It’s about time you listened to your towel. If towels could talk, what would yours say?
Growing up, one thing I always wondered about and still do is how our towels are able to get dirty when we use them right after bathing. Aren’t we clean right after bathing? Well, hold my beer.
The thing is, some bacteria stick around after bathing, and it gets on towels during rubdown. Once that bacteria gets on there, it starts to grow and multiply. The bacteria keeps building up as the towel is used day after day.
According to a research conducted by the American Journal of Public Health, 14 percent of dirty towels contain Escherichia Coli (E. Coli). E. Coli is a bacteria found in faeces. What this means is you’re getting more E.coli on your face than if you were to stick your head into a toilet.
In Ghana, about 80% of illnesses are related to poor home and personal hygiene. Dirty clothes, including towels, have the potential to harbouring microbes, and using them can cause skin infections (Bloomfield et al., 2013)
It is recommended to wash your towels once at most a week. Knowing how to wash towels properly is the gift that keeps on giving. These tips will take your washing of towels a notch higher.
- Don’t wash towels together with clothes.
- Wash white towels in hot water and colored ones in normal-temperature water.
- Don’t use too much detergent washing towels.
- It’s important to rinse the towel thoroughly with clean water before drying them.
The bathroom is not the best place for a towel to spend most of its time because when they are damp, it offers the best environment for bacteria to grow and multiply. It’s advised to dry towels out in the sun after use. Also, it is best to use a separate towel for one’s face.
The bottom line is towels have no business being damp and dirty. They should be left dry, smelling so fresh and clean.
Written by Sally Akuffobea Opoku
Sally Akuffobea Opoku is a low-key girly girl who loves pretty little things and voluntary work. She is a strategist at heart and currently charting a career in Communications. She absolutely enjoys people and food, one more than the other but not divulging which. Listening to podcasts, and audiobooks, and watching movies are fast becoming her favorite things. She keeps moving until she gets things done.