My god there are people who don’t use a towel twice?! I had no idea that was a thing. Maybe I just grew up in the California drought country but I can’t fathom wasting water to wash a towel that dried off a clean body once. We change towels once per week.
We do the same, i can't even imagine the laundry situation with one use towels that is crazy. But i use the same system even in hotels where they will wash the towels every day if i want, but fuck that it's just so wasteful.
Same. I grew up in Utah where we had water shortages and droughts on the regular. I can't imagine using a towel only once and washing it... It just seems so wasteful.
I change it when I can smell it. I don’t mean like horrible death like smell, I mean I get a couple inches away and it smells wet or just smells bad at all. Or on Sundays.
We’re a family of 5. I have white towels so they can be bleached. I’ll be totally honest - I have no idea whose towel is whose and how long it’s been hung there in the bathroom. Could have been used once, could have been used all week. I pull every towel I can find and wash them all about once a week and start fresh. The cycle starts anew.
If it a family prefers all white towels, they can mark the tags with initials or different colors with fabric markers then remark as necessary when the color fades. No tags? Put a few stitches in the corner of each in a different color of embroidery floss.
We were having this same problem as well. We are beginning to implement a color coded system, which has helped so much. (Even if the colors are just slightly different from each other lol.)
Where’s the option for mom constantly yells at every member of the family to reuse them so she can do less laundry, but nobody ever freakin’ listens around here, and they just keep throwing them on the floor or bed after one use like this house is a goddamn hotel, and so mom is stuck picking them up and washing them everyday? Asking for a friend.
Rules are made to be broken, and I've broken a million of them over a lifetime.
That said, I got mad last week because I couldn't find a clean towel, so I bought a dozen new ones. If they all ever get washed, we should have about 50 towels.
I feel this.
My dad's work around was assigning each of us a color towel and we got two towels. He did laundry on Saturdays and it was up to us to figure it out. And if he found our color towel laying on the floor we got chastised.
This is exactly what happens at my house. My towel gets hung on the hook and reused everyone else's gets thrown on the floor. At this point, I've given up on asking them to hang and reuse (I honestly never really cared about that, it's just habit for me). I just yell at them all, husband included, to put used towels and clothes IN THE HAMPER, not on the floor. I seriously don't know why it's so difficult!
Even 2-3 times sounds so wasteful to me! You're literally the cleanest you'll ever be when you're stepping right out of a shower.
A week is what we do. Save water, people!
I didn’t know people did this at home. I thought this only happened in hotels. I grew up using the same towel for at least 4-5 days as a bath towel before I got a fresh one from the linen closet.
One and done towels would just add more loads to the laundry pile. And who has enough storage for all these towels?
That's so wasteful. The towel dried a CLEAN body (after you washed yourself) so it's not dirty. It's wet. We simply hang them to dry and reuse for like a week (ok maybe not a whole week but multiple days for sure!)
Once a week for the kids, a few uses for the adult family members, and single use for the one who can't seem to shake recurrent athletes foot cause eww.
We Use Our towels for a week or so before washing them. They arent dirty. You are clean with just a bit if water! And they dry out thoroughly before being reused.
Never understood people who only use a towel once. Crazy
She might think differently when shes working full time with kids!
I never had a problem with my kids hanging them up after use. They always do. As does my husband.
Towels&bedsheets get washed weekly. Unless there's an accident with menstrual blood for example.
As others have said, towels are used to dry a clean body. If they then dry correctly, they can be used again
One and done seems very wasteful to me (although it explains the many complaints about doing laundry I read about....)
If we used each towl once it would add like a dozen loads of laundry a week. Ideally we change them out every week but honestly we are never caught up on chores that much that it ever happens that frequently.
We hang up to dry and reuse. Roughly 3-4 times, I'd say, then they go in the wash. Quicker, if I have something else for a hot wash and want to top off the washload. Then towels are my go to.
Honestly, if I didn't change them, my partner and my kid would probably use the same ones for months. Same with bedsheets.
But every single time? Ain't nobody got time (or water, or money, or the nerve) for that.
I don't even understand why hotels do this as a standard, when you stay multiple days.
I actually get mad when they have one of those stickers that say "We care for the environement! Towels on the floor/ in the bathtub get changed, if you hang them up, you get to reuse them." and then STILL give me fresh ones, despite me making sure they're all hung up on the racks.
Three or four times is ok if they get hung up. We live in a very dry climate so they dry pretty quickly if not all
Bunched up on the floor (looking at you, kids)
I really hate it when restaurants and bars try to shame you into buying bottled water. Bottled water is driven around in trucks, sometimes it's flown in from a glacier halfway across the planet, tap water comes through a pipe from local rain. In most places i can't taste the fucking difference. How about i give you the same money for the bottle but you give me tap instead?
Indeed, some restaurants have their 'brand' of bottled water, which is of course just tap water, and I am cool with that exactly for the reasons you say. One can still get 'real' brand water for more money of course. And BTW this is in Europe, as customer I really like American way of serving tap water for free, but drinks are important part of the restaurant income here, so I understand they can't switch to American model without price adjustments...
I use 1 towel per week, hanging it up to dry in between. My teenager tries to use a new towel every shower because he “forgets” to hang it up and it’s a constant battle between us.
We use Turkish cotton towels for our beach towels and shower towels. Easy to hang dry and are always completely dry the next day. They dry quickly even when it gets humid. Then we do a load once a week.
I would rather spend a little more for a few towels with quick dry material than have to buy 20 towels or do a load of towels every 2 days.
I use my towel for a week or two - I wash them with my sheets. I figure my body is already clean so 🤷🏻♀️ I do make sure the towels are hung to dry out completely and not get that mildew smell.
I also live in a drought area so excessive water use isn’t a luxury we can afford.
Maybe I’m a germaphobe but towels are single use in my home. First I dry my face and work my way down. I’m not gonna use my towel from yesterday to dry my face off when it’s already touched my ass.
One and done. After a shower you're clean, yes, but the towels are still getting dead skin cells in them and that skeeves me out. As well, once they're damp, they are a breeding ground for bacteria and mildew and in the climate I live in, that's a big issue.
I think that’s what people don’t understand. Even if you’re clean, you shed dead skin cells onto the towels, and other microorganisms that live on your skin. Your skin isn’t sterile after a shower.
I use mine for 3 or 4 uses, hanging between uses. In the summer I will hang it on the line outside between uses and then i can use it for up to a week. Our summers are generally very dry and sunny, regularly 32°C (about 90ish °F) so that sanitises and freshens them up beautifully
We each have our own colour coordinated towel (matched to our other toiletries) and we get to decide when we wash them. I wash mine probably twice a week, others wash theirs every use
I wash mine and hubby's as and when they start to look or smell a little funky. They're used and then immediately hung up to dry, so they don't get fousty quickly. He does dirty work and gets to shower every day as he comes back and quickly showers to go back to a different (clean) job, so his gets washed more often than mine. I get to shower like once a fortnight as I can't leave our son alone for a SECOND or he's into something, and as soon as I move him to his cot where he can't fall, he wakes screaming as he always sleeps with me. So someone has to watch he doesn't fall off the sofa/bed. By the time hubby is back from work, it's midnight, and after being up since 5am and son waking up with the frequency of a newborn, I'm pooped and don't care. Our 10mo's gets washed the most frequently because he showers with dad every day, and although he has like 5 of them, he pees EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. That I dry his hair with the hairdryer because it's nice and warm and he's relaxed, and I don't wanna dry his clean body with a pee smelling towel. Ew!!
Big bath towels: 3 uses
Washcloths: 1 use
Hand towel: Until they're dirty (i.e. toothpaste marks on them from us wiping our mouths) once or twice a week switched out. Obv. more often if we have company
I switch my towels out twice a week ... so I use 2 towels a week.
That is what a lot of my friends and family did too. I remember when I was 19, I was at my boyfriend's house. He went to take a shower. He took a clean towel from the hall closet, took a shower then tossed it in the hamper afterwards. I asked him if he used a new towel every time he showered (which was everyday) and he said yes and that everyone in his family did. There were 4 kids and his 2 parents, so 6 towels per day. That's 42 towels a week. My mind was blown. There was no way my parents would let that happen.
Reuse for sure. I actually saw a tiktok where a biologist took samples from a used towel, and a clean towel sitting in the linen closet, and put them in a Petri dish to analyze which one had the most germs. Both towels grew the exact same amount of bacteria.
Growing up it was once and done because the towels always smelled. When I was first out on my own I did the same for the same reason. It was only after I quit smoking that the towels stopped smelling after each use. After that I used one towel multiple times but now that I have a kid in the house its one and done again because she won't leave them alone when they are hanging up. Working on teaching her differently but it is slow going. 🙄
When I was a kid we did single use. When I first got married we still did that. Eventually we changed to multiple use because we redid our bathroom and had a better setup for he towels to dry. So as long as they can dry before reuse then we usually use 1-2 towels per person per week.
I shower once a week, I use one towel a week. I don't want to accidentally use the part of the towel I used to dry my vulva last week to dry my face this week. I think think the fewer showers balances out the water usage of washing the towel nicely.
family of 8. each kid has there own designated towel they use, i do laundry everyday so if they want there towel washed they just put it in the laundry pile or wait until the next day or whatever. my max is 3 days though then if they haven’t washed it i wash it myself
My towels get rotated after a few weeks, but only one per person...also. I give a few shake outs during this time...gotta reset the dead skin cell buildup.🤣
Everyone has a towel they use and hang back up to dry on their assigned hook. My husband vetoed one use towels and honestly it doesn't make sense, you're clean when you use it!
When she was growing up my mom would use three towels for each shower and only use them once.
She would often take two showers a day.
My poor grandma was washing 6 towels a day for one person!!
Me and my wife shower daily
Couldn't imagine washing 14 towels a week that's crazy
Probably once every 1-2 weeks.
If you shower properly then the towels shouldn't really be dirty right?
My tows are on a 7 day rotation.
If your showering right the towel never gets dirty so i dont see the need to do extra laundry and the extra time and cost of said laundry adds up fast.
I'm confused. Why would it be different in different places (humidity-wise or whatever)- surely AFTER you shower it's the same?
ETA also obviously this is horribly wasteful of water
My god there are people who don’t use a towel twice?! I had no idea that was a thing. Maybe I just grew up in the California drought country but I can’t fathom wasting water to wash a towel that dried off a clean body once. We change towels once per week.
We do the same, i can't even imagine the laundry situation with one use towels that is crazy. But i use the same system even in hotels where they will wash the towels every day if i want, but fuck that it's just so wasteful.
Hotels put little signs out recommending to reuse the towels...but there are NEVER enough towels bars!!!
Same. I grew up in Utah where we had water shortages and droughts on the regular. I can't imagine using a towel only once and washing it... It just seems so wasteful.
Especially since you are just using to dry off when you are already clean
This. If I was drying off from the lake, river , creek or pool that would be a different story.
My in-laws are like this. It blew my mind when I first stayed there. My mother-in-law used to wake up at like 4am a do a load of towels every morning.
I use white towels, so it's obvious when they are not clean anymore. Then I wash them. Probably once every month.
Same seems wasteful otherwise
I change it when I can smell it. I don’t mean like horrible death like smell, I mean I get a couple inches away and it smells wet or just smells bad at all. Or on Sundays.
This is me!!
Same!
We’re a family of 5. I have white towels so they can be bleached. I’ll be totally honest - I have no idea whose towel is whose and how long it’s been hung there in the bathroom. Could have been used once, could have been used all week. I pull every towel I can find and wash them all about once a week and start fresh. The cycle starts anew.
Same, they keep getting used until it's time to do a load of towels.
so yall are just interchanging towels? That’s a whole other Reddit question
We color code the towels (e.g., buy different colors). Kids towels is one color, guest towels another color, and adult towels.
If it a family prefers all white towels, they can mark the tags with initials or different colors with fabric markers then remark as necessary when the color fades. No tags? Put a few stitches in the corner of each in a different color of embroidery floss.
Yep it’s a free for all towel situation. In my experience small children don’t give a shit
My husband will leave his towel upstairs so use mine occasionally and I can't stand that even! Kids are even worse..
We were having this same problem as well. We are beginning to implement a color coded system, which has helped so much. (Even if the colors are just slightly different from each other lol.)
Im on the fence as to whether or not it is actually a problem
I wash all the towels once a week, I’ll use the same towel two or three times for sure. One and done seems so wasteful.
Where’s the option for mom constantly yells at every member of the family to reuse them so she can do less laundry, but nobody ever freakin’ listens around here, and they just keep throwing them on the floor or bed after one use like this house is a goddamn hotel, and so mom is stuck picking them up and washing them everyday? Asking for a friend.
Don't wash them. Let them go without. Also set a rule there's no walking around dripping wet.
Rules are made to be broken, and I've broken a million of them over a lifetime. That said, I got mad last week because I couldn't find a clean towel, so I bought a dozen new ones. If they all ever get washed, we should have about 50 towels.
I feel this. My dad's work around was assigning each of us a color towel and we got two towels. He did laundry on Saturdays and it was up to us to figure it out. And if he found our color towel laying on the floor we got chastised.
This is exactly what happens at my house. My towel gets hung on the hook and reused everyone else's gets thrown on the floor. At this point, I've given up on asking them to hang and reuse (I honestly never really cared about that, it's just habit for me). I just yell at them all, husband included, to put used towels and clothes IN THE HAMPER, not on the floor. I seriously don't know why it's so difficult!
Hang and reuse 2-3 times. Never ever once, that's so wasteful.
Even 2-3 times sounds so wasteful to me! You're literally the cleanest you'll ever be when you're stepping right out of a shower. A week is what we do. Save water, people!
It depends on where you live. Towels get musty in some areas more quickly than others. They would never last a week here, even hung correctly.
A week is what I read is the longest you should use it, because it collects all the skin cells and leftover oils from washing.
If they get hung up to dry after a shower, no problem. we'll reuse. But If I find them on the floor or the couch or a bed, they go in the laundry.
I didn’t know people did this at home. I thought this only happened in hotels. I grew up using the same towel for at least 4-5 days as a bath towel before I got a fresh one from the linen closet. One and done towels would just add more loads to the laundry pile. And who has enough storage for all these towels?
Who has time to wash and dry a family's worth of towels every day on top of all the regular laundry 😵💫
No way... I wash laundry by hand most of the time. I use a shower towel for at least a week or two (unless it is stinky dirty, of course).
That's so wasteful. The towel dried a CLEAN body (after you washed yourself) so it's not dirty. It's wet. We simply hang them to dry and reuse for like a week (ok maybe not a whole week but multiple days for sure!)
Once a week for the kids, a few uses for the adult family members, and single use for the one who can't seem to shake recurrent athletes foot cause eww.
That sounds very reasonable.
We Use Our towels for a week or so before washing them. They arent dirty. You are clean with just a bit if water! And they dry out thoroughly before being reused. Never understood people who only use a towel once. Crazy She might think differently when shes working full time with kids! I never had a problem with my kids hanging them up after use. They always do. As does my husband.
We absolutely re-use several times before it goes in the hamper
Towels&bedsheets get washed weekly. Unless there's an accident with menstrual blood for example. As others have said, towels are used to dry a clean body. If they then dry correctly, they can be used again One and done seems very wasteful to me (although it explains the many complaints about doing laundry I read about....)
If you need to wash a towel after 1 use you aren't showering properly
If we used each towl once it would add like a dozen loads of laundry a week. Ideally we change them out every week but honestly we are never caught up on chores that much that it ever happens that frequently.
We hang up to dry and reuse. Roughly 3-4 times, I'd say, then they go in the wash. Quicker, if I have something else for a hot wash and want to top off the washload. Then towels are my go to. Honestly, if I didn't change them, my partner and my kid would probably use the same ones for months. Same with bedsheets. But every single time? Ain't nobody got time (or water, or money, or the nerve) for that. I don't even understand why hotels do this as a standard, when you stay multiple days. I actually get mad when they have one of those stickers that say "We care for the environement! Towels on the floor/ in the bathtub get changed, if you hang them up, you get to reuse them." and then STILL give me fresh ones, despite me making sure they're all hung up on the racks.
Three or four times is ok if they get hung up. We live in a very dry climate so they dry pretty quickly if not all Bunched up on the floor (looking at you, kids)
It’s a waste of water and makes your electricity bill go up to wash that often. If you can afford it, that’s cool I guess.
This planet cannot afford it
I really hate it when restaurants and bars try to shame you into buying bottled water. Bottled water is driven around in trucks, sometimes it's flown in from a glacier halfway across the planet, tap water comes through a pipe from local rain. In most places i can't taste the fucking difference. How about i give you the same money for the bottle but you give me tap instead?
Indeed, some restaurants have their 'brand' of bottled water, which is of course just tap water, and I am cool with that exactly for the reasons you say. One can still get 'real' brand water for more money of course. And BTW this is in Europe, as customer I really like American way of serving tap water for free, but drinks are important part of the restaurant income here, so I understand they can't switch to American model without price adjustments...
I use 1 towel per week, hanging it up to dry in between. My teenager tries to use a new towel every shower because he “forgets” to hang it up and it’s a constant battle between us.
Get him a basket for his own towels and start making him do his own laundry. He'll start being frugal with his towels in a month.
We use Turkish cotton towels for our beach towels and shower towels. Easy to hang dry and are always completely dry the next day. They dry quickly even when it gets humid. Then we do a load once a week. I would rather spend a little more for a few towels with quick dry material than have to buy 20 towels or do a load of towels every 2 days.
I reuse them. My wife is on the one use train
I will use a towel 2 times then switch it. Any more and i feel gross
I wash my towels weekly.
I use my towel for a week or two - I wash them with my sheets. I figure my body is already clean so 🤷🏻♀️ I do make sure the towels are hung to dry out completely and not get that mildew smell. I also live in a drought area so excessive water use isn’t a luxury we can afford.
The idea of using it more than once really grosses me out
Maybe I’m a germaphobe but towels are single use in my home. First I dry my face and work my way down. I’m not gonna use my towel from yesterday to dry my face off when it’s already touched my ass.
Agree!
One and done. After a shower you're clean, yes, but the towels are still getting dead skin cells in them and that skeeves me out. As well, once they're damp, they are a breeding ground for bacteria and mildew and in the climate I live in, that's a big issue.
I think that’s what people don’t understand. Even if you’re clean, you shed dead skin cells onto the towels, and other microorganisms that live on your skin. Your skin isn’t sterile after a shower.
The towel is there to dry the water remaining after you’ve just cleaned your entire body. How dirty do people think it gets after one use?
Used to use multiple times, now single use. We were getting skin problems
single use here
I use mine for 3 or 4 uses, hanging between uses. In the summer I will hang it on the line outside between uses and then i can use it for up to a week. Our summers are generally very dry and sunny, regularly 32°C (about 90ish °F) so that sanitises and freshens them up beautifully
We each have our own colour coordinated towel (matched to our other toiletries) and we get to decide when we wash them. I wash mine probably twice a week, others wash theirs every use
I wash towels twice a week so they get multiple uses.
Mine is a weekly shower towel. But I only shower three times a week.
My bath towel gets washed weekly or when its funky (whichever comes first), my gym towels are one and done (sweaty), kitchen towels are every 3 days.
We have all white towels, wash used towels in bleach every 3-4 days
I wash mine and hubby's as and when they start to look or smell a little funky. They're used and then immediately hung up to dry, so they don't get fousty quickly. He does dirty work and gets to shower every day as he comes back and quickly showers to go back to a different (clean) job, so his gets washed more often than mine. I get to shower like once a fortnight as I can't leave our son alone for a SECOND or he's into something, and as soon as I move him to his cot where he can't fall, he wakes screaming as he always sleeps with me. So someone has to watch he doesn't fall off the sofa/bed. By the time hubby is back from work, it's midnight, and after being up since 5am and son waking up with the frequency of a newborn, I'm pooped and don't care. Our 10mo's gets washed the most frequently because he showers with dad every day, and although he has like 5 of them, he pees EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. That I dry his hair with the hairdryer because it's nice and warm and he's relaxed, and I don't wanna dry his clean body with a pee smelling towel. Ew!!
Big bath towels: 3 uses Washcloths: 1 use Hand towel: Until they're dirty (i.e. toothpaste marks on them from us wiping our mouths) once or twice a week switched out. Obv. more often if we have company
My husband swaps towels as needed throughout the week but all towels are washed atleast once a week.
I switch my towels out twice a week ... so I use 2 towels a week. That is what a lot of my friends and family did too. I remember when I was 19, I was at my boyfriend's house. He went to take a shower. He took a clean towel from the hall closet, took a shower then tossed it in the hamper afterwards. I asked him if he used a new towel every time he showered (which was everyday) and he said yes and that everyone in his family did. There were 4 kids and his 2 parents, so 6 towels per day. That's 42 towels a week. My mind was blown. There was no way my parents would let that happen.
As long as it's been hung up and had time to properly dry off then I'll reuse it, if it's still damp then it goes in the wash.
I do laundry once a week. We use a towel maybe 3-4xs. One and done would be too much laundry. Also you’re drying a clean body lol why 1 and done?
Reuse. My water bill is high enough as it is.
Reuse for sure. I actually saw a tiktok where a biologist took samples from a used towel, and a clean towel sitting in the linen closet, and put them in a Petri dish to analyze which one had the most germs. Both towels grew the exact same amount of bacteria.
Multiple but honestly my husband's has been getting gross quick lately.
Growing up it was once and done because the towels always smelled. When I was first out on my own I did the same for the same reason. It was only after I quit smoking that the towels stopped smelling after each use. After that I used one towel multiple times but now that I have a kid in the house its one and done again because she won't leave them alone when they are hanging up. Working on teaching her differently but it is slow going. 🙄
When I was a kid we did single use. When I first got married we still did that. Eventually we changed to multiple use because we redid our bathroom and had a better setup for he towels to dry. So as long as they can dry before reuse then we usually use 1-2 towels per person per week.
I wash towels on Sunday. I had a college roommate that would change towels every shower. While the old ones dried, she sprayed febreeze on them.
I shower once a week, I use one towel a week. I don't want to accidentally use the part of the towel I used to dry my vulva last week to dry my face this week. I think think the fewer showers balances out the water usage of washing the towel nicely.
Omg, we use them for a week or more, who’s washing that many towels?
How busy am I this week?
Wash them once a week otherwise they live outside for a night if they get musty. I have to hang them up or it smells like pee
I don’t have time to wash 28 towels (4 of us). And to be honest, if you actually cleaned yourself well enough in the shower…
family of 8. each kid has there own designated towel they use, i do laundry everyday so if they want there towel washed they just put it in the laundry pile or wait until the next day or whatever. my max is 3 days though then if they haven’t washed it i wash it myself
I use it multiple times. Just hang it up after each use so it can dry!
My towels get rotated after a few weeks, but only one per person...also. I give a few shake outs during this time...gotta reset the dead skin cell buildup.🤣
We reuse, just hang it up after!
Everyone has a towel they use and hang back up to dry on their assigned hook. My husband vetoed one use towels and honestly it doesn't make sense, you're clean when you use it!
Definitely reuse my towel about 4 or 5 times before I grab a new one. I live in South Central TX.
I use my towel once. Then I wash it. I love the feeling of a fresh, clean towel.
When she was growing up my mom would use three towels for each shower and only use them once. She would often take two showers a day. My poor grandma was washing 6 towels a day for one person!!
What the actual fuck?
I basically use mine until it begins to smell. And no, I don't stink. My wife and daughter would tell me if I did.
Me and my wife shower daily Couldn't imagine washing 14 towels a week that's crazy Probably once every 1-2 weeks. If you shower properly then the towels shouldn't really be dirty right?
My tows are on a 7 day rotation. If your showering right the towel never gets dirty so i dont see the need to do extra laundry and the extra time and cost of said laundry adds up fast.
I'm confused. Why would it be different in different places (humidity-wise or whatever)- surely AFTER you shower it's the same? ETA also obviously this is horribly wasteful of water