Day 18 of #Write28Days Challenge
Yesterday, I shared my system of laundry for clothes. Today, I want to share about our system for towels and sheets.
Again, I need to put the disclaimer here: those of us who are more particular will not be able to stomach what I have to suggest for towels and sheets. You have been warned.
A Laundry System for Towels and Sheets
I am a minimalist not by choice. This applies even in my management of towels and bedsheets in our home. Towels are washed once a week and bedsheets once every fortnight. This may not sit well with many of you. But for those of you who are struggling to keep up with towels and bedlinen, read on!
Clean Bodies, Clean Towels
If we have showered thoroughly and washed our hair properly, our bodies and hair are clean after showering, right? Therefore, our towels are merely used to dry our bodies and hair. It should still be clean after drying us off – right?
But it is wet and it could smell if we leave it hanging behind our doors or on a hook. Even clothes freshly washed will smell if we just hung them behind our doors or on a hook.
However, if we hung our damp towels on a towel rack, all stretched out, they will not smell. Instead, they will dry up relatively fast.
Remember the science lessons in primary school on how the greater the exposed surface area, the greater the rate of evaporation? And also how the presence of wind also increases the rate of evaporation?
There you go. You don’t have to wash your towels daily – unless you really want to. But you need to hang them up, all stretched out and in a well-ventilated place.
Now, you can choose to wash your towels twice a week or even weekly like we do.
What About Bedsheets?
How often should one change and wash their bedsheets?
It depends on your comfort level. The rule of thumb everyone seems to have is once a week. But there are 8 sets of sheets to wash if I do them all once a week. I do not have a dryer so while I can wash all 8 sets of bedsheets I have no place to airdry them. So I don’t. I wash 4 sets each week.
However, if you have dust allergies, you may have no choice but not just wash it every week but to wash the sheets of the dust sensitive individual daily. Plus vacuum the mattress. If their allergies aren’t that severe, you could get away with just vacuuming the mattress with the bedlinen still on it and wash the sheets once a week.
Clean Bodies, Clean Beds
But if you do not have dust allergies, you could change and wash your sheets once a month IF you:
- shower before you sleep,
- only sleep on the bed,
- sleep with the air conditioner on, and
- air the room the next morning by keeping the windows open for 2–3 hours.
Yes, once a month. I have gone 6 weeks too. This was possible before the children hit puberty even though we do not sleep with the air conditioner on.
I do not allow the children to do anything on their beds except sleep. They are not allowed to play on their beds. Occasionally they would read there but that was not often.
Current Laundry System for Bedsheets
However, once they started hitting puberty, this was not possible anymore. I then changed our bedlinens once every two weeks which actually sees me washing bedsheets weekly because I do four sets each week, as mentioned above.
Now that I have a Dyson vacuum cleaner, I also vacuum their mattress every time I change their sheets. Previously I would only do it when we are on our one-week school break because I hated lugging the HEAVY and cumbersome Rainbow vacuum cleaner.
Tomorrow we will talk about our curtains and our laundry system.
Related Links
A Minimalist But Not By Choice