Are there really people out there who wash towels after only one use?

[meltedmarsbars]

Or am I a really gross slattern for thinking its ok to use a towel for a week before washing it?

Meltedmarsbars sums it up nicely for me.

A few years ago we took my DSS and his cousin on holiday in the UK. They were 12 or 13 years old at the time. We stayed in a lovely hotel, but couldn't understand why DSS's cousin refused to have either a bath or a shower, but he kept asking for a cloth to clean it with. We explained that someone cleaned it every day and that there was no problem.

He point blank refused to wash until he had cleaned the bathroom himself - it turned out that he had taken a bottle of Cif cleaner on holiday with him and until he had personally cleaned the bathroom there was no way he was going to wash himself in there! I must stress that this wasn't some grotty guesthouse, but a really smart 4* hotel. He's a smart boy (now at Cambridge), but really, his mother had imposed these really odd OCD tendencies on him.

I wash bath towels everyday. Use 2 towels myself (1 hair, 1 body) plus another 3 everyday for dh & my 2 ds's. Needless to say I do a lot of washing but I like fresh clean towels

i wash bath, hand, tea towels every day ,even after one use

I've heard of this before - but think it absolutely mad to wash towels when you've only used them once.

I wash bath towels once a week (technically speaking tea towels - but then I have a stack so I can take a fresh every day) - on a hot wash.

I have a friend who, instead of having a hand towel in the bathroom, has a basket full of about 20 flannels. You take one to dry your hands and then put it in another basket for washing. Have never seen that anywhere else.

VC, I've seen that in a posh restaurant! Not mixed random flannels as in usual family household obv, but snowy Egyptian cotton ones that were then fragrantly dropped into posh wicker basket.

Betcha your friend saw it somewhere similar, or in an Aspirational Lifestyle Magazine.

These were snowy white too - definitely must have been a posh restaurant visit that inspired her

VC, my MIL does that too, but she is very ocd

btw, in Germany it is quite common to have small hand towels (about double the size of a face flannel) that don*t fill up the washing so quickly.

We each have our own towel, and wash them every 7-10 days. Air them properly after use and then hang on heated towel rail to dry though, and they last just fine.

Surely if you wash yourself well and then rinse off the soap before getting out, which is the whole point of a bath/shower, you shouldn't need to wash the towel after every wash as it will only have clean water on it... Plus I tend to use my hands to wipe all the excess water off my body before stepping out of the shower, so my towel is really soaking up very little anyway.

But then DH and I are fairly slatternly and take the same approach to bed linen - air the bed well every day (so only make it up about an hour before bed time) and then rarely feel the need to change more often than once every 2 weeks. And we sleep naked too so in full bodily contact with the sheets... . I'm now imagining a collective faint by OCD diligent daily linen washing MNers as they imagine the horrors in my bed...

Thinking about it though, I am, for me, completely OCD about my tea towels and change every day. Think I worry more about traces of raw chicken somehow lingering on a tea towel and bening transferred to a stray glass than my own bodily fluids being on my own towel and sheets IYSWIM.

I'm with you megonthemoon

Would love to calculate the cost/impact of every household in the country washing towels every day but can't be a*sed. Lunacy.

Heated towel rail and/or open windows + washing properly in shower/bath + weekly towel wash is the way to do it.

My word, I am definitely a slattern. So far I haven't caught any foul diseases from using my towels more than once though

I'm with you, meg

Just washed our towels this morning for first time in.... 2 WEEKS.... shock horror (forgot last week, too busy trying to entertain bickering kids)

And they still smelled clean before they went in the machine. And we are all fit & healthy

I probably end up washing most of my towels after each use. Use them for cleaning the shower afterwards, plus also oend up wiping hair moussey/make upy hands on them so they do get dirty.

With DP and DD they hand theirs up in bedroom on thingies over radiators. So they use theirs a couple of times/up to a week before putting in laundry.

Towels are quite small anyway. We don't have bath sheets for instance.

Tea towels - have a couple on the go generaly and they are always hurled into the washing every day. I use them to wipe up spilss etc so they do get dirty.

I agree about tea towels, esp in a kitchen where raw meat is prepared, and hand towels do get filthy - but really, is it truly necessary to wash bath towels every time they are used?

Go on Amazonianwoman, work out the cost/impact for us!

I was our bath towels once a week, hand towels whenever I remember and tea towels everyy couple of days. All get aired thoroughly on radiators/aga/over the banister after use.

I seem to spend half my life washing and am staggered at our water bill - quite enough thanks.

Also, can I ask - do you people who wash their towels and bedding every time your big toe goes near it it get the wonderful pleasure of sinking into a clean bed or picking up a fresh crisp towel or have you become immune to it?

You never lose that feeling. No matter how many time you have clean towels and sheets

I have a report I MUST get finished this week. So yes, will no doubt procrastinate and work out cost/impact instead

I definitely do NOT wash bath towels after every use, but then I am definitely a bit slovenly. It seems very bad for the environment to me though to do it that often.

However, can you please confirm that my DH is disgusting for trying to hang up swimming towels to be reused (using the same environnmental reason/excuse)??? I told him he was disgusting when i caught him at it and put them in the wash.

Gosh everyday towel-washers, where on earth do you dry them all when it's raining Do you have a special towel-drying extension?

Tea-towels every day here (have a horror of manky cloths).

Bath towels about once a week.

I always dry towels in the tumble drier so they're nice & soft. I also have a dishwasher so I don't often use tea towels so wash them every week or so. Am I going to get lynched for the damage I'm doing to the environment.