Towels - each person their own set, or take nearest (clean!) one from the cupboard?

[Ramekin]

Having just realised that some of our towels are over 15 years old (and our "new" towels are 9 years old, I'm planning to splash out (ha ha) on some new ones.

Current towels are various shades of blue, DH and I take clean one from the cupboard and use it for a week. DDs have smaller towels, again, next clean one from cupboard and use it for a week.

Now that I am buying new ones, I am considering bringing in a colour-coded "own towel" policy, everyone gets a different colour and only ever uses towels of that colour, we have a seperate colour for guests and handtowels and bathmats (and the ancient blue towels are relegated to swimming towels).
I think DD would be excited to choose her own colour, and I feel somehow this way is more hygienic.

DH is resistant and reckons it is unnecessarily complicated, and he won't be able to remember which colour is for what, and that when we wash all the towels together all the colours will run and they will look dingy.

What do other people do?

Agree with Saltire and Ariel. Towel drying clean person= doesn't need to be washed so often. Ours go longer than a week and we aren't scuzbags, honest. Maybe if you have a teenage son putting product all over them (but then, that's his towel and he probably isn't fussed, is he?)
But they use lots of water and energy to wash. We dry ours on the line and did a batch when there was a good drying day at the weekend.

We have a glorious mish-mash of browns/blues/whites/one green (dunno where that came from)/red towels. I dislike the feel of new towels so it would take a lot for me to replace my old favourites, hence the mis-matchiness.

Pretty much free-for-all here although towels are supposed to be hung neatly over the heated towel rail after use, to be washed every few days or so. In reality, ds2 pulls them off when he wipes his mouth/hands after washing and ds1 keeps trying for the World Record of most towels used in a week and secreted in his bedroom. I think he just likes to watch me froth at the mouth about it...

Bathroom is too small for towels so they stay in other rooms. I have a couple bath sheets of my own but all the rest are for anyone.

And good towels last ages - some of mine were a wedding present to my mum in 1958!

I do wash every day and the towels just go in with the mixed ...I have a ds2 with an illness that means he picks up infection easily so I just prefer not to risk it,its rare they go in the dryer tho they line dry or goon a radiator in the ds room as he is asthmatic and the 'damp' towel helps the dry air.

The children did have their own towels. But now we just have huge towel cupboard and is a free for all.

Hmm, interesting, looks like it often tends to end up being a free for all even if you start out with the best of intentions.
Maybe I will let DD choose a gaudily different coloured one, and go with tasteful neutrals for the others.

I have a bath towel, DH has a matching bath sheet, same colour. They match the ensuite.

DS & DD have navy & pink kids' John Lewis ones which hang up in the main bathroom. So we all have one each and they're all washed about once a week. Daily washing is insane! Unless you don't actually wash yourselves properly in the shower/bath.

The hand towels in the downstairs loo are washed much more frequently, probably every other day.

Obviously we possess more than 1 x bath towel / 1 x bath sheet each , but we always know which is ours due to size!

Nicks your washing must be massive! I use towels for longer than a week. I have my own. If it smells it goes in the wash! We all have our own.

All my towels are varying shades of white. Each one is used maybe a couple of times and put in the wash. Using a towel for a week is not something I could do, though, urgh.

All have our own. None of them match.

Same as majority here - free choice of towel from the cupboard, then that remains yours until it needs a wash.
dcs do actually each have a towel of their own, but they tend to be kept for swimming / beach and they use the 'general ones' most of the time.

I had a great variety of colours, but when I got my new blue bathroom I just bought a load of dark blue dye and dyed them all - they came out various shades, but basically all the same blue.

We all take towels of the required size from the airing cupboard as needed until they run out, at which point we do a wash, or in a crisis raid DD's bedroom floor - her record was 18....

With teenage boys I solved the free-for-all by designating a colour to each for as much as possible, eg towels, dressing gowns and toothbrushes. It works and given that we definitely wouldn't wash them after every use everyone reuses only their own.

All our towels are beige and get washed once a week at the most. We all have our own rung of the towel rail so know whose it is. They are on a heated towel rail so do not smell musty and i can't imagine having to wash them every day, there is enough washing already to do.

When I was young, my dp's, db and I all shared towels and did not have our own to use!!! Makes me feel a bit eurgg to think of it now. ( wiping my face on towel that df has used on his feet and other areas!)

Yes the idea of towel sharing is a bit

Both

This is because despite the OH being a borderline germaphobe and insisting on separate towels, you guessed it, he grabs the nearest. And the DCs do the same, of course. I've taken to keeping my towels apart from all the rest, just because I felt like being fussy about my fuschia towels

Own bath towels here, by colour. Since you can buy so many colours of towel now I'm gradually moving the "personal colours" to be toning and go with the bathroom. But cannot change DH's colour too much or he gets confused.

They don't shed after a few washes do they? I always buy fron Dunelm.

Rusty my ds has a lot of competition then lol.

I think im a bit obsessive about towels because we never had clean stuff as kids and given that ds1 and I both get disgusting cold sores etc.

DD used to have her own when she was a baby/toddler. But now we have the same ones, all are white. We take one out of the cupboard, use it for 2-3 days, wash basket and get a new one. Visitors use the same ones - they are all clean after all.

We do have our own towel once out of cupboard, til put in wash basket. We put them on different rails, etc so know which are which.

We have all one colour - would look all wrong in bathroom otherwise!

When I was growing up we all had 'our colour' towels. No confusion then. Towels washed once a week. Makes sense I think!

I have lovely, huge, fluffy, snuggly towels that look lovely in the bathroom :) I far perfer to get dried with the thin old beach towels

Our towels didn't stay in the bathroom - they went onto an airer in the airing cupboard in the winter and on the line in the summer :)

We dont have space in our bathroom for towels so they all go in a wicker basket, all different colours as dont need to co-ordinate with bathroom, towels get washed after 2 uses.

I bought dc's huge disney bath sheets when they were really little, about 4 and 6 yo, they still used them now, they are nearly 19 and 17

Apart from that they have been bought sets, and yes everyone sticks to their own in this house anal

:)