Bath Towels 101

So how often do you wash your bath towels. Here in our house we might use them twice but most of the time, each towel gets tossed in the laundry after use. Husby sometimes does reuse his towel but for the most part each of us love clean fluffy towels each time. However, that makes laundry pile up really fast.. and washing and drying a load of towels takes a while..

I was doing a lot of research on this subject. Growing up we rarely used the same towel twice but now I understand why my dad was always telling me to hang them up!

Here's the real scoop..

Well, that seems logical, but here’s the real deal: every time you use your towel to dry off, you’re scraping off dead skin cells. And those dead skin cells collect in the fibers of your towel. So if you use your towel for 10 straight days, you have 10 days’ worth of exfoliated cells on that towel. Lovely thought, huh?

Also, your towel got wet when it dried off your body. Any time the fibers of something get wet, the opportunity to harbor bacteria and other germs is greatly heightened.

Doesn't sound so good to reuse your bath towels does it? So from everything I have gathered, I think its super important to wash your bath towels often!!!

It is best to wash bathroom towels every 3-5 times they are used. Notice that I did not write every 3-5 days.

That really is the maximum times a towel needs to be dampened (from drying you off), allowed to dry, and then be used again.

And keep in mind, this rule of thumb only applies if you hang up your towel after every single use. It needs time to dry between uses so yucky things don’t breed and cause mold and mildew. Besides the fact that mold and mildew are hard to remove from towels, the thoughts of mildew being on a towel I am using makes me cringe.

I tend to stick to white fluffy towels as much as possible because I love being able to bleach them. Sometimes the towels in our house can get pretty dirty. There are times when we use them for the pets but we do have a stack of old towels that we use for them. I love colored towels but I just never feel good about a towel I can't bleach. Yes, you could use a color safe bleach but to me.. that's really not bleach.

So are you washing your towels every 3-5 uses? You might want to start if not.. because what's the point in a shower if you are going to dry off with a dirty towel?? It might look dirty but think about all those dead skin cells all in your towel. Gross!!!

I would LOVE to hear about how often you are washing your towels.. so email me!

kishajaggers@aol.com

K Jaggers

♥