I wash them (and bedding) at 90 and then tumble dry after, so don't see the problem with it. Any bathmat germs would be killed off at that temperature, I would've thought.

Who is more in the right here, her or me??

(someone telling me we're both disgusting in 3...2...1...)

My body is washed regularly and hence my bedding isn't mucky.

You'd be surprised. Say 100ml sweat a night per person. body oils, skin cells. Fluids from sex. None of these are 'dirty' per se but they go into your sheets. And dust mites love them. Anyone with asthma or allergies needs to be washing sheets and bedding regularly on a hot wash (as well as other dust mite prevention actions.)

You don't need to be autoclaving your jeans. Or boiling everything. Or using antibacterial stuff (which is bad for you and for the environment and for resistance.)

There are just a few things that do need a regular wash on hot. Dishcloths, bedding, towels and undies. Scrubs. Lab coats. Nursing uniforms. Wash your hands after the loo, before food prep/eating and if you've been out and about and come home. None of it is excessive. I'm not a germaphobe. Some germs are beneficial. Some aren't. Having worked in a lab for many years I am a big fan of hand washing, daily showers and yes, a 75 wash for my towels and bedding.

Yes but Anatidae WHAT WILL HAPPEN as a result of not following these germophobe practices? What dreadful diseases have I been suffering from for the last 50 years? If it's not smelling of detergent that is so offensive, how come I've retained many friends for 20+ years. Do they all lack a sense of smell?!

Did anyone ever suffer from sleeping on a dust mite?

What a daft question argymargy! ! Yes of course people can suffer from sleeping on dustmites. If you are allergic to them as my kids are , they can cause eczema, asthma, rhinitis and in severe cases anaphylaxis.

Did anyone ever suffer from sleeping on a dust mite?

Yes. They are powerfully allergenic for some people and can trigger asthma attacks. Which can kill you, or get you bluelighted to A&E as I know personally

Washing your towels in hot and washing your hands isn't germaphobe. Germaphobe is like my colleague who has a house so clean you are afraid to go in lest you soil it with your mere presence.

The worst? Probably nothing as long as you have good general hygiene. If you don't, you might smell a bit. If you or your kids have an allergy they might wheeze a lot or god forbid have an asthma attack. If they have a verruca they'll probably spread it around. Thrush will be a bigger to get rid of. If your toddler brings impetigo home you'll likely get it. That sort of thing. Nothing world ending.

I just like clean bedding and I wash my towels on hot and I'm very keen on hand washing (lifetime in the lab.) none of those are excessive, germaphobe or weird, thanks.

I'm in my 50s and have never in my life washed anything at 90. I do towels at 60 and tumble dry them afterwards. Everything else goes in at 40 or 30. I too am amazed and horrified at towels being washed after one use. The only exceptions are for swimming towels if I know they won't be used again for a while (or any towels used in emergency mopping up situations).

Personally I think that absolutely the best thing you can do for fresh and clean smelling laundry is to get it out in the fresh air to dry. We we restricted to using a tumble dryer recently on holiday and the clothes did not smell as nice at all.

We do not use fabric conditioner and wash everything at 40C unless in very exceptional circumstances when someone has been ill. I am not a dettol obsessed germophobe and nobody has a dust mite allergy in our house. I don't like antibac anything, I am very concerned about antibiotic resistance and don't think that some people's obsession with germs and nuking everything is in any way healthy.

Yes if you leave your washing in the machine for a day or even more then it;s going to smell BAD. All washing needs drying properly straight after it's been washed.

It must 've been terrible in the days before tumble and spin dryers (if you had a big family and small house). Because on a rainy day there was nowhere to hang the washing except the kitchen.

Ok so general consensus seems to be that a 30 or 40 degree wash for most things is fine, maybe bath and bedding stuff at 60. Just checking what length the 30/40 cycle is. My mum uses a cold wash half hour cycle for most things whereas I tend to believe that a longer cycle is needed. My 40 degree one is 3 hours 15! And I have to
do some enigma style codebreaking if I want to alter the temperature to 90 for a machine clean.

Say 100ml sweat a night per person. body oils, skin cells. Fluids from sex. None of these are 'dirty' per se but they go into your sheets

Well apart from the sex fluids, won't the sweat, body oils and skin cells that end up on sheets and towels also end up on clothes?

So if 30/40 C is fine for clothes, why isn't the same for sheets and towels? Especially as for towels, the exposure time is so much shorter?

Because you sleep on sheets for a week but you change your clothes every day?

I used to wash my bedsheets on a 90 cycle but I then discovered that my expensive Orla Kiely bed set had slightly shrunk. My duvet doesn't fit in it properly anymore, it's all bunched up and that annoys more than any thoughts of residual nasties so I just put them on a 40 now. I occasionally shove in some cloth nappy sanitiser stuff from my (short lived) cloth nappy days.

My washing machine's 30C or 40C cycle takes about 45 minutes. Couldn't be doing with 3 and a bit hours to do the washing!

Nope, no allergies here. Or DH, or grown up children. Never had thrush or impetigo. I thought research is starting to show a link between obsessive hygiene and allergies?

No verrucas either! One of the children did have nits once.

the thing is ..you do what works for you

if you don't mind never having properly clean towels/sheets then wash them at 30 for 15 minutes-it's not an issue for anyone but you

i want to limit allergy symptoms so i wash on a hot wash

shrug

horses for courses innit

I bet no one cleans their door handles or switches or remote controls or steering wheels....but their sheets are clean.

Towels, bedding and pants at 60C, everything else at 40C

So if 30/40 C is fine for clothes, why isn't the same for sheets and towels? Especially as for towels, the exposure time is so much shorter?

Because you don't wear the same clothes for a week. If you wore the same knickers for a week they'd need nuking too. Believe me I've done it on long hikes with minimal kit stuff that's next to the gentials does need a higher temp wash. Pants get done at a higher temp too.

a link between obsessive hygiene and allergies

More complex than that. But,,, Do you think washing your hands after the loo, pre eating and food prep and if you've been out in the garden is obsessive hygiene? It really isn't. Obsessive hygiene is hygiene to the point it creates a negative impact - so washing your hands until they bleed, or repeatedly washing items to remove an imaginary contaminant. It causes great anxiety. Shoving the towels on a hot wash once a week and washing your hands after the loo is pretty minimal stuff. It's certainly not even meticulous housekeeping (of which I cannot be accused) never mind obsessive.

The hygiene hypothesis seems to largely refer to parasitic infections, or lack of them. The idea being that the bit of the immune system that usually deals with them (IgE? I forget....) gets bored twiddling it's thumbs and attacks the self. There's more to it than that of course, big genetic component as well. You don't have allergies, that's likely mainly genetic. If one of you came home with strep, staph etc you'd be wise to enforce better towel hygiene, ditto going in to hospital for an op.

When I had my c section the hospital sent me home after the pre op with a long list of items I had to do. Wash bedding on hot, sleep on clean bedding the night before. Dh and I had to have a thorough wash including hair the night before, before bed and I had to wash in the morning. Clean clothes for both of us before we went near theatre. The hospital has a rate of hospital acquired infections far below the uk average.

Why do bath mats need to be washed separately?
Which one is the manky one?

My machine has the option of 20 degrees or 40 degrees (no 30) no I tend to go between the 2 depending on level of dirt on clothes. I occasionally do a 60 degree wash if I feel something really needs it. I think I've used the 90 setting once or twice for whites that needed a bit of a refresh as they where greying.

I do only use bath towels once. This is because I suffered years and years on acne on my back (now finally under control!), the bacteria from the spots is easily spread by reusing the same bath towels so they are one use only for me. Hand towels are fine for a few days depending on the level of use.

bathmats get really skanky here because they are not just for standing on, they are for mopping up all the water that gets spilt on the floor.
It's get trodden by all four people using the bathroom. Two of them are teenagers and often don't hang it up to dry after a shower leaving it lying on the floor to be stood on by anyone who might come into the bathroom in shoes possibly

but i do wash nbbathmats and towels together

"Personally I think that absolutely the best thing you can do for fresh and clean smelling laundry is to get it out in the fresh air to dry"

I used to think that too. But the washing powder/fabric conditioner I use here (Australia) are relatively unscented, and when I hang the clothes out to dry outside, they tend to smell very slightly of wet dog. I have no idea why - they dry properly, they don't come in damp - but the residual smell is not pleasant.

Don't have that problem in the UK but then the laundry products I use there tend to be more highly scented.

Piewraith!!!! My hand was up on the first page for ice cold washing!
Did mention that I use the antibac (dettol )stuff though!Lovely smell!