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Jan 20, 2024

How (and How Often) to Clean Your Towels

You should swap out your dirty towels for clean ones about every three days, but

You should swap out your dirty towels for clean ones about every three days, but that doesn't mean you need to wash them immediately. Towels can live happily in your hamper until laundry day if you take a couple of steps first. Here are the best ways to keep your towels fresh and clean that I learned after chatting with experts and referencing years of our own towel testing.

I spoke to Patric Richardson of The Laundry Evangelist; Karen Jones, director of soft-goods merchandising at Frontgate (makers of our top-pick bath towel); and Suze Dowling, co-founder and Chief Business Officer for Pattern Brands, which owns Onsen, makers of our favorite waffle-weave towel. I also referenced my past bath towels research, our detergent guide, and my research on how to disinfect laundry.

Dead skin cells, bacteria, and even sweat can accumulate quickly on your towels, so using a fresh one about every three days is a simple rule of thumb—for all kinds of towels.

You can of course change them more often. Suze Dowling said if you shower daily, then three days is right for a swap, but if you shower more often you might want to change towels more frequently. It's also fine to swap towels after every use. This is what Patric Richardson does to avoid drying his face on day two or three with terry that's seen the dark side of his moon.

When a towel is ready for the hamper, Richardson says you should let it air-dry first. Throw it over the shower rod or the side of the tub until it doesn't feel damp, then it can live in the dirty laundry until wash day without risk of developing funky smells or growing bacteria.

We recommend pretreating stains with Shout, Zout, or OxiClean. Many stain treatments work best if they have time to soak in, so try to do this when you put your towels in the dirty laundry pile.

Towels are uniquely exposed to lots of skin- and hair-care items that can stain them, sometimes permanently. Frontgate's Karen Jones says benzoyl peroxide and alpha hydroxy acids especially can bleach towels, so check the labels of your stuff before wiping your hands or your face on them—bleaching is forever.

We suggest keeping stacks of dark or inexpensive light hand towels around just for makeup and skin-care routines. Richardson recommends following his friend's lead: "All of her towels are white, but she has black washcloths for her makeup."

Bleach can remove some stains, but chlorine bleach is an absolute no-no for color towels, and Richardson pointed out that white towels are, essentially, also dyed. "Cotton is not naturally white," he said. Using chlorine bleach will discolor even white towels. You can try color-safe, oxygen bleach like OxiClean instead.

Wash brand-new towels at least once before using them. Manufacturers add conditioners for softness, chemicals for color saturation, and even small amounts of formaldehyde to help reduce wrinkles. Jones recommends washing them twice to clear away excess lint. In our towel testing, I’ve found that most finishes are washed away completely after about five washes.

Most care labels on towels say to wash them in cold water on a delicate cycle. Jones and Dowling second this, and in our towel testing, I do the same to accurately compare the feel, shrinkage, absorbency, and color fading. It gives your towels the best chance at keeping their color and softness over time, but over the years I’ve washed all of our picks a few times on an extra-hot sanitary cycle after someone in my house has been sick. It's fine. Richardson prefers washing his towels in warm water on a speed cycle "with a tiny bit of soap." Two tablespoons a load is plenty, and more could leave residue.

Dowling suggests washing towels separately from other laundry to avoid "items that could pull or snag the fabric, such as clothing with zippers, hooks or Velcro," she said.

If you’ve pretreated your towels for stains, check them before putting them in the dryer to see if they’re clean. Stains set in the dryer, so if the first wash doesn't do the trick, treat and wash your towels again to see if the stain disappears.

Every expert I’ve spoken to and every article and cleaning book I’ve consulted says fabric softeners should never be used on towels—I never use them in our towel testing. Jones said, "Softeners and dryer sheets can build up a film over time and make towels less absorbent."

If you can't give up the soft, no-static feel that these additives give your towels, use them occasionally, but wash them more often without to prevent consistent buildup. Towels have one job, though—absorbing water from your body—so why hamstring their performance at all? Dowling recommends using wool dryer balls, a method that's widely recommended, but that we haven't yet tested.

Instead of loading your towels into the dryer in one big armload (like I do), Dowling recommends shaking each towel out first. It keeps them from twisting into a ball and reduces the amount of moisture they retain. Plus, she said, it can reduce drying time and help prevent wrinkles.

Tumble dry your towels on low heat to prevent damage to the fabric, and remove them as soon as they’re dry. Richardson said leaving them in any longer will start to wear out a towel's edges, which dry faster than the rest of the towel. If the towels still have damp spots, stick them back in the dryer for a few more minutes, or just lay them out flat until they’re completely dry.

If you’re cleaning towels after an illness or injury and you want to sanitize them, you can occasionally dry your towels on high heat. The dryer is the best tool for destroying germs and pathogens; some can survive a hot-water wash, but hot, dry air should kill just about everything.

This article was edited by Brittney Ho, Amy Koplin, and Sofia Sokolove.

Jackie Reeve

Jackie Reeve is a senior staff writer covering bedding, organization, and home goods at Wirecutter since 2015. Previously she was a school librarian, and she's been a quilter for about 15 years. Her quilt patterns and her other written work have appeared in various publications. She moderates Wirecutter's staff book club and makes her bed every morning.

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