A Clean Towel is a Happy Towel

You use a towel to dry your clean hands and body, so it should stay pretty clean… right? It turns out, towels are actually the perfect breeding ground for microorganisms like germs, mould, and bacteria. Although your bathroom linens may look clean, inside their absorbent fibres they’re growing colonies that can cause musty, itchy, and even illness-spreading germs.

How often should you wash your towels to avoid all that? Read on below.

What happens to your towels between washes?

Each time you use a towel, it gathers dead skin cells and microorganisms that were on your hands and body. The damp, dark, bunched-up environment of the towel turns out to be a perfect incubator to make those trace amounts of microbes flourish.

Without frequent washing, those microbes can lead to some serious consequences. For one, they can cause mould and mildew to grow on your towels—which not only looks gross but can also cause skin irritation. Additionally, if you share your towel with others (like in a dorm or gym), you risk spreading staph infections or other illnesses. And finally, if you have sensitive skin, using a dirty towel can cause inflammation and breakouts.

So how often should you wash your towels?

Ideally, you should wash bath towels after 3-4 uses. If you shower every day, that means laundering them once or twice a week. Hand towels and dish towels can be washed a bit less frequently—aim for every 2-3 days of use. And finally, beach or pool towels can go about a week without being washed (unless they start to smell bad).

Of course, this all depends on how many people are using the same towel. If you have several family members sharing the same bath towel, you’ll want to launder it more frequently. The good news is that towels are easy to wash—just pop them in the washing machine with hot water and your regular detergent. And make sure to dry them completely afterwards so they don’t develop mildew!

No one likes using a musty towel—but unfortunately, that’s exactly what can happen if you don’t wash them often enough. To keep your towels fresh and free of harmful microbes, aim to wash them using strip clean laundry sheets after 3-4 uses for bath towels, every 2-3 days for hand towels and dish towels, and once a week for beach or pool towels. By following these simple guidelines, you can ensure that your bathroom linen closet is always stocked with clean, fresh towels!
is a Happy Towel
You use a towel to dry your clean hands and body, so it should stay pretty clean… right? It turns out, towels are actually the perfect breeding ground for microorganisms like germs, mould, and bacteria. Although your bathroom linens may look clean, inside their absorbent fibres they’re growing colonies that can cause musty, itchy, and even illness-spreading germs.

How often should you wash your towels to avoid all that? Read on below.

What happens to your towels between washes?

Each time you use a towel, it gathers dead skin cells and microorganisms that were on your hands and body. The damp, dark, bunched-up environment of the towel turns out to be a perfect incubator to make those trace amounts of microbes flourish.

Without frequent washing, those microbes can lead to some serious consequences. For one, they can cause mould and mildew to grow on your towels—which not only looks gross but can also cause skin irritation. Additionally, if you share your towel with others (like in a dorm or gym), you risk spreading staph infections or other illnesses. And finally, if you have sensitive skin, using a dirty towel can cause inflammation and breakouts.

So how often should you wash your towels?

Ideally, you should wash bath towels after 3-4 uses. If you shower every day, that means laundering them once or twice a week. Hand towels and dish towels can be washed a bit less frequently—aim for every 2-3 days of use. And finally, beach or pool towels can go about a week without being washed (unless they start to smell bad).

Of course, this all depends on how many people are using the same towel. If you have several family members sharing the same bath towel, you’ll want to launder it more frequently. The good news is that towels are easy to wash—just pop them in the washing machine with hot water and your regular detergent. And make sure to dry them completely afterwards so they don’t develop mildew!

No one likes using a musty towel—but unfortunately, that’s exactly what can happen if you don’t wash them often enough. To keep your towels fresh and free of harmful microbes, aim to wash them using strip clean laundry sheets after 3-4 uses for bath towels, every 2-3 days for hand towels and dish towels, and once a week for beach or pool towels. By following these simple guidelines, you can ensure that your bathroom linen closet is always stocked with clean, fresh towels!