Do you have a towel management system?

[PeaMcLean]

Do you fold up the towels after they've been used and use them again?

And whilst hanging them up to dry, where do you put them? Let's say you've all had baths or showers and there are four towels? Do you really have enough space in the bathroom for them?

Do you keep to your own towels? Perhaps a colour coded system?

Do you share?

If reusing, how do you make sure towels get washed often enough? Do you literally just wait until they're smelly?!?

Just wondering how other people manage their towels.

Don't you wash your towels after every use....? Have no system apart from the fact that I seem to pick them up off the floor (dad and 3 boys) and wash - daily

I think it's only possible to wash your towels after every use if you have a tumble dryer - we don't.

We only have one towel, so our system is to stand and drip dry (summer) or stand near radiator and drip dry (winter). It is colour coded, so you know it is a towel (towel coloured).

It is a bugger when someone wants to use the towel as you never know in which of our 9 bathrooms it might be.

Colour-coded here. Different sets of towels for each person/bathroom.

There are two/three towels per bathroom and they don't get washed after every use, but they get changed at least once a week.

Oh Lordy - a towel thread. Didn't this go a bit pear shaped last time?

There are 5 of us and one bathroom. Our towels are shared as I don't have room for 5 bath towels, hung to dry on heated towel rail. Washed pretty much every day.

I think it is only poissble to change your towels after every use if you are living in a hotel or if you are BONKERS
what a criminal waste of water, electricity etcetcetc.

I do remember an earlier towel thread but how did it go pear shaped? I came in for some stick gentle teasing as I recall but I don't remember the thread going pear-shaped.

the system we are meant to have is that once a towel has been used it is hung up to dry and used again! after its second or third use its put in the wash basket and when we are on the last few towels i will wash a load of towels!

the system we actually have is dp and dd1 leave towels everywhere but the bathroom so there are rarely towels in the bathroom! and once a week i go on a towel hunt and wash a couple of loads of towels

we use towels once then wash!

Oh my god.
Thankyou one and all, I thought I was alone in my towel fetish.
Different colours for all, no sharing - boys are smelly , dd still uses baby towels and my towels hang in ensuite, his in bathroom, dd in her room.
Daughter's washed every other use, mine a bit less frequently dh - god knows, when I put them in the basket?
I love this thread - I am not alone!!!

There are 2 adults and 4 children here and I wash towels, flannels and tea-towels after every single use. I always have done. There is something satisying about a lovely pile of washed and dried towels.

As I am EXTREMELY intimate with dh and have carried both dds inside me for 9 months...seems a bit wierd to be squeamish about sharing towels...now TOOTHBRUSHES are a different matter.

I change the towels on Thursdays, unless we go swimming...I have never had threadworms!

If you share a towel with your dh (and I prefer not to and hate it if he wipes his toothpasty mouth on mine) is it not already rather soggy if he has showered/bathed before you? Dh's towel is always sopping wet.

I just make sure I get the bath & towels FIRST. Clean towel to wrap round, already used towel on head.

Dh, followed by dc then make a squalid mess with my discarded bathwater & towels. I drop soggiest towel into resulting puddle to be washed with the days nappies...rest go on the banister for subsequent use.

I vaguely remember on previous thread (think there was more than one previous thread) that someone had a dh/dp who thought it was unhygienic to dry his bum and related areas on a towel. He got upset when he realised she didn't try certain parts of her body with tissue as was his preference.

Fascinating some of these insights into people's habits.

But surely this bottom/tissues issue can only happen with towel sharing? I don't want to share a towel with my DH. That would be unspeakable.

Colour coded and separate bathrooms. Only way to go.

share with dh, dd has her own, both changed every couple of days. Management system?? just try to use it first

Quattrocento I don't recall the exact details of the bottom/tissue/towel sharing person's dp! I agree fully with you, separate towels. I have to share a bathroom/shower with dh, BUT I insist on separate towels and also leaving shower and sink in a hair free condition.

Colour coded for each person, changed every 4 days or so. Clean hand towels daily in both bathrooms. Dh trained to hang his towel in washingline in the morning as he is in fact a springer spaniel.

Ime if you don't either hang towels up properly or wash within a day or so they will quickly start to stink. (regardless of how many people use them). My sil complained of smelly towels (in her house I hasten to add not mine). Turned out they put them in the laundry basket to fester until she did the laundry days later.

Well, I'm with the only two (I think) others who are obviously beyond the pale, and I honestly thought the original post was a wind-up! We have two bath towels & one hand towel in our (one) bathroom at any one time, and everyone except me uses the bath towels to dry their hands as well. The dc's (dd12 and ds9) tend to leave them lying on the floor of their bedrooms, although dd is improving and ds rarely gets a towel really wet as he's pretty much allergic to water at present... We share all towels, which is fine as dh & I shower in the mornings and the dc's bath at night (very occasionally!), and we've never caught threadworms. The towels get washed at 40 degrees (shock horror) with Ecover (further shock horror) when they smell like they need it. Visitors (but we don't have many; wonder why?) should be treated to a towel of their own if they're lucky. Oh, and we do have pet towels, but worryingly one is the same colour as one of the hand towels and I think they might have got mixed up. Awful, isn't it?

OverTheHill - there is a flaw in this sample. By definition the people most likely to post on a towel thread are those who are fussy care about towels. So don't go thinking yourself odd. I mean obviously you might be very odd indeed but probably not about towels.

I love the distress at towel sharing

All use whichever towel is to hand - I tend to try and get the big ones (we have two much bigger than all the rest).

They dry over the bannister and then either stay there or go in my dressing table/old changing unit in the bathroom.

Tend to get washed fairly regularly due to DS wiping dirty hands on them for the hell of it/covering them with soap he's been destroying when my back is turned/mopping up wee when he is trying to be "helpful". I currently have 10 towels to wash tomorrow - he has been fabulous