How Often Should I Clean My Towels?
There are lots of items in your house that need to be held clean, but one that can escape the minds of people is the towels.
Because we’re using them to dry parts of our body that we’ve just given a good wash, you might be forgiven for thinking you can get away with one weekly wash – or maybe even less, for some.
How frequently should we wash our towels?
Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, previously told Time that a test he performed showed that almost 90 percent of the towels in the bathroom were infected with coliform bacteria – microbes that may suggest the existence of disease-causing bacteria in water – and that only 14 percent bore E. Coli. Coli. Sounds gross, aren’t they?
Image by Tesa Robbins from Pixabay
Human body has millions of skin cells and 650 sweat glands. Yet day after day, one important device holds it clean: your bath towel.
The layers of your body are covered with dead cells. Some of those cells scrub off in the shower, but many will end up every day on your bath towel.
The effective way to avoid germs from developing on your bath towel is to let it dry and wash it frequently, between each use.
After three uses, the Cleaning Institute recommends washing the towels for the bath. When you shower about twice a week, it includes washing. Regular washing is enough to clean the towels and remove any germs that begin to accumulate.
Washcloths you use in the tub for lather and clean should be air-dry and cleaned following growing use.
Factors which warrant more frequent laundering:
Some circumstances call for more frequent washing of your bath towels than twice a week:
- Every towel with body fluid on it should be cleaned after one usage only.
- After one use, you should wash gym towels that sop up sweat.
- Towels kept in an ordinarily humid bathroom that don’t dry absolutely should be cleaned regularly.
- If you have sensitive skin, you must wash all of your towels to prevent further irritation after one use.
Washing the towels regularly — and also letting them air-dry before tossing them into the hamper — will dissuade the development of unwanted bacteria and fungi.
What temperature do we need to wash towels on?
If you are using a bleach-based laundry product, the NHS recommends washing all towels at 60 ° C, or 40 ° C, to prevent the spread of germs.
What if you don’t wash the towels?
Unfortunately, dirty towels are the root cause for the spread of different kind of viruses, fungi and bacteria. The results of using a dirty towel include skin inflammation and likely transmitting infections. It is known that the bacteria which causes staph infections (MRSA) spread on towels and linen.
How often do you swap towels?
A bath towel’s life cycle depends on quality, and how you care about it. Very cheap towels can unravel faster and can also start breaking down the fibres faster by using water which is too hot. The best option is to use anti-bacterial silver towels.
Always read the product tag of the bath towel, and follow instructions for washing to get the most out of it.
Try using the sanitizing setting on your washing machine if towels develop a humid or musty odor. You may also soak towels in vinegar to destroy odors or hang them on a clothesline to avoid dirt and sun-bleach stains. A bath towel should last a long time with proper care, and is likely to survive your next bathroom renovation.
Reuse of a bath towel two or three times between washings is sanitary. But many unwanted microorganisms can quickly become home to the damp bathrooms and towels.
Regular wash-ups are enough to kill germs and refresh your towels. Always hang them and let them dry completely between uses to keep towels their cleanest.
Author: Jacob Maslow
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