I don’t know how many towels and washcloths you should have. Except I’m pretty sure that somewhere close to 60 is not the right number. I knew this even before I consulted Dr. Google. I mean, everyone has a towel they used in high school and took to college, right?

No? Moving on.

Based on my research, how you use towels is an actual question you are supposed to ask yourself. What? It never occurred to me to think about usage, but duh. Of course you should.

So I said, “Self, how do you use towels?” Then I asked each member of my family. I got weird looks.

I use two at a time (one for body, one for hair). I would think this would be pretty standard. I can’t be that much of a weirdo. Well, I can, but not in the towel department.

Stephen and The Boy use one towel at a time. The Girl alternates between using one or two each time. She has mastered the art of wrapping her head with a towel and when she’s feeling particularly, I don’t know, girly, or finishes watching an episode of Shake It Up, she wraps her hair and struts around showing off her masterpiece. “Mommy, look what I did!”

We all use either a washcloth or small hand towel. I use a poof sponge thing in the shower, not a washcloth. We also use bath towels more than once between washings unless there is a specific need to wash them after one use. And by need to wash them I mean it’s been more than 4ish days and/or I suspect they are about to start to walking on their own.

And now I’m getting paranoid. How often do you wash your towels?

The Boy and The Girl swim nearly every day in the summer. We currently have 4 ginormous beach towels and 7 smaller ones. These get washed after each use.

Given this, how many towels do we need?

Research

According to Unclutterer.com, to determine how many towels and washcloths you need, you should use the following simple math equation:

(House residents + Guest bedrooms) x 2 = Sets of bath towels and washcloths

According to the Wedding Channel’s Q&A regarding the Bath Registry you need three sets of towels per person: one in use, one in the wash and one in reserve. The Wedding Channel has determined that one set of towels consists of a bath towel, hand towel and washcloth.

The opinions on The Straight Dope forums are all over the place – anywhere from 2 per person to 9 per person.  63% of respondents fell within the 2 to 4 towels per person range. Before my research, I never would have imagined there would be a forum called The Straight Dope. Do you think that’s a legit site to reference?

According to the Unclutterer formula, we should have 8 sets of towels:

(4 house residents + 0 anticipated guest rooms) x 2 = sets of towels and washcloths

4 x 2 = 8 sets

According to the Wedding Channel, we need 12 sets. Broken down, this would mean 12 towels, 12 hand towels and 12 washcloths. Doesn’t that seem like a lot?

Utilizing the opinions on Straight Dope, the number of towels (not sets) could range from 8 (2×4) to 36 (9×4), with the majority of the opinion that between 8 and 16 towels for the family would be a good number.

Consulting Martha

After this research, I couldn’t help it. I checked out a book from the library. What book? Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home. Otherwise known as, The Essential Guide to Feeling Inferior and Inadequate.

In the world according to Martha, you should “allow for two complete sets of towels for each person in the household and two additional sets for guests. Each set includes a bath towel, a hand towel, and a washcloth.”

I was all like, “Yeah, I’m siding with Martha,” until I read this:

“In addition, it’s also useful to have three or six fingertip towels. Also known as guest towels, they are typically smaller than hand towels. They are often embroidered or otherwise embellished and made from flat-woven linen or cotton. They are traditionally set out in groups of three for guests (so they do not, for the sake of hygiene, dry their hands on towels you or your family have already used).”

Then I had to stifle my gag reflex. I know this is like the pot calling the kettle black, but isn’t that obnoxious? I have two lovely hand towels one of my best friends gave to me many years ago with a ‘B’ embroidered on them. They aren’t fingertip towels, but when we have people over, they are set out. Isn’t that good enough?

If you decide you need to have personalized guest towels, here’s a tutorial on how to make them. Straight from Martha.

Where We Wound Up

According to our usage, the highest recommended 36 towels from Straight Dope seems obscenely excessive, making the Wedding Channel suggested 12 towels appear downright reasonable. And, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I suspect that the Wedding Channel is in cahoots with the towel industry to suggest more towels than one really needs.

So, we sort of followed Martha. We decided to keep 8 body towels, 4 hand towels, 4 washcloths and 8 beach towels for regular use and 2 old towels for any potential disasters requiring cleanup. And the two hand towels from my girlfriend. Because, really. That’s plenty.

All remaining towels and washcloths have been donated. So, if we need more than that, it’s too late. We’re going to have to suck it up. But I don’t think we will.