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?

Drying hands is the primary use for tea towels in our house.

Although if we’re drying dishes, that’ll be done with a separate tea towel.

Different households use the towel for different things. I have a drying rack so I don't use teatowel for dishes. So it's for my hands. At my childhood home there were 2 towel etc.

I think drying dishes is weird. I put them out to dry and they dry, a towel leaves little fibres on the dishes.

The tea towels are for drying hands and surfaces in my opinion. The dish rack and the air is for drying dishes.

I dry my hands on a tea towel, just because it's the only towel I have in the kitchen!

I dry hands though not many pots and dishes on teatowels as we have a dishwasher. I wash them once a week. Don't have a particular regime for bathroom towels, I just notice they haven't been washed for bit and chuck them in the washing machine. Same with bed linen.

Dishes dry on the draining board.

T towels are for drying wiping and any other kitchen purpose!

I use lids of T towels and they just go in the wash!

It's disgusting. We have different towels for that, but DH uses either and to add insult to injury, he leaves the soggy towel on the worktops.

I use my tea towels for hand drying but the dishes mostly air dry and if we ever do dry something up it’s done with a clean towel out of the drawer rather than the one that’s already out. They’re changed every day.

Yes, I'd agree with this. Although I tend to use fresh ones daily anyway. We usually have 2-3 floating around the kitchen and I toss them in the washing machine regularly. If I needed to actually dry dishes, I would though take a clean one out.

When you watch cooking programs the chef always has a dish towel slung over a shoulder or whatever. They don't even seem to rinse/wash their hands before using it. then they whip it out to wipe something down etc. I always assumed they use one towel per meal prep.

Why would it be disgusting if you've just washed your hands (hence need to dry them)??
We use the tea towel to dry hands and dishes (although generally leave them on the draining board until dry), and to mop up watery spills in the kitchen. Fresh tea towel roughly daily. I really can't see the problem here. Nothing in a kitchen is sterile, and nor should it be.

YANBU! The exception being whilst I’m actually cooking, when I keep one for hand washing if I need to, but my hands are already clean to start with. I don’t dry dishes with tea towels but I do use them all the time to cover food, wipe down surfaces, clean knives, mop up spills, etc, & get through 2-3 a day.

They’re definitely not for general hand washing when people come in from dog walking or off the train or whatever - I’m no hygiene freak, but as per @TokyoStories post, that’s a bit grim.

I do that as I would be drying my hands after washing the dishes so exactly the same water going on the tea towel.

I don't understand this? Surely, if you come in and wash your hands, using soap, that's the whole point? now your hands are clean and you are simply wiping off clean water onto the tea towel? how is that grim?

We don't have a towel in the kitchen so you only use a tea-towel or kitchen roll.

I dry my hands on tea towels as do the rest of my family. The tea towel is changed and goes in the washing machine pretty much every day.

It's a towel and is used as such.

I have both in the kitchen but surely your hands are clean as you have just washed them ?

I don't get it. If i am druing my hands it's because i just washed them so... What's the issue?

Well said 👏🏻

only for dishes!

I might dry my hands on it at the very end before I hang it on the rail it dries on, then in goes in the tub of dry but used dish cloths & tea towels then they get soaked in detol laundry cleanse & washed together (not with anything else) & line dried.

And yes, there's a separate hand towel in the kitchen, for you know, HANDS.

You don't have a Siemens dishwasher then? I have to dry stuff by hand or put it in a rack to dry. (I don't fry my dishes either, it's messes them up).

I always had a tea towel and a hand towel. My parents did, so I did, still do, a guest sized towel/small hand towel other wise the bottom gets shut in the cupboard below the rail, and a normal tea towel, or 'dish towel' if you live elsewhere.

If you've ever had someone dry their hands on a white tea towel I don't think you'd use it on dishes or to cover food afterwards. I now leave a stack of face cloths by my sinks as hand towels, so that they're single use instead of multiple use (by multiple people) towels. I started doing that when we were all being hyper vigilant during early Covid and I've just continued.

We don’t use tea towels for dishes as they come out of the dishwasher dry. So they’re mainly for hand drying in our kitchen. If we did need to dry dishes for any reason I’d get a clean one out of the drawer anyway, not use one that had been used for anything else.

YANBU.
I don't put my pots, pans and Pirex bowls in the dishwasher so yes a tea towel is used for dish drying only.

I do however have a hand towel hanging on the oven door for drying hands.

We have one for dishes, one for drying the sides and hob after cleaning and a hand towel for hands in the kitchen. We rarely use the tea towel for dishes though as it gets them all fluffy!

We go through about 10 tea towels a day and use them for lots of kitchen stuff including drying any dishes we have hand washed and our hands.