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...)

gotthemoononastick you DON'T NEED to use chemicals to disinfect your washing.! The overuse of disinfectant chemicals contributes to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, more commonly known as 'superbugs'

These chemicals, you find in hand soap, dish soap an now god forbid, laundry detergent are linked to hormone imbalance and potential increased risk of breast cancer. Triclocarban appears to amplify testosterone in the body, while Triclosan has been shown to interfere with communication between cells in the brain and the heart.

I always think the the fuck actually buys this stuff?!

No one ever died from bacteria in their laundry. This obsession with killing every micro-organism that ever existed is just insane.

Hiphop Is white vinegar ok? I never use those endocrine disrupting detergents\cleaners etc. I use green detergents with a spray of white vinegar on the underarms of some shirts etc.

Hiphopfrog...antibac wash MAY be linked. The pleasure of non stinky washing and sports trainers is worth it and I will take my chances.

I do my bit by not putting a drop of eostrogen- richThames water into my body though! My adult children warn me about the plastic bottles and spring water and the mercury in big game fish and yes all those things you said too ,(lol)

If there is no sun, washing will stink! Tumble driers are the Devil's tools,to ruin fabrics and elastics .I am doing my best!

I don't use the laundry disinfectant or napisan for germs, I use it because it stops the armpits of my tops stinking after washing. Only on gym and riding tops
If you search this site there's hundreds of threads of people saying "this shirt smells of BO even though it's been washed" - it's a solution to it for me!
Definitely not on every load of washing

gotthemoonon I haven't found that my washing stinks at all if I hang it indoors (on rainy day or whatever) on a dryer near an open window, it just has to be removed from the machine quickly when the programme is finished.

Wow- I got called 'stupid' on here (different thread) for linking anti-bacs to antibiotic resistance.

I think these cleaning threads generally end up into a divide between those who see life as a battle against germs, microbes, bugs etc and those who just aren't that bothered. I know which camp I'd rather belong to...although I do like a shiny chrome tap and freshly descaled loo.

Towels and bedding washed at 60, everything else apart from bras at 30 using a non bio powder. Bras are washed separately on a hand wash cycle using a liquid for delicates.

An earlier poster mentioned washing knickers at 90. I'd be worried they'd shrink!

Knickers at 90?! This is some sort of self-hating, fear of womanliness thing.

"Why would a towel, that has been used to dry my body once, need a 90 degree wash?"

Why would a towel, that has been used to dry your body once, need to be washed at all?

We rented our place out on Airbnb this summer so the fucking wrinkly white cotton sheets get a 90 wash between guests and dried in the sun (or hung up inside, we don't have a dryer). Just seems nicer that a paying guest will get into a truly clean bed.

With the hot water and the sun I don't use a lot of detergent, seems like overkill. Or fabric softener, I love the smell but it makes clothes wear out faster.

When it's just us I like 40 degrees for everything unless someone has been ill.

Am I the only one who hangs the bathmat over the rail to properly air each night?

Everything goes in at 40- never had a problem

My luxurious silk camiknickers would come out the size of a postage stamp if I washed them at 90.

The laundry maid does them for me.

I do towels & bedding on 60, everything else on 40. I've no idea why 60 is any cleaner than 40 though. I tried washing on 30 for a while and found it just didn't kill the germs and wearing a clean top reactivated the sweat smell, but 40 gets rid of the germs. So surely it would work for everything else too?

How do you know 30 didn't get rid of the germs but 40 did, Happy? And what do you mean by germs?

Because I'd put a clean top on and within a few hours it would smell of old sweat in the underarms. I asked friends if I smelt bad and they said I never used to but they'd noticed it that day and had I changed deodorant? I went back to 40 washes and the smell vanished. Googling it I found loads of people had had exactly the same problem. I'm guessing whatever bacteria cause the BO smell weren't being washed away at 30. I hadn't changed anything else about my laundry or personal hygiene so I don't know what else could have given me the stink.

Or maybe it didn't remove the sticky antiperspirant?

happy I have had similar with doing a 20 degree quick wash rather than a 40 degree or a longer cycle. (No 30 on my machine)

I use a cream roll on deoderant and sometimes I have to rewash tops. I think the deoderant sticks to the fabric and the quick 20 wash isn't enough to wash it off properly. The appear fine after the wash but noticeable once dried. I have been known to sniff the armpits of clean tops before wearing just to make sure. Cream deoderant does build up in fabric so I do spot treat sometimes to clear it before washing.

I have a 7kg drum on my machine so can wash a fair bit at one time but again if I fill the machine and wash at low temperatures things don't come out as clean - they are fine at 40. So long as I remember to adjust the temperature depending on the load it's fine.

Can the scientists on here upsum what we should be doing (I know there are at least three of you).

It seems as if some of us in a hunt to be superclean are just wasting our money and THREATENING THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE

What I remember is that bio detergent enzymes work at 40 and fail to work thereafter. That drying clothes ASAP once washed is a good antibacterial (did sunlight come into it if poss). Do we know if bio detergents at 40 also destroy fleas nits and bacterial/ fungal infections? If not what does? What about non-bio (which you should technically use if you live rurally and have a cesspit because otherwise it destroys the bacteria which break everything down).

How come every poster on here has survived down the ages when their ancestors didn't have washing machines, tumble dryers et al? Let alone a change of clothes or cloth nappies.

Mumsnet should do a full investigation while we still have polar bears and rivers (currently over extracted to feed our water habit so loss of fish, eels, damselflies etc).

Ok...have a child and husband with bowel troubles so plenty of soiled underwear gets washed here. I normally do a load of underwear together but have obviously sluiced the heavily soiled stuff. Would a 40 degree wash with bio powder be sufficient?? Given that any higher temp would I suppose potentially denature the enzymes to the point where they'd become ineffective?

Also....cloths for kitchen and bathroom...separate washes? I am really overthibking this now!

My fancy new machine has a hygiene setting that starts the cycle heat treating the laundry to 70 first then washes as low as 20. I love it a bit too much.

Towels and sheets at 60c. Other stuff 40c. BTW nothing ever gets smelly if you hang it in the fresh air to dry. Even in winter I hang washing out for an hour and then dry it indoors. It seems to kill off smelly bacteria.

What I remember is that bio detergent enzymes work at 40 and fail to work thereafter.
There is, like for the question what temperature kills microbes, no hard and fast rule for that one. Enzymes come in a range of temperature optima and tolerances. Often isolated enzymes have a higher temperature optimum than the organism they were isolated from. I was involved in a project which screened for enzymes (proteases, amylases, lipases) from cold adapted microbes for a large company which makes washing powders and they were short on suitable enzymes which were active at room temperature, most of their good enzymes had activity optima above 50 C which means they still also work at lower temps but you have to add more of these enzymes to the washing powder to make up for their reduced activity at lower temps. Washing powders are formulated to work at a range of different temperatures. It would be possible as well to make biological washing powders that work at 90C. The currently known upper temperature limit for life is at 131 C (an archaeon, not a bacterium, but still a prokaryote) and there are plenty of suitable heat stable enzymes from hyperthermophiles that could be used but it would be a total overkill.