To be annoyed when people dry their hands on the tea towel

[clapback]

Is it just me does this bother anyone else?

They're for drying dishes not for drying hands!

YANBU = Dishes only
YABU = Dishes, hands, who cares?

I thought this was their main purpose TBH. Most dishes dry in the dishwasher if you have one.

When I grew up we had a thin tea towel for drying dishes and a fluffy but matching towel for drying hands. We called it a hand towel but it wasn't the type of towel you'd have in a bathroom. I'm not sure why I don't do the same thing now I'm an adult. But I just have one thin tea towel for all kitchen based drying.

I thought people used one for hands while cooking and another for drying dishes (assuming that they don't have a dishwasher)

We never fry dishes with our tea towels, they come out of the dishwasher dry. If dh has annoyingly decided to use one of the few things we own that can’t go in the dishwasher (I never do) so they have to be washed up, I’ll go get a new tea towel to dry it with.

So yes, gets used for hand drying.

We have a tea towel and a hand towel in the kitchen but it doesn’t really matter: the dishes are clean when being dried, the hands are clean when being dried. The hands touch the towel and the dishes anyway, there’s no avoiding the cross contamination of ceramics and skin.

I hate using tea towels to dry dishes I just leave in the rack

Bur we have hand towels for guests if need be

It annoys me too but I am guilty of doing it occasionally when I can't find the hand towel. I have a dishwasher but often have to run a tea towel over some of the dishes, especially anything plastic.

What do you use for drying hands then? We have a tea towel that is used for drying hands, usually use dishwasher or leave things on rack to dry but if I wanted to use a tea towel then I would take a clean one out of the cupboard for that purpose

yabu
they are used for drying hands in our house.
in the rare case (very rarely as we have a dishwasher) that we need to dry dishes with one we just take a fresh one out of the cupboard.

I have a small hand towel with the tea towels for hands. It does create more washing though.

We have a dishwasher so the only reason we have tea towels is to dry our hands!

Do you have a towel in the kitchen for drying hands?

Some I know doesn’t and gets annoyed when people use a tea towel. People are expected to either wash their hands in the downstairs loo or dry them in there. But the thing is no one knows this until friend gets annoyed 😂

Presumably, if someone has wet hands it's because they've washed them, in which case I don't see an issue with drying them on a tea towel.

Surely it's one if those things people can't get that worked up about?
Your hands are clean when you dry them.
You are going to touch the dishes with your hands anyway.
The tea towel is presumably washed fairly regularly.
I don't get the angst about such inconsequential little things personally.

No as it's not for drying dishes in my house. We have a dishwasher so we use tea towel only to dry our hands. I'd like to think others would then use a clean tea towel to dry dishes so I wouldn't think anything of it.

I never use a tea towel for drying dishes. Things which come out of the dishwasher wet or any thing which is hand wash stays on the drying rack area until it’s dry.

That's their main use!

If there's no hand towel out in the kitchen, then yup use a tea towel... yabu as your hands Will be wet because you've just washed up or washed them..

If someone has used a tea towel when there an obvious hand towel next to it, then yanbu they're either being lazy or unobservant

Yanbu at all! Tea towel is only for drying up. I have a teeny sized proper towel beside it for hand drying.

Agree with this - we don't really dry dishes very often.

If you've washed your hands properly then they are clean when you touch the tea towel, so there should be no issue with using the same tea towel for dishes.

Yabu. If your hands are wet because you've just done the washing up, it means your hands are clean from the hot soapy water and therefore fine to dry them on the tea towel, and then use tea towel for other things.

Tea towels for drying dishes etc, hand towel (roller towel in fact) for hands.

As for all the people saying the towels are clean because your hands are clean - ha ha ha!! Not unless you're doing medical-grade handwashing: palms, between fingers, under nails, backs of hand and wrists. A splash of soap on the front of your hands and quick rinse under running water isn't 'cleaning' your hands. Why do you think there was a public campaign on handwashing during Covid?

Presumably by the same logic your bath towels also stay clean, so you wash them once a month?

I use my tea towels all the time - drying hands, worktops after I've wiped them. I go through about 3 a day! Rarely actually dry dishes with them though, the dishwasher does it or anything that I hand wash, drip dries.

Couldn't live without my tea towels and kitchen roll.

YANBU.

Unless you thoroughly scrub your hands for 20+ seconds then your hands aren’t properly clean (and even then..). Then you wipe your hands onto a nice absorbant tea towel which becomes warm and damp, a very nice environment for the bacteria you’ve transferred to the towel to proliferate. Then you rub the towel all over glasses, cutlery and plates. Yes, you will be using the same hands to pick up the plates etc up but generally people don’t rub their hands all over them.

Might be in the minority here but we use tea towels to cover hot/warm food and kitchen roll to dry hands/mop up spills etc.