You are probably not cleaning your bath towel anywhere near enough, expert warns

Picture Rex
Picture Rex

Do you share a bath towel with other people? If so, you’re almost certainly cleaning it nowhere near enough times.

And if you can ever smell an odour cocming off the towel, you might have cause for alarm, according to an expert speaking to Science Alert.

Towels are really, really dirty – covered in bacteria, fungi, dead skin and unmentionable fluids from the human body.

Sharing one can lead to exposure to other people’s germs – and put you at risk of boils, spots and infections.

MORE: Wanted man taunts police by promoting search for him – on his own Facebook page

MORE: Expert slams ban on loo rolls for craft projects as ‘absolute nonsense’

Philip Tierno of the New York University School of Medicine says that even if you don’t share, you shouldn’t push the number of times you reuse a towel, ‘If you can dry it completely, no more than three times max.

But if the towel stays damp, it’s much, much worse, says Tierno.

Tierno says, ‘A damp towel is growing. If there is odour coming from the towel, wherever there is odour, there are microbes growing so it should be washed.’