Were you inspired by all of the bathroom talk this week?  Did you make some changes in your own bathroom?

If you’ve written a blog post about a great technique you use to keep your bathroom clean and organized, we’d love for you to link up your post!  Share your best way to keep towels off of the floor or how speed clean your bathroom in 2 minutes a day.  We’d love for you to share any and all bathroom tricks you have up your sleeve.

Remember that if you link up on one of our blogs, your link will show up on all of them! Also, please remember to link back to one of the host blogs.

Here is a list of the bathroom posts we shared on Tuesday:

Jami from An Oregon Cottage shared her decorating expertise with a creative yet simple DIY project. She made a new shower curtain by stenciling on drop cloth!

Christine from I Dream of Clean revealed her method for speed cleaning a bathroom.

Nony from A Slob Comes Clean gave the details of how she organized her bathroom cabinets according to how her family really lives!  

{Make sure you scroll to the bottom for the Big Bathroom Link-up!}

How often should you wash your bathroom towels?  And what about the bathroom rug?  Should you wash it every week?  Every couple of weeks?

In my experience, people tend to fall into two categories in the Bathroom Towel & Rug Department.  With towels, people either use one every day/every other day or they only switch once every couple of weeks.  In washing bathroom rugs, people seem to wash regularly once a week or they rarely wash it at all (if ever).

Why You Should Wash Bathroom Towels Frequently

It would seem that one wouldn’t need to change bathroom towels too often.  I mean, you are drying off a clean body with a dry towel, right?

Well, that seems logical, but here’s the real deal:  every time you use your towel to dry off, you’re scraping off dead skin cells.  And those dead skin cells collect in the fibers of your towel.  So if you use your towel for 10 straight days, you have 10 days’ worth of exfoliated cells on that towel.  Lovely thought, huh?

Also, your towel got wet when it dried off your body.  Any time the fibers of something get wet, the opportunity to harbor bacteria and other germs is greatly heightened.

Wash Bathroom Towels Every 3-5 Uses

It is best to wash bathroom towels every 3-5 times they are used.  Notice that I did not write every 3-5 days.

That really is the maximum times a towel needs to be dampened (from drying you off), allowed to dry, and then be used again.

And keep in mind, this rule of thumb only applies if you hang up your towel after every single use.  It needs time to dry between uses so yucky things don’t breed and cause mold and mildew.  Besides the fact that mold and mildew are hard to remove from towels, the thoughts of mildew being on a towel I am using makes me cringe.

How Often to Wash Bathroom Rugs

How often you should wash your bathroom rug greatly depends on several factors:

• If the rug has a non-skid rubber backing
• If your bathroom is used frequently
• If a lot of water is routinely splashed on the floor

If your rug has a non-skid rubber backing, it can’t tolerate being washed frequently.  It is best to wash a bathroom rug on warm/hot, and the rubber backing will deteriorate quickly if it is washed on hot too many times.  Rubber and hot water and not a good mix in terms of durability.  To maintain a bathroom rug that has a rubber backing, only wash it once ever 3-4 weeks.

If a bathroom is used frequently, rugs need to be washed weekly.  If several showers are taken in the same bathroom on a daily basis, the rug gets wet/damp multiple times.  Since the rug is against a floor that doesn’t breathe well (if at all), it takes a long time to dry.  Because of this poor drying between uses, mold and mildew grow easily.  It really is the perfect condition for gross things to multiply quickly.

In a bathroom where water is routinely splashed on the floor, the rug needs to be washed weekly as well. {Think Kids Bathroom}  Again, the rug doesn’t have time to dry out well between uses and harbors all kinds of fungi and mold.  Add in a damp, warm bathroom and that mold is just waiting to multiply.

Guide to Washing Bathroom Rugs

All bathroom rugs should be washed on at least a warm water setting.  I honestly prefer washing rugs on hot, as hot water routinely gets items cleaner.  And I want the item I’m stepping my freshly washed feet on to be clean.

If your rug has a non-skid rubber backing, it is best to let it hang dry.  Hang it over the shower rod or use your portable clothesline or a real clothesline if you have one.  The rubber backing will stay intact so much longer if you don’t mix it with dryer heat.

If the rug does not have a rubber backing, feel free to put it in the dryer.  It will take a long time to dry, since it is so thick.

More Tips on Caring for Bathroom Towels

I’ve written many posts on caring for Towels.  If you need towel help, here’s where to look:

• Preventing Smelly Towels – How to prevent smelly towels once and for all
• Does My Washer Make My Towels Smell Soured? – A reader questions if it is her washing machine causing her towels to smell like mildew
• How to Revive Smelly Towels – Have towels that smell horrible, even when clean?  Here’s how to fix them.
• Should You Wash Clothes with Towels & Sheets? – 3 reasons why you should not wash your clothes with towels & sheets
• How to Fold Bath Towels
• How to Fold Towels in French-Fold Style

All About the Bathroom

And in case you’re thinking about making some changes in your own bathroom this year, I’ve got lots of inspiration for you! I’ve teamed up with three other bloggers today, and we’re all talking about bathrooms! Go check them out for some great ideas!
Christine from I Dream of Clean is revealing her method for speed cleaning a bathroom.

Andrea from Simple Organized Living is giving instructions on how to clean your shower (and keep it clean) in only 10 minutes a month!

Jami from An Oregon Cottage is sharing her lovely decorating expertise with an ultra-cool project. She’s making a new shower curtain by stenciling on drop cloth!

Nony from A Slob Comes Clean is organizing her bathroom cabinets according to how her family really lives!

If you’re motivated to declutter, clean or decorate your own bathroom this week, be sure to come back Friday and join in our group linky! If you have a blog, you can share your bathroom project and your link will show up on all of these blogs!

The holidays are upon us already!  Are you hosting any festive events this holiday season?  If you are, please let me gently remind you to not wait until the last minute to get your linens ready.  You know how things always seem to take longer than you think they’re going to?

Linens definitely fall into that category.

To get your linens in holiday shape, use these simple steps.

Plan which linens you will use

To have your linens ready in plenty of time, you’ll have to plan which pieces you’ll need.

For example, if you are hosting two parties this year, take a piece of paper and do some brainstorming. Plan each party’s linens down to the finest detail.  Here are some items to consider:

Locate and Examine All of Your Linens

Search every nook and cranny to find the linens you are going to use for your events.  If you have a small home with little storage space, you probably have linens tucked in various places.

After you’ve found all of your needed items, sit down with them under a good light.

Your next task is to examine them.  Are there stains that just ‘magically’ appeared since their last use?  Are they frayed on the edges?  Are there any minute holes or tears that need to be repaired?  Are there any that need to be replaced?  Do you have enough linens to cover the amount of people at your event?

If you’ve identified issues with your items, make a plan to fix whatever problem you have encountered.  If items need to be replaced, order them.  If seams need to be re-stitched, break out the sewing box.  If you don’t have enough, call your mom to borrow hers.

Prep Your Linens for Your Party

If you haven’t used your items since last year’s holiday season, you’ll need to launder them again.  Have you ever dined on dusty linens?  It’s not exactly appetizing, so make sure yours are clean before putting them on the table.

After washing, make sure they are ironed well if needed.  Some tablecloths and napkins are made from more wrinkle-free materials, so they won’t need this step.

If there is any doubt as to whether your tablecloth needs to be ironed, please just take the extra 10 minutes and do it. An ironed table cloth can make the whole room have a completely different look.

I’ve written a detailed how-to post on Caring for Your Tablecloth, so take a peek if you need some help with washing and ironing table linens.

What to Do After the Party

After your festivities are over, you’re left with a heap of tablecloths, cloth napkins and other holiday linens.  What do you do with them?

The most important step is to take care of them quickly. Don’t let them sit for days and days on your laundry room floor. If stains are present, you want to deal with them as quickly as possible so you have a chance at removing them.  The longer a stain sits, the harder it is to remove.

The next step is to launder your table linens and then store them carefully.

If you treat your table linens gently, they will last for years and years.

It’s not too early to plan your table linens.  In fact, it’s a pretty easy thing to check off of your holiday to-do list.  So grab your paper and pencil and start planning!

Looking for other posts on How to Take Care of Linens?

How to Care for Tablecloths – A step-by-step guide in washing, ironing and storing tablecloths so they’ll last for years.

Caring for Tablecloths and Cloth Napkins – How to treat and remove difficult stains on table linens.

Stain Removal Guide for the Holidays – A stain removal guide for most holiday spills.
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photo credit: esperales
photo credit: kevin dooley

I genuinely love this time of year from November through the end of December.  It’s always a busy time with cleaning, cooking, baking and shopping but I try to make it more simple each and every year.  I’ve found as we’ve added more children to our family, my desire for a simple, easy holiday season swells.

To help you make your holiday season a little more simple, I’ve put together a small guide for holiday stain removal . After your holiday feasting is over and it’s time to tackle that mountain of laundry, use this guide to eliminate your toughest stains.

Grease Stains:

It seems self-explanatory, but these stains are from oils or fats used in cooking.
Use this method for gravy, sweet potato casserole, splatters from cooking oil or butter, greasy pan drippings from your turkey or ham, or shortening.

Use the Blue Dawn method to eliminate these grease stains.

Make sure you hang your garment to dry and do not put it in the dryer.  The heat from the dryer will likely cause the stain to set and you’ll be stuck with it forever.

If the stain isn’t removed the first time, try the Blue Dawn again and go through the same process.  I’ve had success when trying to remove a stain the second time.

Protein-Based Stains:

Protein-based stains that can ruin your party clothes during the holidays are eggs and dairy products. Any type of cream based sauce or egg dish that spills on your favorite shirt needs an enzyme treatment to remove the stain.

Also, mud tracked in on your favorite throw rug or blood spilled on a shirt are protein-based stains as well.

To treat these stains effectively, you’ll need to do The Soak.  It’s a little time intensive, but it is extremely effective at fading and even eliminating protein-based stains.

Tannin Stains:

Red Wine and Tea can be tricky to remove, as they are tannin stains. If you act quickly you can virtually eliminate them.

As soon as you notice the spill, run the garment under cold, running water.  If you can’t remove the garment at the time, you can blot the stain with a wet white cloth.  As soon as you’re able, launder the garment as you usually would in warm water.

Make sure you hang the garment to dry and do not dry in the dryer.  The heat will set in the stain.  Also, some stains do not really show themselves until the item is completely dry.

If the stain is still there after hang-drying, then you’ll need to do a chlorine bleach soak if the item is color-fast.  I’ve outlined specific directions in removing tea stains, which can easily be applied to wine stains as well since they are the same type of stain.

Stains on Tablecloths and Cloth Napkins

Stains on a tablecloth or cloth napkins are a little bit of a different story when it comes to stain removal, only because the tablecloth fabric is more delicate than a cotton shirt or pair of pants.  You need to treat linens carefully in order to keep them nice looking.

See this post on Caring For Tablecloths and Cloth Napkins for specific stain removal help for your holiday linens.

Yesterday I wrote a post on whether you should wash your regular dirty clothes with your sheets & towels.

The simple answer is no, you should not wash your dirty clothes with sheets & towels.

However, I think you could infer from the post that you can wash sheets and towels together in the same load.  While you can, it is definitely not the best way to do things.

Why You Should Wash Sheets & Towels in Separate Loads

Sheets and towels have very different weights of fabric.  Towels are a hearty, all-cotton terry cloth and sheets are a thinner percale cotton or blend.  Towels are sturdy and made to take abuse.  Sheets are more delicate and are made to feel gentle on the skin.

Items that are such different fabric weights will not wash the same nor will they dry in the same length of time.  Sheets dry in 30 minutes or less while towels can take up to an hour, depending on how well your washer spins out the excess water.

Also, towels and sheets shouldn’t be washed in the same load because the towels can get balled up inside the sheets. As I described in the other post, the sheer design of sheets causes other items to ball up inside.  An item that is stuck inside a sheet is not going to be washed as well and is certainly not going to dry efficiently in the dryer.

Just To Be Clear

So just to make sure we’re clear: Your dirty clothes, your sheets, and your towels should all be in separate loads.  After you’ve sorted, you should have a pile of dirty clothes, a pile of sheets and a pile of towels.

If you take the time to make different loads, your clothes will be much cleaner and will dry much more efficiently in the dryer.

So make sure you sort your clothes before just throwing them all in the machine.  You’ll love your results.

I received this email in my Mama’s inbox:

Help! My towels are smelling of mildew, even though I just purchased them a few months ago.  I’ve never had this happen before and I’ve been washing clothes a long time. 

Do you think my washer is the problem?

Thanks for any help you can offer-
Renee

Renee’s problem seems to be popular, as it was the third email I received around the same question:  Can your washer cause your towels to be smelly and soured?

The simple answer is: probably not.

It is very possible to have a smelly washing machine.  You smell the mold/mildew when you open the door or lift the lid.  If you inspect closely, you can see actual mold on the inside rubber seal or around the drainage holes.  Bleh.

While this is gross and you need to clean your washing machine today, it is highly unlikely the cause of soured towels.

If the culprit was in fact the washing machine, all loads of laundry would smell like mildew – not just towels.

So what did cause the soured smell?

Towels that have a perpetually soured smell have been left in a dark, damp place for a period of time and were probably wadded up to some degree.  The possible spot could have been the bottom of a laundry hamper, the inside of a plastic gym bag, or in the corner of the bathroom floor.  Regardless of the place the towels were left, you can rest assured that they weren’t hung up to dry.

Towels can also sour if you leave them wet in the machine.  I know none of you have ever done that, because I surely haven’t.  Ahem.

Lastly, a buildup of fabric softener can cause towels to be awfully smelly.  Fabric softener doesn’t allow the cotton fibers of the towel to rinse cleanly, so it hangs on to detergent and softener.  These left on particles attract dirt, grime and smells and all of those things surely lead to stink.

The Fix for Smelly, Soured Towels

Soured towels need to be stripped. I’ve written detailed instructions on how to strip your soured towels, so make sure to stop by and read that post.

Most importantly, try to get rid of the stink before you send them through the dryer.  Dryer heat sets in stains and smells in a fierce way, so try to catch them before that.

Better yet, dry them in the sun.  The sun is the ultimate in stain removal and eliminating smells, especially of a mildew/moldy nature.

But the best fix for soured towels is preventing them in the first place!

Do you have specific questions about moldy/smelly/stinky/soured towels?  Leave them in the comments and I’ll help you sort through your towel troubles.

(Yes, that is a fresh pan of brownies on the stove.)

Dish cloths and kitchen towels fall into a different category of ‘typical’ laundry.  Like cloth diapers, kitchen towels need to be washed in their own load of towels – not with jeans, tshirts, underwear and the like.

Kitchen towels and dish cloths are the perfect environment for efficient breeding of bacteria:  they’re wet, often scrunched in a ball (so they don’t dry out), often warm and sometimes hiding in a dark place waiting to be washed.

I will readily admit that I switch kitchen towels and dish cloths often. As in, I can easily use up to 3 or 4 a day – but I also prepare 3 meals a day in my kitchen.  After I’ve wiped the counter down from preparing chicken, I don’t want to use that cloth again to wipe our kitchen table.  That is just asking for food-borne illness, of which I am not a fan.  And when one of my little people has used the kitchen towel to wipe water off of the floor, I don’t want to use it again to dry my hands.

So what constitutes the proper care of dish cloths and kitchen towels? Here are a few suggestions to keep your kitchen as clean as possible:

• Change dish cloths when you’ve used it to wipe counters with raw meat.
  Raw meat – whether it is beef, pork or chicken – can cause serious food-borne illness.  Food-borne illness can range from an upset stomach to far more serious conditions.  I am very careful with raw meat and raw eggs and if there is any question at all, I change my cloth or towel.  Why be sick when I can avoid it?
• Always wash dish cloths and kitchen towels on hot and on a regular/heavy duty cycle.
  These are items that must be laundered on hot.  You’ve used them to wipe up milk or wash dirty dishes and they need to be washed on hot water to best activate the detergent you are using.  Hot water only makes detergent dissolve and work even better.  Kitchen towels also need to be washed on a regular or heavy duty cycle – never on delicates or gentle even if the care label says to do so. The gentle cycle does not provide enough agitation to adequately get the cloths clean.
• Don’t use fabric softener in your kitchen towels or cloths.
  Fabric softener is great for other laundry items, but it should be avoided with kitchen cloths.  Liquid fabric softener provides a filmy coating on the outside of the laundry it comes in contact with.  I don’t want a film on my dish towels and I also don’t want a softener to inhibit my towels from getting completely clean in the washing machine.
• Rinse dish cloths completely before putting them in the washing machine.
  If you’ve used your dish cloth in a sink of soapy water, it still has a lot of that soap in its fibers.  I personally have had a soapy dish cloth SUD my machine a couple of times.  Causing the machine to go into the SUD cycle just causes wear and tear and makes it go through a ridiculously long safety-type cycle.  Save yourself the hassle and rinse them completely.
• Let your dish cloths and kitchen towels air dry before putting them in the laundry hamper.
  There is never a time that it is beneficial to put wet, dirty dish cloths and towels in a laundry basket to wait until wash day.  It will cause them to mildew, smell and just grow general funk that is gross.  Let them air dry completely over the edge of the sink during the night and place them in the laundry basket in the morning.
• Have a good selection of dish towels to choose from.
  If you have a moderate number of dish cloths and towels, you’re more likely to change them often simply because there are more available.

How often do you change your dish towels and cloths?  Daily?  Weekly?

On a weekly basis, I get a large amount of email about towels.  There are lots of questions surrounding towels and they mostly go like this:

• My towels smell horrible – like mold.  How can I get rid of that?
• We have towels everywhere I look, all over the floor.  What are some good solutions to hanging towels?
• I wash 3-4 loads of towels a week for my family.  How can I wash fewer towels each week?

Each of these inquiries deserves its own post, so today I’m going to tackle the question of mildewy, moldy towels.

I’ve written an in-depth guide on how to revive smelly towels.  So if you’ve got a stack of bad smelling linens, follow the directions in the post on how to get them back to smelling fresh again.

In my experience, the key to fresh-smelling towels is prevention of the mold and mildew. There are a few simple things you can do to avoid having to go through the hassle of getting rid of the stink.

• Always hang towels to dry.  Period.
  Letting them sit around on the floor or allowing them to sit in a ball on the edge of the sink is only going to breed gross things.  Hanging them up allows air to circulate, which causes them to dry faster.

These towels?  This is not how you should hang them.

The goal is to have wet towels hanging only one layer thick if at all possible.  If they are layered any thicker than that or if they are bunched up (like in the picture), they dry very poorly.  The longer they stay wet, the easier it is for them to grow mold.

• Don’t let wet towels sit in a laundry basket until wash day.
  If you have used a towel for the last time, hang it to dry and then put it in your laundry basket.  Towels that sit in dark wetness for a long time are just asking for mildew.  Not only will the wet towel mildew, it will cause other towels around it to do the same.  And then you’ve got a gross, moldy problem to deal with.  It can be easily prevented by putting only dry towels in the laundry basket.
• Set one day of the week as Towel Day.
  Make sure you’ve got  a Towel Day set aside in your laundry routine.  Just in case you’ve let a wet towel slide into the basket, you will have possibly caught it in time if you have a specific day to wash towels.  If you only wash towels once every three weeks or so, it will likely do mold damage before you find it on Wash Day.
• Circulate the air in your bathroom.
  Most people hang towels on a towel rack in the bathroom.  But bathrooms can be humid places where the air is doesn’t circulate well.  Open a window or turn on the fan to get the air moving in your bathroom.  A towel is not going to dry well in a steamy bathroom in which the air is still.

Do you have trouble with towels?  List all of your towel woes in the comments and I’ll address them in a few posts next week.

I will readily admit that I am fairly picky about my bed sheets.  I like them to be clean, tight-fitting and straight.  I don’t get a ton of sleep and when I do finally get to lie in my bed (oh Heaven!!) I want the conditions to be ideal.  That’s not too much to ask, is it?!

So I’ve had two nights to sleep on my new t-shirt knit sheets that my husband bought me for Christmas.  This is my extremely subjective list of pros and cons:

Pros:

• Unbelievable softness
  I literally feel like I am lying on a bed of…well, t-shirts.  Extra comfy t-shirts of the highest quality.  They feel so smooth and luxurious against the skin.
• Warmth
  These sheets definitely do not have that stark cold feeling when you slide underneath them as some other sheets do.  They also maintain your body heat so if you have to get out of bed for any reason they are fairly warm when you return to bed.  If you are a person that struggles with a hot pillow, these might not be the sheets for you.

Cons:

• The straightness factor
  These sheets have a lot of give to them and the readily stretch.  So it is a little more difficult to straighten the sheets when making the bed.
• Harder to fold
  Due again to the stretchy quality of this fabric, these sheets are a little harder to fold than other types of bed sheets.  Material that is stiff is much easier to fold and this material is far from stiff.

Based on my bed sheet preferences, I would give these sheets a 7 out of 10 on a 1-10 scale.  I’m not sure how they will work in the summer when the house is already a little hotter than usual.  Will they make us even more hot since they tend to hold heat?  I’m still in love with how cottony soft they feel so the heat question may become moot.

From a laundry standpoint, they are to be laundered just like any other standard cotton sheets.  So thankfully there is no special maintenance.  (And I wash all sheets on hot if you are curious.)

What kind of sheets are your favorites?  T-shirt knit sheets?  Percale? Flannel?

I hope y’all had a wonderful Christmas!  Celebrating the birth of Christ is always a privilege and never gets old.  Besides acquiring a stomach bug, this was a very peaceful Christmas for us and for that I am thankful.

One of my best gifts this year was my brother and his girlfriend choosing to spend Christmas with us here in North Carolina!  It is interesting that the older you get, the less important material gifts become.  And while no other presents were necessary for me…

my husband bought me some fabulous new sheets that I’ll be posting about tomorrow.  I can’t wait to tell you all about them!

So did you give or receive any laundry related gifts? Tell me all about them in the comments!