Your Essential Guide to Keeping Household Linens Clean
Look around your house and take note of how many linens you have. They’re probably in every room. From towels, sheets, slipcovers, curtains and mats, we use linens for both practical and aesthetic purposes.
But all that fabric, whether used every day or not, can accumulate dust and dirt just like anything in your home, so keeping it clean is essential. The tricky part, though, is that you can’t always see these things on your linens.
In this article, we will guide you through how often you should wash your household linens to keep you and your family clean and safe.
Bathroom Linens
Let’s start where your linens are probably used the most frequently: your bathroom. From towels to the shower curtain, your bathroom linens are mostly there to keep things clean and dry when bathing and showering.
Each type of linen is used differently and with different frequencies—meaning they all need to be cleaned differently, too!
Bath Towels
A lot of people will use the logic, “Well, if I am clean when I’m drying off, my towel will stay pretty clean, too.” However, what that logic ignores is that towels are often breeding grounds for microorganisms since they hang damp for several hours after every use.
In addition, the first 20 layers of your skin are made up of dead skin cells. While many of them come off in the shower, the majority of them are removed with your bath towel after.
That’s why it is recommended by The Cleaning Institute that you wash your towel after 3 uses. The exception to this are towels that are used in the gym to absorb sweat, towels with bodily fluids on them, or towels that never quite dry out all the way in the bathroom. These towels should be washed after just 1 use.
Bath Mat
Like your bath towels, your bath mat also absorbs a great amount of water and takes a long time to dry. While it may be soft on your feet when you get out of the shower, there are also all kinds of germs and bacteria lurking beneath that surface because it stays damp.
A good rule of thumb is to wash your bath mat at least once a week. However, if you share a mat with two or more people who use it daily, it’s better to wash it every 3-5 days. If you use one on your own, you can get by with washing it about every 10 days if it dries completely.
Shower Curtain
Your shower curtain and liner often get ignored because (let’s face it) they’re a pain to keep clean. However, you may change your tune if you knew that your shower curtain actually holds 60 times more bacteria than your toilet seat. They are by far the dirtiest things in your bathroom.
As such, you should wash your shower curtain and liner at least once a month.
Kitchen Linens
Like your bathroom, a lot of your kitchen linens spend most of their time wet or damp. That’s why they are a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. To prevent this bacteria from making you sick, you should wash all of your kitchen linens at least once a week.
Bedroom Linens
Human beings spend nearly half their lives lying in bed between sleeping and relaxing or watching television. What that means for the bed linens is that they can quickly fill up with dead skin and mites.
Most people change their sheets regularly, but you need to make sure you are keeping the rest of your bed clean as well. The general guidelines for bed linen cleaning are:
Bed sheets: you should wash your bed sheets at least once a week.
Duvet and Duvet Cover: Your cover should be washed once a week, especially if you don’t use a top sheet or your pets sleep on it. The insert should be professionally cleaned twice a year.
Pillows: You should run your pillows through the washing machine about every 3-4 months.
Mattress Pad: Standard cotton mattress pads should be washed every 2 months.
The Rest of Your Linens
Don’t forget about the linens you may not think about often, but that need to remain fresh and clean just the same. These items include:
Curtains: To keep them clean and make them last, they should be vacuumed from top to bottom with your upholstery tool at least once a week. They should also be washed at least once every couple of years.
Upholstery Fabrics: Ideally, you should vacuum these fabrics one a year with the upholstery tool, and clean them thoroughly once a month.
Welcome Mat: Shake your welcome out outside at least once a week, and do a more thorough cleaning job at least once a month.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed when it comes to making sure all of your linens are clean, free of germs, and looking their best, it might be time to call the professionals in. At Custom Maid, we know just how to keep your house in tip-top shape from the floors and ceilings, to the upholstery and towels. Contact one of our professionals today to discuss how we can help you keep up with everything.