The HH and I are having a debate. I wash our towels bath towels about every 3 days, the HH thinks I am OCD slightly overdoing it. He thinks I could easily stretch it out to once a week maybe even two. The thing is that they are all damp and moist–and yes, they get hung up to dry, but they certainly don’t dry at the same rate they would on a air-circulating clothesline or in a heated dryer. Those bad boys have to harbor all sorts of bacteria, right?
I decided to hit the world wide web to prove a point to the HH, and wouldn’t you know it, 3 days or 3 uses IS EXACTLY the recommended time between washes. It’s funny, because I probably read that somewhere years ago, and it just stuck. According to several sites, towels have tons of dead skin cells, not to mention mold causing bacteria. Gross. What’s the point of cleaning your body if you are just going to shimmy it with a dirty towel afterward?
So, even though I feel slightly vindicated by my web search, I am reasonable enough to know that the interweb isn’t always the end all, be all. BUT, you guys certainly are :), so which camp do you reside in: Camp Mavis or Camp HH? Neither? Then, how often do YOU wash your bath towels?
~Mavis
This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.
Linda says
I’m with you. I wash them after 3 uses.
Cheryl says
I am with you on this. Wash towels every third day. They would smell after more than a week or more. Cheryl
martha says
I figure I am worth a clean towel! I gladly wash them after each use.
Sarah says
I’m with you, Martha. I just can’t reuse towels. I reused towels when I lived in dorms and apartments with no washer/dryer in the unit. In my own home I’m going to grab a clean one after each shower.
I have been considering changing to turkish towels that won’t require as much water and power to wash and dry.
A says
Here in South Louisiana, showering 2x a day is normal. I sometimes have to do 3…so if I didn’t use my towel more than once, I would spend a fortune on the electric dryer
Cari from MyVeryOwnToilet says
We wash ours after every use too!
Linda says
I wash after every use.
Katie W says
I probably shouldn’t be admitting this, but I am horrible about remembering to wash towels! I don’t particularly like doing laundry, so I go as long as I can before washing my clothes. Unfortunately, this means my towels get ignored too. Thankfully my husband does his laundry a lot more often and towels will get thrown into his laundry bin. Once I’m a stay at home mom though, (4 more months!), I will definitely try to be Camp Mavis. I like clean towels, it’s just low on my priority list right now.
JC says
You arent alone! In fact I don’t even do my own laundry anymore. I like to think that I would wash them every 3rd use or so, maybe 4 or 5 for my hair towel, but honestly I’d probably forget. I’m just not a laundry person, that what the HH is for.
Ginger says
I do laundry (clothing and towels) every Wednesday and Sunday like clockwork. I think stinky towels are disgusting.
Sarah says
Sorry, I’m on Camp HH here. My towels dry reasonably well between uses and I use them for at least a week. The likelihood of towels growing something to seriously make you sick is slim.
TrayceeBee says
Mavis, I am with YOU! Every three days I wash our towels unless… one of the kiddos throws theirs on the bathroom floor “by accident” instead of hanging it up OR when one of us three girls has our monthly “visitor” – then those towels get washed after one use only.
Upstate NYer says
I use them for 3 days as well. But I also have enough towels so that I can go a few weeks without doing laundry. I am single and lug it to the laundry mat once or twice a month and wash/dry all at once.
Julie in VA says
i have a heated towel rack in my and my husband’s bathrooms. So I wash towels once a week.
Ashley says
I wash them after 2 uses if it’s summer time (humid), or every 3-4 days in the winter (they hang close to a heater vent).
Evelyn says
I’m in camp HH. We use towels about two weeks long. We hang them on a rack where they hang like closed curtains, apart from each other, so they actually dry between uses. (Then again, if it’s not summer and we didn’t do sports, we don’t even shower daily.)
I actually believe this is possible because we wash towels without fabric softener, just normal detergent and a little apple cider vinegar as a softener (which works well but doesn’t leave the residue) AND we line-dry. This leaves the towels a bit harder than dryer-dried towels and to me, it feels like they keep fresher that way. We never had a problem with stinky towels. Yes, dead skin cells and skin-resident bacteria perhaps, but unlike kitchen towels and kitchen cleaning utensils (lots of icky growth there) – nothing unhygienic. Just remember, there are more bacteria in our guts than we have cells in our whole body 😉
Greetings from Germany
Julie says
I’m with the Monica and the HH on this one!
Monica says
I’m with the HH. Previously I used a new towel every time I showered. Then I got tired of doing so much laundry, that was just towels. My husband has always just used one for a week and then switched it up. I thought there was no way I could do that. I tried and the rest is history. By Sunday (laundry day) the towel does not stink. I hang up after each use and that’s about it.
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
Oh interesting. I wash mine once a week. Now if I shower twice and the towel isn’t 100% dry- I would grab a new one. But that’s pretty rare. I try to plot my day to only shower once and I have never had a towel not dry. (I have Central AC though- not sure if that makes a difference. If I didn’t, I don’t know that towels would dry as quickly).
KK @preppycrocodile
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
That should read shower once a day vs twice a day. I don’t want to imply that I am showering only once per week. These things are important to clarify!!
kk @preppycrocodile who does in fact shower daily!
Deborah from FL says
Lol
Rita Kerr says
I wash our towels and washcloths after every use and change hand towels daily. Reading responses, I’m wondering if perhaps that is over-kill. Hummm. Something to think abo\ut.
carrie says
Once a week. I haven’t lost a child yet with unsanitary conditions. Lol
Jennifer Jo says
I’m totally with you, Carrie, down to the still-alive children, which I think is pretty cool. Actually, about the towels: I don’t really pay attention. Just whenever we get a nice sunny day and I feel like bulking up a load of laundry.
cheri says
My mom washed towels after each us when I was growing up! But I do not. I wash towels for our family of 4 once a week (2 adults, 2 boys). More would be lovely, but we are in a drought in mid-California and my energy is finite and once a week seems to work just fine. If I were to wash something more frequently it would be the sheets, before the towels.
Rebecca says
We wash our towels after every use – – – yep, one use only!
Carol says
Mavis, I wash our bath towels after each use. We have a tiny bathroom and it just seems too much to let them hang around damp. But I do that because it seems easier to do, not because of dead skin, etc. Now you have me wondering about the bathroom rugs….mine get washed maybe once a month unless there is an “accident”. Since hubby and I have been together for nearly 30 years, I guess the issue is moot (I haven’t killed us by way of “body funk in the bathroom rug.” But now I will be rethinking how often I need to wash those puppies!
Mavis says
Ha! “Body funk in the bathroom rug.” I can almost picture a commercial now…”if you or anyone you love has fallen victim to body funk in the bathroom rug, you may be entitled to compensation…”
Helen in Meridian says
Where’s the class action suit to sign up for? Any lawyers on board?
Andrea says
Towels are washed once a week in hot water with an extra rinse. I use homemade laundry detergent (felsnaptha/washing soda/borax) and vinegar for the rinse cycle. The dog towels on the other hand are washed after one use.
Carolyn says
I wash mine every two weeks or so – but I make sure to dry them in a sunny spot to hopefully kill some mold. My apartment complex has coin-operated machines that take $5 per load, so I just can’t justify the cost. (Plus it’s three flights of stairs away…)
Hopefully what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!?
Jenn in Indiana says
Maybe our family is weird but we also wash our towels after every use. Before I was married, we hung them and re-used several times. But my husband didn’t want to do that. He was raised with his grandma who lived through the depression. And she would make them use towels for several weeks and you basically had to have a good legal defense if you wanted to get a clean towel. So he said when he was a kid he could not stand reusing those smelly towels and that he was using a clean towel each time. I have never fought him on it. I can’t stand looking at several towels hanging up to dry anyway, it looks cluttered to my OCD self.
Meg says
Haha, pretty sure I’ve had this argument with my hubby! I like to wash mine after 2 uses. Husband’s I wash once a week, unless he throws it in the wash before that!
Karin says
I wash towels about twice a week. I live in a humid area so they can develop a funky odor if they don’t dry out between uses. I’m not too worried about skin cells on my towel (I have those all over my body already, right?). But any hint of an off smell and the towel goes to the wash!
Jean says
Hi Mavis. I wash towels everyday. A family of four with some taking showers twice a day makes for a lot of wet towels that don’t dry that quickly. Much easier to throw them in the wash. Also, would like to mention I work in a microbiology dept at a lab. so that might have something to do with it too. 🙂
Kellu says
We wash once a week. We live in drought conditions, are on time of day for our electric, both my husband and I work full time and three kids are a lot of the factors of why I only wash once a week. But if things are damp or smelly I wash them sooner.
Kelli says
In our house, it comes down to how we were brought up. I use a towel once, as that is what we did growing up. My husband uses his twice, then off to the wash it goes!
PeggyK says
After every use. Can’t stand the thought of what could be growing. on this one I am more than a bit OCD!!
sclindah says
I wash ours once a week. I figure we are clean when we use them and they dry between uses.
JC says
Wow. Just Wow. I wash mine every two weeks. And I’m about 99% certain that nothing bad has happened to me due to using a towel for two consecutive weeks. I figure I’m drying a CLEAN body. Maybe if I were living in an extremely humid climate (without AC to dehumidify the inside of my house), I might wash my towels more often.
1) Use a thinner towel that dries more quickly.
2) I hate folding laundry so why would I do it more often?
3) I am bothered by excessive water usage more than some bacteria that has never done me harm
4) Run the bathroom fan to dehumidify the bathroom more quickly and the towels will dry
5) I don’t have to have multiple towels to get me through a week.
JC says
Sweet name!
I also share some of these concerns, even though we do have multiple towels. In the old days people used to wear the same clothes for weeks at a rip, so long as the towel gets dry in between it can’t be that harmful.
dropofrain says
JC, I too wash bath towels once in two week but hand towels are changed weekly. they are hung to dry. On the other hand, I replace my kitchen towels at least twice a week or more often if they get used a lot (we mainly use paper towels for dirty jobs). I grew up in Europe and we did not have a washer/drier and our laundry was done once a week. No one died or got sick. We are washing ourselves with a soap and hot water, we should be clean after getting out of shower– so why our towels need to be washed after each use??
Susanne g says
On towels, with HH, once a week. Use cheap thin washcloths (exfoliating I call them) and use a clean one each day.
Cynthia says
We wash towels once a week usually, but hang them outside on the deck rail in the sun to dry completely after a shower. They always smell like fresh air for the next use. Skin cells are shed in your bed every night and you don’t change the sheets after one use so I think the towels are okay too!
Marcia says
Once a week. Any more than that is a complete waste of water and unnecessary.
We take care to hang our towels so that they will dry. It’s generally dry here, but in the occasional wet winter, we hang them on the rod so that they will fully dry between uses, as opposed to on a hook.
We do not have more than 6-7 bath towels for 4 people, and we do not do laundry mid-week.
More than a week and they will smell musty.
Generally this means 5 uses for me, as I shower at the gym 2x a week and use a beach towel for that. 7 uses for my husband, and 2-6 for the kids.
Earlene says
So here’s the thing, I’m grossed out by the thought of wet towels hanging around longer than 3 days. HH sounds like my guy, here’s the solution for us. We have 2 bathrooms. So in my bathroom, I wash my towels every 3 days, he can change his whenever. Of course the stackable washer and dryer are in my bathroom closet which makes it so easy for me to toss mine in, hubby has to walk 6 ft to his bathroom and then come back 6 ft to toss in washer. You figure it out. 😀
Melissa says
I wash mine every 2-3 days and I hang them outside after each use so I know they have dried well.
Veronica says
I wash the towels when I remember to.
Mavis says
I love that answer!
Linda says
So which is it? Every three days OR every three uses? This is important. I am an older woman and really don’t need to shower every day. I usually shower and wash my hair every other day. My towel is hung, single layer, over the shower rod to dry in between. I wash it once a week when I do linens.
Andrea says
I’ve never even considered NOT washing towels after each use. No judgement here, but my thinking is how does one dry their face daily with the same towel used for 3 days to dry your respective private parts?
Amy says
That’s my sentiment exactly!! Wash every use!
Susan says
My thoughts exactly! One use only for us.
Mavis says
Ha! That thought never really occurred to me until now…just wait til the HH hears that argument.
Allison says
That is why I wash mine every time too. Just too gross for me. I wash a load of towels every other day. It is worth it.
Robin says
I agree! I change my washcloth, towel and hand towel every day. I do buy the thinner “quick dry” towels so I can fit more in the washer. I also change all my kitchen towels & cloths every day – sometimes twice a day if I do lots of cooking.
Pam says
What are you wiping off of your private parts after a shower except for excess clean water? Didn’t you JUST wash those private parts?
Diana says
I’m with you! I wash them after each use. I can’t stand the thought of whatever ‘body fluids’ might have gotten on them by drying off. Many times it isn’t just ‘clean water’. Gonna just leave it there.. 🙂
Not to mention my nose can sniff out mildew, mold and SOUR smells when others can’t. I love the smell of fresh, clean towels.
Stacy T says
Once a week for us… The vent for our bathroom is directly below our towel bar so in my head that drys them faster and we have less bacteria on them, right? (right?)
Delorise says
A towel is used for an average of 3 to 4 days– if the weather is nice I will hang them on the clothesline– I figure the sun will help dry them quicker and maybe kill any bacteria. Trying to do my part for the environment— I wash a load every two weeks.
Pam says
My husband showers 2x a day (morning and night). I have to wash the towels every other day or they will smell musty, especially in the summer.
Mavis says
That’s a lot of showers and a lot of laundry!
Glenda says
We only use towels once, then they go into the wash.
Lea says
We wash ours once a week or whenever they don’t dry all the way, whichever is shorter. We live in a pretty non-humid place where they dry in less than half a day and in the winter they tend to dry completely in an hour or two so I don’t worry about bacteria growth too much. If we have a really wet week, then it’s twice a week.
Lea
Patti says
I wash ours weekly, my kitchen towels get switched out everyday or so. I have always done it this way, but over the years, I have really tried to be more conscious of our planets resources. I have switched to cloth napkins, use very little paper towel, try to be more conscious of my water consumption. Since you just bathed yourself, your towel is probably relatively clean after drying off. I could see if you were immuno-suppressed or your towels just don’t dry. we as a culture have gotten so germs phobic! It’s a good thing to exercise your immune system a bit. I’m more concerned about good old fashioned hand washing with plain soap and water!
Dana says
Get two dogs, three cats, and a husband, and see how many towels you go though a week.
Two dogs equal two baths a week using 2 towels per dog. That’s 4 towels. (If we bathe the cats, which we don’t do often but still, that’s 3 more towels.)
I use one towel for body and one for my hair, and husband uses one towel. That’s 3 towels.
The hand towel in the bathroom is changed everyday, as are the kitchen towels. That’s 14 small towels.
Then there are the family cloths, – a stack of wash cloths -, used after a bidet type cleaning in lieu of toilet paper, – saving trees and the septic system! -, We can go through 10 a day. Four plus three, plus 14, plus 10 family cloths a day, – It adds up quickly!
So laundry is done every weeknight in this house. Monday’s – dark clothes, Tueday – sheets, Wednesday – light clothing, Thursday – towels, Friday – load of clothing in the morning, load of towels and sheets that night. Nothing gets washed or cleaned or anything on the weekends. Do your chores Monday – Friday, with Friday being the ‘Big’ cleaning day and enjoy your weekend is my motto.
This way there is no stinky laundry piling up and I feel like if something happens, – water outage, power outage, washer breaks down, whatever, – at least almost all clothing/linens/towels are clean and we can focus on whatever the issue is rather than worrying about having no clean clothes.
It’s best for me to stay on top of things. When things get overwhelming it’s too much.
JC says
You bath your dogs twice a week? I think mine would revolt. He only gets one when he is smelly and he hates it!
Tina B says
No, I think she meant 1 bath per week per dog. I have labs, anything more than bathing them once a month and their skin dries out to the point of needing medication. Our vet tells us a bath every 4 to 8 weeks for the pups is ample.
Dana says
We bathe the pups once a week in the summer using two towels for each dog per bath. In the winter, once every two weeks. They seem to like the baths fine, hop right into the tub themselves.
Brenda says
I couldn’t use a towel more than once.
Pam S says
I started to read the responses to this question and found myself cringing like I did with the “how often do you shower?” question. I live in Florida. My water comes from my own well. I have a septic tank. I don’t have the luxury of turning on taps and fooling myself into thinking that my city water/sewer is infinite (as long as the bill is paid). Potable water is most definitely a finite resource world wide. I shower when I need to. Sometimes that’s once a day if I’m working outside and sweating. Sometimes that’s once every 3 days if it’s winter and I’m not particularly active. I wash my bath towels when they need it. I chose towel bars specifically to be big enough to spread the towel out to dry between uses. The only thing going on my bath towel is the excess water from my freshly washed body. I wash hand towels daily since they are tasked with drying hands after washing (done much more frequently so more frequent towel washing). Wash cloths and kitchen towels are also daily. I honestly can’t justify wasting the water to wash any of these things more often than that.
SilverIzzy says
Hahaha. Oh, wait, everyone is serious? Uhm, we wash our towels when they start to smell poorly. Everyone has their own towel, and each towel is hung to dry between uses. When washed, they are washed with bleach. I’d estimate once every 2-3 weeks or so? I mean, it’s a towel. As long as it does it’s job and does not smell off, then it would simply be wasting water and effort to wash it when it doesn’t need it. In the summer when it’s hot and everyone is working outside and showering more, they get washed more frequently.
I’m slightly afraid to even ask how often you all wash your pants now.
JC says
Ha! I just swapped daily use to when I shower in my head. In the winter I shower when my hair starts to look gross and I have curls so that can be a while (wash cloths work well in between)
And for using a towel that dried a clean body part of excess water I guess I just don’t understand how that is really gross, its still part of the same body, unless some sort of goo ends up on it then who cares? Same thing goes for my husbands towel, maybe i’m weird but we share everything else, bodily fluids included so why would external body parts touching my towel freak me out? He washed it before he got out of the shower.
Tracy says
I wash bath towels after every use…Being gross here I don’t want to wipe my face where I wiped my crotch yesterday….ewwwwww the thought. Even worse towels match don’t want my husbands. However I will wear the same pants for days.
Julia says
As a rule, I wash our towels once a week with a vinegar rinse. I line dry all our wash so wash days are governed by the weather. In the winter I have indoor lines for drying wash. When it’s nice out we hang our wet towels ourside to dry between uses. We have a balcony with a clothes line right next to the upstairs bathroom. The exceptions to the once a week rule would be if the towel smells funky, is really dirty (think 11 year-old boy) or we’v been taking extra showers due to yard work. We live in the city and pay for water.
Tiffany says
Some towels won’t dry before the next use, but I sell fast drying towels in my Etsy shop- August Ave. We go about 2-4 days between washes.
Lana says
Clean towel daily for me. Honestly a reused towel makes my skin itch and I think it is mold. Hubby is happy with 3-4 days but we will not go past that.
Donna in VA says
There is no rule that you can’t be on different schedules. DH now takes 2 showers daily, I take 1. He changes his towels more frequently and I have told him to leave mine alone! He is not the laundry guy in the family so less laundry makes me happier.
OneFamily says
DH does laundry twice a week. I reuse my towel between wash days, but he won’t.
Daniel says
We have a whole bunch of bath towels, and normally use them only once before they go into the hamper. I would be up for using them a time or two more, but that is also a debate between my wife and myself so we have just been doing the one time use practice for years. Like I said, we have a whole bunch of them, so a load in the washing machine about once a week is the normal wash cycle for them.
K says
I’m American and I am realizing I really don’t live like it.. I shower every 5-7 days, and wash my towels after 4 or so uses… so that’s what, every 3 weeks or so? I live in the Midwest and don’t use air conditioning either, so that’s 80-90 degree weather with plenty of humidity. The towels still dry if they’re hung properly. Kitchen towels are a different story, especially since we use washrags and cloth napkins in lieu of paper towels. And I do laundry in a friend’s apartment, since my building’s washer/dryer are pretty gross with other tenants’ softener and detergent buildup. While I’m not surprised that my shower habits are different from everyone else’s, I had no idea I was so opposite of everyone else in the laundry regard! I care quite a bit about the environment though, and I think the majority of Americans have their priorities pretty backwards in our resource consumption. I think people don’t realize the luxury we have with how available water is in our homes. Take a look at third world countries and you’ll be humbled!
Wendy says
I wash one load of laundry every night so it’s ready to hang up in the morning. Towels get washed when the laundry mountain has been conquered.
Wendi says
I was raised in a culture where water was scarce. We bathed 1/week with the family of 5 using the same water…Father first, then mother than eldest child, then me and then my sister. I guess that lifestyle carries into my life even today, at 57. If you used the towel to simply dry a clean body, why wash it so often? Just air dry it between use and it’s certainly good for 1-2 weeks. I’m with the HH.
Mona says
If you are worried about wiping your face where your unmentionables have been you may like this towel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0076PDYRS/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1441510157&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=butt+face+towel&dpPl=1&dpID=419X0Yfi9gL&ref=plSrch
I use the same towel about twice. What grosses me out is washing my bath towels with my kitchen towels. Sorry, not for me. Separate loads here.
And don’t get me started on rags! Why would anyone wash their towels with something they used to mop around the toilet? ????