Both my husband and my Dad use cloth handkerchiefs in which to blow their noses. I’m totally disgusted by this. Seriously…you blow snot into it, stuff it back in your pocket, then repeat, as necessary. Do other people do this? Ick!!
Using to wipe tears, not so bad.
As for nose-blowing/wiping, why wouldn’t you just use a Kleenex and…THROW IT AWAY!
Mr. S’s dad used cloth handkerchiefs. One of his mom’s chores was to boil them on the stove to remove the snot. How’s THAT for gross?
(How exactly does your hubby get his hankies clean? Do they just go in the wash with the clothes? Ewwww. . . .)
I know…right? Gah!
I use hankies too. Why don’t I just use a Kleenex and throw it away? I try to avoid throwing things away. If I can buy/make something that’s reusable and not an amazing hassle, I try to. Plus, quilting squares make really cute and really soft cloth hankies.
To wash them, I throw them in the washing machine with the towels. It doesn’t really gross me out. It’s just mucus.
My first husband used cloth hankies, those big bandanna things for work and white ones for dress-up. They went in the wash and I ironed them.
Seriously, folks, you’re not always going to be in a place where you can toss a tissue in a trash bin.
I’d never use a handkerchief personally, but I used to have the job of ironing my dad’s and I never remember any of them coming out of the wash looking anything but clean.
You people do put your underwear in the wash, don’t you? Do you think it’s perfectly sterile when you do?
I often carry and use a bandanna for a hankie, particularly if I have reason to be using one (e.g., a cold).
For one thing, I dislike the disposable consumerism thing. But even more, hankies are much kinder to your nose when you’re using them a lot.
I wash them with the towels and undies, in hot water. Not really any grosser than dirty undies, IMO. It’s just a little mucus.
ETA: or, what they said. 
FUCK THAT!! Whenever I’m in need of something to blow my nose, it’s not just mucus. It’s a giant gelatinous planetoid with chameleon like versatility in color ranging from bright yellow/green to brown! There’s NO way you are going to convince me to put my new giggly nasal baby back in my pocket! I may as well wipe my ass with my socks. :eek:
But, the second time you pull it out, you get either:
A bunch of gooey snot that hasn’t dried yet, or
Dried snot that crumbles all over?
I mean, I don’t have to blow my nose very much, but, when I have a cold, I can go through several Kleenexes in a row and I just can’t imagine putting that much mucus into a hanky and shoving it back in my pocket. I’m sure I’m just overthinking the whole thing.
there are women who shed tissue papers like cats shed hair, and men who sniff their hankies like dogs sniff
Many years ago, Kleenex had a TV ad on this. “Don’t put a cold back in your pocket,” it said. Then it showed a Kleenex user throwing a tissue out the car window. Yes, littering was cool, then, I guess.
I use paper tissues at home, where I can throw the wet, gooey wads in the trash. Anywhere else, I can’t carry around a box of Puffs®; I’d remind people of Adrian Monk. I tried folding a few into my pocket, but they don’t travel well. I’d reach for a tissue and find a useless lump of paper-like substance.
And what’s with this concept of not wanting to wash handkerchiefs with the other clothes? Snot washes out, even in the delicate cycle, in cold water.
The reason you don’t see handkerchiefs used like this very much any more is that Scientists (with a capital S) discovered that the snot in your pocket could cross breed with the lint, producing a particularly terrifying and sickening hybrid that could gross-out like snot, yet replicate like lint.
A quiet but effective campaign to eradicate their breeding grounds was initiated some time in the late 1950s.
I use tissues at home, and hankies when away from home. Personally, I’m more revolted by the blow-snot-on-the-street tribe, and the constantly-inhale-snot-back-in-the-nose tribe. No one has t’ see my hanky but me, so there. 
with my allergies! no way! my nose can only handle puff plus and sometimes i still have to rub chapstick on my nose to keep it from getting very severly chapped.
i bless the person(s) that came up with puffs plus. a lovely strong yet soothing on your nose tissue.
All of my hankies are about one square foot. There’s enough real estate on one of them to last me at least five blows, even if I’m feeling particularly congested. It’s as easy as looking at the cloth before I stick my nose on it. It’s also pretty easy to fold it so any icky stuff is on the inside before you re-pocket it.
My day to day nose blowing results in a clear liquidy substance that doesn’t really need to be blown out so much as wiped off. It is only when I’m sick that what Flander described comes out of my nose. If I’m sick, I simply keep an extra hankie in my pocket/purse/camera bag/whatever. I don’t believe I’ve ever needed more than two in one day.
Which is better, stuffing your own snot in your pocket; or killing trees as you think your snot is so nasty?
I stuff the left over paper napkins from my lunch (which would be tossed anyway) into various pockets and use them, that way I kill no more trees nor stuff snot in my pocket.
A good clean bandanna is a survival tool. 
Do you live in some magic world where Kleenex is always available? I don’t.
Sure. Why wouldn’t they?
I take it you have never actually laundered a handkerchief. They actually get clean, and what’s really amazing is that the process doesn’t ruin the rest of the clothes, nor does it destroy the washing machine. :rolleyes:
I nominate this thread for the “much ado about nothing” award.
I’m currently reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. The following line is from a paragraph about Indians’ views of European settlers:
(At the other end of the spectrum, the Incan emperor would not spit on the ground, but only into the hand of a servant, who would save the spittle, along with anything else touched by the emperor, to be reverently burned at the end of the year!)
My husband used to use hankies when we were first together. I point blank refused to touch them. Used ones would sit in the bottom of the laundry basket for, well let’s just say, a very long time, before he got the idea that I Would Not Be Washing Them. Then I decided to solve the issue once and for all and threw away all the hankies that I could find. Then his mother sent him some new ones for Christmas and I put them straight in the bin too. Handkerchiefs? No fucking way. Keeping your mucous can only lead to more disgusting habits in old age, like hacking up into a plastic bowl.
Sniffing is gross, but I think in some cases, it’s better for you than blowing - because it draws mucus out of sinus openings, rather than possibly forcing it back into them.