How many times can a bath towel be used after showers before it has to be washed?
We get it. Laundry is one of the least fun things you can do. Wanting to know how many times you can get away with not washing a bath towel is perfectly understandable. Still, much like āhow long is a piece of string?ā this questionās answer will vary depending on who you ask. Unless youāre asking a microbiologist, of course. But first, letās get one thing straightā¦
Yep, itās definitely dirty
Many think that, because youāre only using your towel to dry your freshly clean body after a shower or bath, itās not getting dirty. But theyād be wrong. As it turns out, John Mayer was right. Your body is a wonderland. But one thatās literally teeming with a billion invisible microorganisms like bacteria and fungus! Theyāre so tiny and plentiful, in fact, that showering or bathing is never going to shift them. They will, however, enjoy a free ride onto your towel when you dry yourself off. Initially, this isnāt a problem. Bacteria are fungus everywhere. But if your damp towel remains that way and doesnāt get dried completely as well as fast, it becomes the perfect environment for these microbiotas to grow.
Time is of the essence
To avoid unwittingly turning your towel into a Club Med for bacteria and fungus, ensuring that it dries completely between uses is important. However, ensuring that it dries FAST is even better. A study performed by a group of microbiologists found that, when bath towels were dried onĀ heated towel racks, their microbial load was reduced from 1000 cfu*/g to just 1 cfu/g! The reason for their finding? Heated towel racks work fast! In fact, a top-quality heated towel rack such as those youāll find at Bathroom Butler can completely dry your towel in as little as four hours! This way, you can pump the breaks on bacteria and fungusā breeding time.
So, the big question!
Clearly, when it comes to assessing how ādirtyā your towel is, you have to use your head, not your eyes. If the last two days have seen it spend more time being damp then dry, youāll want to wash it. However, if itās been dried quickly after each use, itāll definitely have much fewer ānastiesā and this means you wonāt have to wash it as often to keep things clean and hygienic. Many donāt realise it, but this is the main reason why heated towel racks are such a popular bathroom enhancer. They donāt exist to warm up your towels ā their job is to dry them and do it fast. This way, you can get away with doing less laundry; donāt have to rely on sunny weather for drying and donāt have to turn on your power-hungry tumble dryer.
The bottom line
So, to answer the big question ā āhow many times can I use a towel before it has to be washed?ā ā if youāve got a Bathroom Butler heated towel rack, definitely a lot less than you would otherwise! If youāre so uninspired by laundry that youāre googling to find out the bare minimums you can get away with doing it, perhaps consider this the sign you were looking for.Ā Itās time to buy aĀ heated towel rack!