# A Sponge question **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 9, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698 "2025-11-09T02:33:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/21 "2025-11-09T19:35:05Z")
I usually use either a wash cloth or a net pouf ( they are often called sponges, but they aren’t really.) I find they work better than my hands for body wash/shower gel , I can use the long ones with handles for my [back](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Back-Scrubber-Bath-Shower-Mesh-Sponge-Exfoliating-Body-Brush-SALE-Nylon-L4V6/2348615606?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101281244) (where my hands dont reach) and the exfoliation helps the little bumps on my thighs. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/22 "2025-11-09T19:51:25Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Aerosolized bacteria coat the entire room every time you flush. We always close the lid on the toilet. That’s got to cut back on the problem. I’ve got a couple of cheap poufs I like. I also have some antibacterial soap I do NOT use for regular washing, but break out for certain things, like washing wounds, handwashing before food prep when I am sick, and washing occasional extreme grossness. I wash the pouf out with it every couple of days, and let it dry soapy, then rinse it thoroughly before the next use. I also throw it in with the towels and sheets every few weeks, where it gets washed on hot with a tsp of bleach in a full load. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/23 "2025-11-09T21:33:19Z")
Kitchen sponges respond well to microwaving. Leave them a bit damp with Dawn and water and nuke them for a minute and 15 seconds. The hot vapors also help clean the microwave. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/24 "2025-11-09T22:48:48Z")
Or spread the goo!! Gah! Where is my gallon of bleach. ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/25 "2025-11-09T23:17:35Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I know kitchen sponges get really filthy and moldy and need to be tossed pretty quickly. We’re fond of those ubiquitous yellow sponges with a green scrubby side. They start off in dishwashing service, and once they get a bit used looking, one corner gets cut off and they are designated for countertop wiping. A while later, another corner is cut off and they clean the floor around the cat bowls, until finally another corner goes away and they get one last gasp use in the bathroom and are discarded. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/26 "2025-11-10T00:52:53Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Teeming with this horrible pathogen. Aaaaaccckkk! > > Then your _aerosoled_ toilet germs. I may never go in the bathroom again. Oh my Weird though? Maybe I don’t ask about loofah use enough but I don’t hear much about that as a cause of folliculitis. (Which generally goes away without treatment.) And aesolized toilet water? We must be just missing all the horrible _E. coli_ pneumonias or even colitis episodes from it. 🙂 I completely get extra caution for those with compromised immune systems, including diabetes. But to my thinking the bigger risk for those cases is any tiny but multiple breaks in the skin that a loofah, even a sterile new one, can cause. Not as much as shaving but still. The skin has a thriving microbiome chock full of bugs. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/27 "2025-11-10T01:10:25Z")
And the buggies in your own toilet are generally the ones already peaceably living in your gut. As @DSeid says, as long as you don’t have open wounds, they are pretty harmless to you. There are foreign bacteria in your kitchen that hitched a ride in on your food. Most of those are harmless, too, but if you are unlucky there might be nasty ones that won’t live peaceably in your gut. ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/28 "2025-11-10T03:57:02Z")
I liked the article in the initial post. I began using loofahs last year and have bleached them once a week but have always been reluctant to trash them. I’m making a tighter disposal schedule now. ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/29 "2025-11-10T13:47:41Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > There are foreign bacteria in your kitchen that hitched a ride in on your food. The more important point is that there’s a food source in the kitchen (sponge): All the stuff you wiped off the counter, the dishes, etc. Even then, if you spread a bunch of bacteria from your sponge across the countertop when you wipe it, they die when the countertop dries. In the bathroom there isn’t that food source. Also the towels dry out, as do most other things. After a week the towels may start to get a bit funky because they do take a while to dry and can start to get a little mildewy smelling, so they go in the laundry. For poufs and bath sponges, I wring them out when I’m done, but also try to leave them soapy. Dry(ish) and soapy is not an hospitable environment for microbes. I don’t use those every day, but I’ve never had them go smelly, they always get tossed because of some sort of mechanical deterioration. Also yes, these are the microbes that already live on you, and they haven’t eaten you alive…yet. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/30 "2025-11-10T13:55:54Z")
I think the real risk in your kitchen is that you might have salmonella, one of the rare-but-deadly strains of e-coli, listeria, etc. that hitched a ride in, and you don’t want to give them a safe place to hide. Whereas unless you are sick, none of those things are likely to be in your bathroom. (And if you are sick, it’s best to avoid sharing a bathroom with others, if possible.) I don’t think your kitchen sponge is a great food source for bacteria, but the bits of food it may have picked up are. Likewise, the bits of dead skin clinging to your bath sponge or towel are food sources for whatever lives there. Both are less hospitable if you can keep them clean and dry. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/31 "2025-11-10T17:42:20Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Kitchen sponges respond well to microwaving. Leave them a bit damp with Dawn and water and nuke them for a minute and 15 seconds. The hot vapors also help clean the microwave. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Or spread the goo!! Gah! > > Where is my gallon of bleach. Naw, Dawn steam kills everything. But you can put bleach on the sponge then microwave it. Unless the bleach, germs and microwaves replicates the conditions that spawned early lifeforms. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/32 "2025-11-11T07:52:15Z")
What?…you tryna freak me all the way out? No..seriously Dawn is the bomb. Does so much work as to be almost amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698/33 "2025-11-11T13:15:41Z")
One time I ran out of washcloths, and decided to try a microfiber cloth. I figured it being thin it would just rollup, but they work perfectly and hold a remarkable amount of lather. The only drawback is their lack of nap for scrubbing. They’re all I use now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sponge-question/1024698.md?page=1)