Expert weighs in on towel hygiene as Brits admit to only washing 4 times a year

04 September 2023 , 14:49

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Your towels shouldn't be left unwashed for a year (Stock Image) (Image: Getty Images/Image Source)

There's nothing like wrapping a nice, big, fresh, fluffy towel around you after you've had a nice long shower. You smell divine, the towel feels lovely and clean, and you can complete your post-shower routine whilst still wrapped up - but when will it next get washed?

New research from bath experts at Showers to You has shown that over a million people in the UK only wash their bathroom towels once a year - despite the fact that freshly washed towels contain 190,000 counts of bacteria, which increases to 17 million after just one day of use, and soaring to as high as 94 million after a week.

Guidance shows that towels should be washed after three uses, but 3% of UK residents surveyed by Showers to You only wash their bathroom towels once a year (almost two million people). The research also showed that "almost one in 10 UK residents (8%) surveyed only wash their bathroom towels twice a year, equating to over 4 million people."

And it was men who "were five times more likely to clean their bathroom towels just once a year, with5% of male respondents admitting to giving them an annual wash, compared to 1% of women."

A whopping third of UK residents surveyed "wash their bathroom towels just once every three months", equating to over 17 million people. And if you were wondering which cities across the UK are the least hygienic when it comes to towels, according to research, it's those living in Leicester and Glasgow. They are "most likely to go the longest without washing their bathroom towels, with over four in 10 (41%) from both cities admitting to only washing their towels every three months at the most." Yikes.

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According to Health Line, though, it's important that you wash them regularly as "Towels absorb a lot of water and remain damp for hours, which is the perfect breeding ground for unwanted germs. That's why towels should be washed every three uses."

How often do you wash your towels? Let us know in the comments.

Danielle Kate Wroe