Do you wash your bathroom towels with your kitchen towels?

[Bluerose27]

Just that really.
I like to keep on top of washing, especially when the sun is shining. So today I had half a load of bathroom towels and half a load of kitchen towels so I threw them all in on a high temperature.

I feel like it's two different types of germs mixing though.

But I feel a bit silly as I type this. If I'm crazy to worry about this please let me know gently!!

What about cloth nappies? A lot of people wash those at 40 as per manufacturers guidelines, AND with other things such as clothing in the same load! In fact they only recommend a 60 degree wash when the baby has a stomach bug and after vaccinations.

When my DD2 was in halls a student (male) put his poo into the microwave and let it run for several minutes.

The halls were put under decontamination and the parents of the student were sued for the amount of the clean up.

Unfortunately, he wasn't banned from using the halls, despite numerous letters of protest.

This was less than 4 years ago.

I think we've gone off on a tangent here

Body towels, tea towels, kitchen sponges, shower puff, flannels, slippers and bedding all go on a 60 wash, all in together. Along with any stray socks and everyday pants.

All other clothes go on 40 with about half the recommended amount of detergent. The clothes feel just as clean and don't honk of cheap synthetic floral fragrance.

OMG, you can keep your parking threads. The laundry ones are by far the best. Especially this - surely the best comment there's ever been on MN:

Today 01:07 LapdanceShoeshine

I'm sure this is completely ott but I wash towels (plus tea towels, flannels, oven gloves, bath mats) twice - with bio at 40 degrees & again with non-bio at 60.

Probably very excessive but I'm happy with the results smile

Do you mean tea towels? If you're washing up is clean, your tea towels shouldn't be dirty really. So why not wash them with your bathroom towels?

I'm washing my kitchen towel at 90 and that is the only reason why I wash them separately. My bath towels have a limit of 40 or 60 degrees so I can't wash together with kitchen towels. The reason why I'm washing my kitchen towels at high temperatures is because I belive they get exposed to more germs than the rest of the garments. But that's just me. It's doesn't mean that doing it different is wrong

I guess everyone knows there's no point using bio detergent at temperatures over 40? As you would kill off the enzymes. So if using bio just stick to 40. Non bio if you really must wash at 60.

On a hot wash with a disinfectant WILL be fine.

-swears to self not to click any more MN click bait and stick to popping into recipes, style and health of own volition. MN social media are experts at getting hits while highlighting threads living up to the worst stereotypes about mumsnetters. I used to like coming here before I FB clicked!! I'm sure the common sense filled threads must still exist..!?--

Unless there's someone ill in the house, or you wipe your poo with bath towels, or dry your chicken after washing with tea towels, there's really no need for 90 oC washes or disinfectants.

I love these threads! In our house it's light or dark. 40 or 30 degrees! Three washes per week. (Household of 3 people).

90 degree wash for all towels and sheets.
I consider it necessary because otherwise any eggs laid in the linen and any spores of mould and fungus can survive and I don't want them to.

I'm not washing them at that temperature to kill germs but ensure fungal spores and bugs and bug eggs are definitely zapped.

Even if you keep your own home super clean you only have to visit a hotel or someone else's house to pick up a bed bug or flea and if you don't kill them off they breed in your house. House dust mites are everywhere and have to be kept under control. Hot water is much less damaging to the environment and to human health than chemicals and so I wash sheets and towels hot.

Haven't RTFT yet but what is this magic of zoflora in the machine u speak of? Is this done after the clothes are removed?

This is a bit like anti bacterial spray thing. I've seen experts on bacteria and food hygiene say that they are completely unnecessary and that cleaning with hot water and soap is just as effective, same goes for hand washing soap. Nobody needs anti back soap. But, manufacturers have brainwashed(with antibac soap no doubt) us all. Now we all need to anti back our dishwashers, washing machines and put disinfectant in with towels??!! Really??

wantmorenow

Thanks for the tip on blood in towels.

Love MN laundry threads. I seperate whites and darks. Erm, that's it.
Quick 30 min wash most of the time, 40 degrees for full mixed load. Towels sometimes get a 60'degree on high days and holidays. Everything goes in together.
Nobody died yet.

Why are your towels so dirty?

You use towels to dry you after you get clean surely?!

I'm sure this is completely ott but I wash towels (plus tea towels, flannels, oven gloves, bath mats) twice - with bio at 40 degrees & again with non-bio at 60

It is OTT.

If you cannot trust your machine to remove germs then get a better machine instead of washing things said separately or more than once.

I wash by temperature requirement/colour/material.

Anything that isn't heavily soiled is 40C. Heavily soiled is 60C and that includes towels, regardless of room of origin, even if they look clean. Or 95C if we are talking vomit etc.

No wonder we have a problem with climate change.

I sort my laundry as it goes into the baskets. Main laundry basket is upstairs, there's another in the utility room for tea towels, oven gloves etc that get used in the kitchen. It'd be much more effort for me to mix up the loads than to just wash full loads of similar items together, on a suitable wash programme.

Re dishwasher: if it's a load of glasses, teacups, plates and cutlery which isn't especially dirty, I'll use a low-temperature short wash to save energy/water. If the load includes knives and chopping boards which have been used on raw meat, I'd choose a hotter programme.

But how do you ever generate sufficient tea towels to actually fill a whole load up?
Surely it's just one a day? So then you've got 7 a week? Still not enough and results in loads of mangy tea-towels hanging around.

Also what's a kitchen towel?

Kitchen towel is a towel that you would dry your hands on, after washing your hands in the kitchen (not the tea towel, which would be used for drying dishes)

My tea towels go in with whatever coloured wash is going into the machine at the time. White tea towels in with a white wash, coloured tea towels go in with a coloured wash.

You'd run out of clean tea towels before gathering enough to put in a wash of their own, surely?

Ms Harry - I completely agree with you re this flipping anti bacterial stuff. I refuse to buy any. My mother never had any and her mother wouldn't have had any.

Just been reading about anti biotics and all the damage they have done. I'm sure all this anti bacterial bumpf that people on mumsnet buy has done loads of damage. It's not necessary.

I thought kitchen towel was that paper stuff for mopping up spills. I dry my hands on a teatowel.