The Proper Way to Use a Towel

Aim

Maximising the number of towelling-off occurrences of a single towel for the entire body.

Motivation

I shower at work a lot due to my cycle commute, and have a locker where I store toiletries, work shoes, work clothes, and a towel.

This towel is used to dry off my entire body; hair, face, back, armpits, genitals, legs, feet - with most of the sweaty parts being the back, legs, and feet.

This is fine on Mondays and Tuesdays, but by Wednesday the towel starts to reek, and drying off my hair and face with that same towel begins to feel a bit rank.

So I started experimenting with different types of towels, and different strategies to keep the towel fresh for as long as possible throughout the week

Methods

I tried each, some for an entire week, or some only for a few days if I saw no progress.

__Towel Types__

Bath towel: Thick, fluffy, covers the entire body and then some
Beach towel: Medium thickness, hard, covers the entire body and then some
Normal towel: Medium thickness, hard, covers just the legs.
Portable towel: Ultra-thin, hydrophilic, covers just the legs.

__Towelling Strategies__

Head to Toe: Dry off from the head first down to the toes.
Toe to Head: Start feet first and dry upwards.
Wettest First: Start at the wettest part of your body and work your way to the dryest.
Dryest First: Start at the dryest part and work your way to the wettest.

__Toweling Orientation__

Any: Use any part of the towel for any part of the body
Specific: Consistently use a specific part of the towel for a specific part of the body (e.g. use the top of the towel for your head, and the bottom for your feet, interpolating in between).

Results

(None, I did none of this. My commuting and cleaning habits are highly irregular, there's no way I could do such an experiment fairly, I just thought it was a fun exercise.)

I started with "Head-to-Toe, Any" and my portable towel stank after 3 days.

Since this week I've been doing "Head-to-Toe, Specific" and now only the foot part of my portable towel stinks after a few days, and I can live with that.

Also I wash the towel at work from time to time. There's no drying rack, so it just dries off in my stinky locker, soaking up the ambient stank.

Conclusions

None. This was a waste of reading time for everybody.

Enjoy the week.

mouse

I tend to use a flannel to wipe down or remove most of the surface water after a shower. Means towel is not soaking up so much. Just a suggestion. Anyone else do this?

tetris

Thats a great idea - definitely will try this, as it will likely save the towel drying time in the locker

mouse

Not sure where I picked the habit up from but does seem to keep the towel from being soaked. You can at least carry several at once - or change easier.

Be nice to know if it helps.

tetris

You know, I still don't know who exactly taught me to shower. I remember I used to take really long showers for a long time as a kid, and maybe its because I was still figuring out what I was supposed to be doing.

johano

I thought this was going to contain some kind of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, honestly 😃

tetris

I feel like Arthur wasted years as a sandwich maker in that tribe, when he should have embraced his true calling: towel etiquette

inquiry

It wasn't a waste, as it finally got me wondering whether "Towelling" or "Toweling" was the correct spelling. :-)

tetris

my autocorrect appears to like both!

inquiry

I must be a "letter before '-ing' minimalist", because I like the single 'L' version better.