Does everyone in your family have their own towel? Aparently some families do.
Before our kids snuck into our lives, my wife (long ex) and I had two towels on the rod, but we both used either one. When she washed her hair, she’d use both, which was why I divorced her. After the aliens (two girls) arrived, we still used only two. The only time it was a problem was when we would be going somewhere and everybody had to shower, then we’d get out another towel. The only reason we used just two in the first place was because that’s all that would fit on the towel rod
Now that I’m single I use one washcloth (washrag) and one towel for a week. Mostly, I love being single. 
So, share your own household’s towel habits with The Teeming Millions.
Extra point: Is a single person, living alone, a household?
Peace,
mangeorge
We have two towels in the bathroom at any given time (in addition to a hand-towel), and we each use one of them. We generally don’t use the other person’s towel.
But, in our collection of towels, there are no towels that are specifically hers, and none that are specifically mine. It’s just an “in the bathroom” thing. So, right now i’m using the big white towel and she’s using the blue one, but after they get washed and go back into the rotation, next time we might end up with the opposite ones.
If you get what i mean.
Same here. My towel hangs on the left holder and my husband’s hangs on the right. I want my own towel, but I just grab the next nice big one out of the clean laundry. I do tend to hog the bigger towels.
We each have our own bath towel and hand towel. I’ve never heard of sharing towels–other than a hand towel in a powder room.
We have about 20 or 25 towels in the house. About 10 are older, smaller ones we only use when we go camping. Another 10 or so are big, plush, bathroom towels, and 2 or 3 are super enormous, almost blanket-sized towels we take to the beach.
We each use our own towel and will use one for 3 or 4 days before throwing it in the wash and getting a fresh one. We have our own hand towels and wash rags. We have our own bathrooms, so unless one of us is using the others bathroom, which is rare, we won’t use each others towel.
Well, unless we have a house guest. Then with 2 towels in the one bathroom, we may use each others, but we usually kind of know who put their towel on the bar on the wall and who put theirs on the bar on the shower door. But it’s not like we’re really keeping tabs or anything. When we do share his bathroom, he usually showers first, so I just grab the towel that’s not damp.
The Mrs. and I share a hell of a lot, but not towels.
Don’t share your towels, it’s a definite vector in spreading staph aureus infections, including the rather virulent strain of CA-MRSA, community acquired methicillin resistant staph aureus.
This mutant strain on average causes more, and nastier infections than either tradition staph or the hospital acquired MRSA version. MRSA (caution: PDF!)
I use a fresh washcloth and fresh towel for every shower. I wash my face with a washcloth a couple of times a day, and I will use a face washcloth for a couple of days, no longer than that.
I don’t share my towels with anyone. I urge my husband not to use my towel when I’m done with it (I hang it up to dry before tossing it in the hamper). I’ve had MRSA once, and that was quite enough, thankyouverymuch.
I live alone, so no towel sharing here.
But I have a related question. When I take a shower, I hang the towel over the shower curtain rod. I like to dry my eyes after washing my face, or especially if I get any soap or shampoo in them.
I was visiting someone and her shower had a full door and no place to hang a towel. She thought I was weird for wanting to have access to a towel while in the shower. I thought it was an obvious thing to do. In fact, I dry off before I get out of the shower so I don’t drip all over the place.
So, while we’re discussing all things towel, in the shower, or no?
Yes, my boyfriend and I share towels. It wasn’t my idea. When we moved in together, he would just use whatever towel was there, whether it was designated mine or his. So after a while I just gave up, and went with the community towel thing. We also will share toothbrushes.
I know what Qadgop said is true, but on the other hand, we share a lot of things - being a couple - sleep naked in the same sheets, swap bodily fluids, etc. So our germs would be commingling anyway.
But towels act as incubators for staph, and you get a much heftier dose from the towel than you would from getting all snuggly with your SO.
Add into that, you’ve just stepped out of a hot shower, your pores are open, your capillaries are dilated, and now you’re vigorously abrading your skin with a towel that has been incubating what previously were just a few stray colonies of the pathogen.
Hell, some folks manage to self-inoculate this way, and go from just being colonized with MRSA to giving themselves a skin infection. Merely by re-using their own towel.
In our two person bathroom (the baby has his own bathcapes) we keep the clean towels in the bathroom, so anyone feeling the need for a fresh towel can get one of the stack.
With the towels in the batroom, the system is very simple. Everyone uses the towel that feels most dry. Every four days or so, I sniff/feel all towels and the ones that fail my freshness test go in the hamper. So I suppose my husband and I share towels.
We also both have athletes foot, apparently, which I diagnosed and attacked this weekend.
Husband towels in the shower, I towel on the bathmat.
There is a related thread from a while back on where people hang their towel to dry. In our new bathroom, we solved that problem by installing a second towel rack.
Thank you. When I say it, people call me a germophobic alarmist. I’m glad a doctor got here first and said it! Can’t towels also spread the herpes simplex virus?
Do you have a towel within reach for mid-shower eye drying?
My family were all big towel sharers. In my two-year relationship with my ex, we each had our own towel, we rotated front/back of the double towel rod (the towel that matched the bathroom better had to be in front :rolleyes:). With my current roommate, one of us hangs it on the hook on the bathroom door and the other on the towel rack, although we swap back and forth on accident sometimes. My bf and I (of 4 months) are willy-nilly with towels - I just use the one that’s less wet.
I wouldn’t share the towel. General ickiness factor, although I do understand that some people don’t find that weird at all.
I mainly came in here to say that I dry in the shower… for a simple reason: It’s warmer inside
Interesting. I wonder if one is any more likely to catch that from a towel than by simply cohabiting with a sex partner. Make that “with a partner one has a sexual relationship with”. 
I’ve read that couples eventually share immunity to personal bacteria.
One night stands can sometimes make a person mildly ill. I can vouch for that, but maybe it was the 3am breakfast at Denny’s.
No, because I have a nice cushy bathroom rug.
One of those towel warmers is pretty nice too. One of my ex-germ-incubators had one. I don’t want one, but it was cool 
. Well, warm.
I’ve got to ask. You’ve just come out of the shower where you presumably used soap and water for a given period of time on your entire body. You use a towel. Would there really be a lot of germs on that towel?
Oh I still agree in the ucky factor of using a towel someone else used. But I’m just saying…
Ucky factor?
Many, if not most, of us in a relationship have put our mouth just about any place a towel will go. Of course that would be nice fresh uckies, and not incubated ones.
I’m making light, but my money would be on QTM’s warning on this.