How Often Should You Wash Your Towels? I Bacteria Tested Mine!

About this video

• Video Title: How Often Should You Wash Your Towels? I Bacteria Tested Mine!
• Channel: Field of Focus
• Speakers: None explicitly named, but the transcript is a first-person narrative.
• Duration: 00:15:31

Overview

This video investigates how often bath and hand towels should be washed by testing bacterial growth over time. The creator conducts an experiment using petri dishes to observe the bacterial load on a bath towel used daily for showering and left to dry, and also on hand towels used more frequently in a high-traffic bathroom. The experiment aims to provide real-world insights into towel hygiene.

Key takeaways

• Control Group: A freshly washed and dried bath towel showed no bacterial growth, establishing a baseline.
• Daily Bath Towel Use: After one day of use for showering and drying, the bath towel showed no bacterial growth. This continued for the first two days.
• Gradual Bacterial Growth: Bacterial colonies started appearing on the bath towel around day 3, with noticeable growth by day 9, and significant growth by day 11.
• Family Member Towels: Bath towels used by other family members for various purposes (showering, face washing, hands) for one week showed a "tremendous amount" of bacterial growth, comparable to the creator's towel after 10-12 days of controlled use.
• Hand Towel Hygiene: Hand towels, especially those in frequently used bathrooms that often remain damp, accumulate bacteria rapidly. Significant growth was observed by day 3, and was still high on day 4. The creator recommends changing hand towels daily or every two days.
• Personalized Results: The creator emphasizes that these are real-world results from their home and may vary based on individual factors like body bacterial load and bathroom conditions.