To think that tea towels should not be used for hands...

[Susanjeffery1984]

Unless they have been washed?? (The hands that is, not the tea towels)

This morning yet again, I witnessed DH wiping his grubby little breakfast mits on a clean tea towel! He had just eaten a bacon sandwich with ketchup. When confronted he said we had no kitchen roll. True- he had used the last of the roll creating a snowstorm with DD the previous evening, however I argued that did not justify making a clean tea towel dirty when all he had to do was wash his hands first. What upset me more is that he was placing it back on the rail without acknowledging the fact it was now dirty!

I have just caught him doing this again after an incredibly buttery piece of toast.

I don’t know what is more upsetting: That he has completely ignored my request this morning or that I have yet another dirty tea towel.

AIBU or should tea towels be used as hand rags?!

Completely agree, and one step more; they should not be used for hands even if freshly washed. Go use hand towel in bathroom!

Just have two out? Or a hand towel and a tea towel?

Buy a hand towel? I don’t even use a tea towel to dry clean hands.

I don't understand why people don't have hand towels in the kitchen. Where do they wipe their hands? The only other option is a tea towel.

Tea towels shouldn't be used full stop.

We just have a hand towel in the kitchen.

I thought you were going to say for drying hands which I don't care about as they're changed a lot, but you can't just wipe food residue on them! It stains and you won't have properly clean hands.

How do you differentiate between a tea towel and a hand towel? Genuine question.

And, where are you gonna put these two items?

In fact, thinking about this, my tea towels are only used to dry hands and flick stuff out of the oven - I never use one to dry pots as it's unhygienic.

A tea towel is linen, and a hand towel is like a bath towel but a lot smaller. They are quite easy to distinguish.

Tea towels usually thinner and look like they are for kitchen use, stripey or something. Hand towel thicker and softer and normally plain colour looks like it belongs in the bathroom and bit bigger

I always use a tea towel for hand drying in the kitchen. When i'm cooking I wash/rinse my hands loads. What's wrong with that?

They shouldn't be used as napkins tho YANBU

One should also have a glass cloth in the kitchen.

halfwitpicker - what do you use to dry things with if not a tea towel? My tea towels are always clean as I am only drying clean things with them. They get changed at the end of every day.
I can’t stand the clutter of allowing things to air dry.

Tea towel hangs on cooker door and hand towel stays in bathroom directly off of kitchen so not far to go!

I don't dry anything.

We have a dishwasher and the stuff that can't go in it dries for half an hour on the sink drainer.

Hand towels and tea towels are totally different.

I have a mini towel rail that hooks over a cupboard door that I put a mini hand towel on.

My tea towel is in a different place so no-one can mistake one for the other. In theory.

Out tea towels are only used as hand towels. We have a dishwasher so we don't dry by hand. Anything that needs hand washing is left to drain dry. We also have a cloth to wipe glasses.

We get through maybe 3 tea towels a day but there are 7 of us living here.

UANBU. A tea towel should only be used for dirty hands if it is headed straight for the wash.

I dry my hands on my tea towels.

Oh the shame

Totally agree, we always have paper towels to hand for drying hands, cleaning spills, etc etc.

I don’t think the tea towel is the issue here. Wiping dirty hands on a hand towel would be gross too.

My DP does this and it gives me the rage. He'll also use it to mop up spills and then hangs it back up to be used again. I tend not to dry anything these days as can't ever guarantee the tea towel is clean.

Thank fuck I don't worry about this shit.

Never dry even washed hands on tea towel, recognisable as usually thin cotton material, sometimes stripey.
Dry your hands on a hand towel. A tiny version (about 20cm X 30cm) of a bathroom towel. They're always on sale with the ordinary bathroom towels.
Just being pedantic btw as someone upthread asked how you differentiate.
Your Dh is behaving like a pig, wiping his foodie hands on the clean tea towel, please train him up! Does he drink out of the milk bottle as well.

I only ever dry my hands if they've been washed, so can't see the problem with drying clean hands on a tea towel. I get through about 10 tea towels a week anyway, despite having a dishwasher, so they never get particularly dirty anyway.

When we got married, DH didn't know that there was a difference between a hand towel and a tea towel. Furthermore, he was happy to use the same tea towel for a week (leaving it on a warm radiator between uses). I've since realised that that's what his mum does - 1 towel in the kitchen, which doesn't appear to be replaced regularly (it's always the same one when I'm there; it has a distinctive bleach stain which identifies it).

I didn't use tea towels at all - just let dishes dry naturally.

We've compromised now by having a hand towel always available (regularly changed), and tea towel is used for one set of dishes only and then thrown in the wash.

DH thinks I'm mad.