Let’s say you shower, you are all nice and clean, use your towel to dry off and then proceed to hang it up again to use tomorrow. But wait, if you just used your towel AFTER the shower, then you are clean enough to not have to wash the towel right? Well think again. This is not necessarily true in many cases which many lack to know.
Are we 100% clean after a shower? The answer is no. If you think about it, could you possibly be able to get every nook and cranny when showering. Not only that but also the way soap works has an effect on this idea that you are never 100% clean. Stated in www.questionyourtheory.com, “the average shower soap loosens the dead cells off your skin, which is all over our bodies”. Therefore, when your showering your soap is scrubbing those layers loose and the water is used to wash most off, however is not able to get all of it off. Then when we dry ourselves, we are basically just drying off the dead cells, water, and other bacteria and germs that can be transferred to our towel.
You think that’s all? Not quite. Not only are we transferring water, dead skin cells, bacteria and germs onto our towel, but after we dry off, the towel hangs there attracting even more bacteria. So naturally, bacteria and anything in the air floats onto the towel leaving the towel to sit and begin to stink up with a stench of mildew. Another way mildew can grow on our wet towels is from remaining in the hamper along with other dirty germ filled clothing that’s been piled up just adding fuel to the fire. I strongly agree with this because it makes total sense. If a damp towel is left in a dark place to hang and just attract bacteria, then of course it is going to start to smell and contain dirty germs and unwanted bacteria. So think about it – next time you do a load of laundry and you feel the towels are still wet, make sure to leave them to dry longer or you will be drying off after the shower with a mildew filled towel and then creating more bacteria after you dry off. Stay clean!
Sources
http://www.questionyourtheory.com/why-do-we-wash-towels-if-we-are-clean-from-the-shower
http://www.ehow.com/info_8670610_do-smell-moldy-after-washing.html
I never thought about this topic in this way. I knew not to let my towel mold on the floor of my room but I never thought about how simply hanging it up could affect it as well. It makes sense that bacteria could still attract to the towel even though it is hanging up. It would be interesting to know how often it would be suggested to wash towels in order to rid them of the collected bacteria. I think this would be a great experiment or observational study to conduct. However I’m not sure I want to know exactly how much bacteria is present on the towels because it will probably gross me out.
Here is a link that continues the discussion on this topic.
http://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/youre-clean-but-is-your-towel/
I never really thought about this seemingly unconscious habit in this way! Its very logical that this type of bacterial build up would occur but I never put two and two together! I found the post very informational and I will definitely be thinking twice before I just hang my towel up for next time!
I found this a very interesting article because i myself have always wondered why my mom is hounding me to wash my towels every few days. I would also be interested to know how often we should wash our towels. I tend to only wash them every 2 weeks and i am curious to know how this is effecting my body. I was also wondering how much bacteria could be found on our clothes based on this article. Would be interesting to see a follow up blog about what is on our clothing.
This is a very interesting question to pose. I think it would be helpful to use one of those lights that shows traces of dirt and bacteria on a towel that we use one day after it has been cleaned. Then, we could compare the results to a towel that has been used after a week. I know I only do laundry once a week so I would be interested to see just how muhc bacteria and germs I could be putting on my face and body.
You could also take a look at this link (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15796287). This link shows an experiment between the use of paper towels or hand dryers. This relates because with paper towels could we be getting off all the germs or just replacing them somewhere else on our hands?