Is it just me, or are other people continually surprised at the percentage of adults who believe in cooties, but call it something else?
My mom and dad were raised on a small farm in Arkansas and took a bath in the iron tub once a week. They all used the same water because it had to be hauled in and heated. I haven’t asked about the towels but I’m sure they all used the same one. Just because we can doesn’t mean we have to…They survived just fine. My mom is 83 and healthy and my dad died at 89. We forget our bodies are well-equipped to handle bacteria and in fact will be less efficient if we try to live in a too-clean environment.
Even after being washed there are plenty of places on my body that are still if not “dirty” at least “on the funky side”, the point of showering is to get clean and a used towel ruins that “clean” feeling. I just don’t see the problem with washing a load of towels 1 time a week.
unclviny
I use the same one for a couple of showers. I wish I could get away with a week, because when I wash towels it takes my dryer about 4 hours (literally) to get them dry.
Well, the convenient part is that you can put hinges along one side and use it for a dorm room door.
This is exactly me too. Why use a used towel when I fresh one is so much nicer?
Wait a minute. Who comes out of the shower “on the funky side?” Seriously, Unclviny, I’m not attacking your plethora of fresh towels, I just think it’s funny that in your mind, you leave the shower with funk still clinging to you!
I dunno about you, but I leave the shower totally funk-free. Or at least with such a low level of funk that I feel comfortable today reapplying yesterday’s funk with yesterday’s towel. 
My mom is one of those who always had a “one use only” policy on bath towels. I never even thought about it til I started doing my own laundry.
And now my towels last about three days, because I care more about avoiding laundry than I do about fluffy, summery freshness. They last basically until they acquire that funk that Unclviny is so afraid of. 
After two showers the towels get washed. I actually see this as rebelling as my parents wash theirs after one use.
My SO when in her own flat used to be once a week but she’s gotten used to the two shower rule now we’re living together.
Clothing is a different matter - she never lets me wear jeans for more than a week but on my own I’d happily wear a pair for a month.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Being that I have two towels that don’t leave lint on me (I need to break down and buy some new towels), and I’m poor, I use the same standard for towels as I do all my other clothes.
Does it smell? sniff Nope. Cool.
Apparently I am disgusting by Straightdope standards. My towel, that I have on occasions shared with the boyfriend hasn’t been washed in about er, 3 weeks and its not gone crusty or anything - seems fine to me, and my flatemate hasn’t complained yet.
My reasons/excuses: Its a big towel and washing it means that I can’t fit all the clothes I need to wash that week in the machine. Plus the tumble driers in the laundrette are terrible (20p) for 4 minutes, even about 50 minutes of this leaves the towel wet and lukewarm.
But when I visited the boyfriend, the towel I used there felt like it hadn’t been washed since the beginning of term - about 12 weeks ago. Meep!
What I find curious is how some find that their towels become crusty or unpleasant after 3 or 4 showers. Mine hasn’t been washed in at least a couple of weeks, it’s still soft and smells fresh as a daisy. Maybe you could tell the difference between it and a freshly laundered towel, but it’s not the slightest bit funky.
I do make darn sure it’s hung to dry very openly so that it gets completely dry quickly. I’ve noticed an increase in general funkitude if it’s scrunched up and not completely dried between uses.
When I was growing up, everything was worn only once before being washed.
I followed that through for quite some time while on my own. Yes, even though I still use laundromats. I will wear jeans more than once now (namely, because I only have 3 pair), but not if I’ve gone out in them (because they reek of cigarette smoke) and not more than 2-3 times (I swear I can feel a difference in previously worn jeans versus fresh ones).
I’ve also started to reuse my towel. That was mostly because I was living with my boyfriend and that was his policy. Now that I’m back on my own, I’m sure my one-time only policy will come back.
I’ve never had a towel get funky, but it just doesn’t seem right to use it more than once. I don’t want to wipe my ass or feet with part of the towel one day, and then wipe my face with it the next. And I don’t believe it’s just like washing it when you dry yourself–you will get bits of skin, soap residue, and oils on your towel.
My towel gets washed about every 2 showers (so once every three weeks 
).
Okay…seriously. My towel gets washed about once a week on average. And not because it needs it, IMO, but because the laudry’s getting done, and it gets included with everything being gathered up.
My wife, however, seems to follow the rotation scheme described above. Today’s head towel becomes tomorrow’s body towel.
I can’t believe this is the same crowd who, sometime last year, all posted they only washed their blue jeans every four or five weeks. Maybe we’re attracting a more downy-fresh clientele to the SDMB these days.
We (family of four) change and launder the towels every Saturday morning, just before the bathroom is cleaned (so’s you can wipe down the tile without having to push the towels aside).
In the summertime, when it’s humid and they start to smell funky and mildewy by midweek, I change them on Tuesday or Wednesday as well.
jesus i thought it was common to only use a towel once.
I use a towel once then wash it.
I guess I use mine once or twice for drying myself, then I use the towel to wipe down mirrors, counters and sink and faucet if it is time to clean the bathroom (but not the commode), or else it gets demoted to future floor towel for a shower of two. If the towel is getting near ‘worn out’ in it’s clean body drying qualities, it also gets to damp mop the floor before hitting the hamper.
On kid bath night, one towel will dry 3 people (2 kids and me, sometimes including a small dog). That’s plenty of work for one towel, so into the hamper it goes.
I live in a humid climate so if the towel has a mildewy smell, it gets rejected immediately. I can’t stand to get all scrubbity clean and then dry off with a stinky towel. We have 3 adults and two kids in a humid climate, so maybe we could use some better bathroom ventilation.
I am far from fastidious, but I do use a clean towel most mornings. My reasons are threefold:
- We have a washer and dryer in the house.
- I am extremely prone to hives and even a tiny amount of mildew can start them up. In a humid climate, mildew gets started within a day or two, and it doesn’t take much for me to break out in hives.
- Laundry is my husband’s job.
Now then, when we didn’t have a washer and dryer, I just lived with the hives. But I was also a student then and showing up to class looking half-martian was no big deal and only a little uncomfortable. Showing up to work like that is more problematic.
I only go through two towels a week, usually.
I think my slothfulness about laundering towels is mitigated by the fact that I “pre-dry” while still in the shower by slapping/shaking all the excess water off my body, and also because I have a remarkably (even lamentably) low surface area, so the terrycloth is barely dampened after I use it.
I’ve had housemates who seemed content to towel off with rags that smelled, at a distance, like they’d been fermenting at the bottom of their laundry baskets for days. What’s the point of showering? To replace that stale-sweat smell with mildewy freshness?
I do this too, but for me it’s clean towel on body, previous body towel on head, prevous head towel on floor, previous floor towel hung up to dry and put in the hamper (before being batted down to the floor by the cats and furred up). Change every few showers. I usually have 2 full washing machines of towels (whites and colors) when I go to do laundry. I HATE doing laundry (laundrymat person here).