this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Asklemmy

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 57 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

People in this thread, unironically:

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] yeah@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago

I guess you don't know where your towel is.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I like you.

Let's go somewhere, fall, and forget to hit the ground together.

[–] Lemvi@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

bath towels: weekly

bedding: every 2 or 3 weeks, depending on the season

[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 month ago
[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Assuming im not in the midst of creating a depression fort out of garbage and laundry its 1-2 weeks for bedding and towels are roughly every week. Look like I'm average itt at least. So one less thing to feel bad about yay!

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

I momentarily misread that as "depression fart" and was expecting a different reason for changing sheets.

[–] thefatfrog@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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).

[–] thefatfrog@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

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 90Β°C washing immediately πŸ˜…

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

Maybe they've been developing immunity...

Weekly, both. Mostly

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TwinTusks@bitforged.space 2 points 1 month ago

Thank you, seeing all those "weeks", "months" replies are making me feel like a neathandal.

[–] d00phy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Towels and sheets weekly. Comforter and mattress topper alternating weeks.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Weekly for both. We live in the tropics, love sex so wash sheets often; shower daily but use same towel all week.

[–] just_ducky_in_NH@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Clean sheets are an aphrodisiac!

[–] lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Once a week.

[–] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

New towel every shower. Bed sheets about every other week

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

When I can smell them.

[–] Coherence@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Towels - 3 days Sheets - every week

[–] bran_buckler@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

Sheets weekly. Towels twice a week, but I shower twice a day.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Once a week. I hate feeling like the sheets are dirty and rumpled.

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 3 points 1 month ago

yes?

no?

sometimes...

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I just do it when I do laundry which is when I run out of shirts for work.

Somewhere between 2 and 6 weeks.

[–] shapesandstuff@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago

bath towels every couple of showers. I use a separate towel for my head/hair though.
bed sheets, varies, depends on temperature and sweatiness.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 month ago

I use a towel once before i wash it. I dry my bootyhole with it im not gonna reuse that and rub it on my face no matter how thoroughly ive scrubbed it. All you need is 7 cheap towels and do laundry once a week.

Bedding depends, but on average like every 2-3 weeks.

[–] esc27@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

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)

[–] currawong@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Towels one week. Bedding and pillow cases every two weeks. Pillows every 3 to 6 months, or if they start to smell kinda musty, whichever comes first. A little bleach helps keeps my bedding and towels super clean.

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 3 points 1 month ago

Almost exactly the same except for pillow. Within the past year I switched to a buckwheat pillow and I am in trial phase to see how it handles use.

I think I'm going to empty the buckwheat hulls out soon to wash the case and then replace the hulls. IDK, I'm just guessing at the point.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

In summer roughly weekly sometimes less for both. In winter all the bedding but the duvet cover monthly (we wrap the duvet around us like a burrito and thus change it more often). Towel biweekly in winter.

[–] SteposVenzny@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

When they stop feeling clean. Why are you all counting days?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago (4 children)

... you people use towels more than once?

[–] algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

By definition you're clean when you use it. If you hang it to dry it's perfectly fine to use more than once

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 β€œclean” per se, but it’s certainly not dirty. It’s not doing any cleaning or removal of anything, just patting up water.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 month ago

You gotta use washcloths or scrubbers on your body! In conjuction with soap, that will help remove dead skin, dirt, sweat, etc.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

... you soil your towels?

[–] minibyte@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you change your hand towels every time you use them?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.