Bath towel, washglove and dishcloth : every sunday.
Bedsheets : every two weeks (weekly during summer when it’s really hot).
I live in a very dry region, so I rarely have to worry about mold as long as I let everything dry properly after use (aka, not in a ball). If something start to smell moldy I bath it in baking soda for a day or two then wash it. All clean.
Not enough
I’d also be interesting in knowing if people have in-unit laundry. Being in an apartment complex where there’s 3 washers for around 50 people, it’s not feasible to wash towels after every use. That also sounds very wasteful!
I shower every other day, and change the towels after a couple of weeks. The schedule is based on when they can get washed (laundry gets done every two weeks for clothes, and so it’s based on the availability of doing extra loads), or at the first sign of a smell or stain.
Bedding gets changed on a monthly basis for the same reasons, again, unless there’s a smell or stain.
Change to what? Money?
Why would I change either?
I mean, I’m a hoopy frood, So I know where my towel is, and it’s full of all kinds of nutrients due to the competing microbes that compose its flora. You don’t just waste that kind of ecosystem by changing towels every decade.
And sheets? What about the memories? Every stain is a mark of something wonderful that happened. Except the ones that are marks of something horrific that happened. Or the ones that are just spilled beverages. But, you know, that’s still plenty of good memories you want washed down the drain, you animal you.
I like you.
Let’s go somewhere, fall, and forget to hit the ground together.
Best be careful when changing sheets anyway. It’d be a shame if your mattress wasn’t properly killed before being shipped from Sqornshellous Zeta and it went on a flollop rampage after being exposed to too much sunlight.
am I having a stroke
I guess you don’t know where your towel is.
Douglas Adams / Hitchhikers guide references.
HIGHLY recommended.
Edit: you might also be having a stroke, but that’s just a coincidence. Coincidences can be frightening things.
bath towels: weekly
bedding: every 2 or 3 weeks, depending on the season
Reverse this for me. I shower first thing in the morning every day and my bath towels are just drying clean skin. They only touch me for maybe a minute or two before being hung to dry.
However, I go to sleep at night, after a full day of developing natural body oils on my skin. And I lie in bed for 8+ hours at a time.
My bed sheets are far more gross after a week of use than my towel will get in a month, more or less a couple weeks.
… you people use towels more than once?
By definition you’re clean when you use it. If you hang it to dry it’s perfectly fine to use more than once
I was always taught that the towel’s final role is to abrade and collect the dirt/grime/skin that has been loosened by showering, but that wasn’t washed away (which iirc is mostly just the skin and oily grime, not dirt or other large particulates).
If it works for you then you do you! It’s just odd to discover that people think towels are somehow clean after being rubbed all over your body. It’s probably fine, the literature I’ve just dug up seems to indicate that it’s not ideal but safe to use the same towel for 1-3 days so long as you’re not sharing it, (depending on environment, it seems that they get a “disconcertingly large bacteriological load” (heh) if left in a humid bathroom) but still. ew.
You gotta use washcloths or scrubbers on your body! In conjuction with soap, that will help remove dead skin, dirt, sweat, etc.
I was always taught that the towel’s final role is to abrade and collect the dirt/grime/skin that has been loosened by showering, but that wasn’t washed away (which iirc is mostly just the skin and oily grime, not dirt or other large particulates).
This is nasty to me. Do you not scrub yourself in the shower? Like, if you have dirty hands, and wash them in the sink, you can dry your hands on a white towel and it should not get dirty. Same for your body except you usually have more scrubbing tools to exfoliate your skin and remove the dirt so you should be even cleaner come dry time.
I don’t know that I’d call my used towel “clean” per se, but it’s certainly not dirty. It’s not doing any cleaning or removal of anything, just patting up water.
… you soil your towels?
And I’m pretty clean each time too so it’s not exactly collecting a ton of dirty. If it’s used for something other than me fresh out of the shower then it goes straight in the wash. Otherwise it gets washed when I do laundry each week.
You’re not clean, though. You’re really, really not. You’re cleaner, but humans are disgusting and a residential shower is in no way getting you anything close to actually ‘clean’. You don’t have to be insane like I am and swap them out every shower, all the literature I can find says 1-3 days is probably fine, but please please get a couple more towels and swap out for a clean one every few days at least, right now you’re just culturing some very nasty bacteria and then rubbing it all over yourself.
Do you change your hand towels every time you use them?
Errr… yes. But only the kitchen towels, other hand-drying towels just get swapped out in the mornings or if they’re particularly damp/soiled.
Washcloths are used once then go in the hamper. Towels 3-5 days. Sheets 1-2 times per month (showering at night and wearing pajamas…, plus keeping the house colder at night)
Towels and sheets weekly. Comforter and mattress topper alternating weeks.
We usually change the bedding weekly, I.e. every Sunday and the towels usually as soon as they start to develop this old wet umbrella stench, which takes about 3-4 days.
Oh my god, that smell is mildew. If your towels are kept so humid that they’re mildewing the colliform bacteria in your bathroom is having an entire festival on there. Please, before you get a horrible infection, please start swapping them out more frequently. I’m begging you, rubbing that on even a small open wound could be legitimately life threatening (for example if you’re the lucky winner of E.Coli roulette, which is also absolutely growing on your towels).
Unfortunately the towels don’t dry very well on the towel rack. But don’t worry. We don’t use stinky towels. They get thrown on 90°C washing immediately 😅
Maybe they’ve been developing immunity…
Weekly for both. We live in the tropics, love sex so wash sheets often; shower daily but use same towel all week.
I just do it when I do laundry which is when I run out of shirts for work.
Somewhere between 2 and 6 weeks.
bath towels every couple of showers. I use a separate towel for my head/hair though.
bed sheets, varies, depends on temperature and sweatiness.Mattress, about five years. Towels, every decade or so.
Just keep the ones you have clean with regular washing, and they don’t wear out that fast.
Towels - 3 days Sheets - every week
