How to Avoid Having Damp Bathroom Towels

Avoid the unpleasant feeling of grabbing a damp towel after you get out of the shower by following some of our tips to make sure they dry properly, every time!

If you’re struggling with damp bathroom towels, even after hanging them up to dry, then you might need to look at your towel drying setup and make some changes. Even changing up just a few small details, like how or where you dry your bathroom towels, can make a massive difference.

As damp towels can quickly become a major issue, it’s best to try and find a routine that works for you to keep everything dry. Otherwise, you could be facing mould issues from the excess moisture in your home, and towels that are damp for too long can also smell quite unpleasant.

10 Tips For Keeping Your Bathroom Towels Dry

1. Check How You’re Hanging Them

Before you consider where you’re hanging up your towels to dry after using them, you should check on how you’re hanging them up. If they’re folded or scrunched up in a ball, then they won’t dry as effectively as if they’re spread out properly. It’s also best to leave space between towels (or anything else you’re drying) if you’re hanging up more than one in the same place.

2. Hang Them Immediately After Use

If you’ve got the ‘how’ sorted, then it’s time to check on the ‘when’. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when drying your towels is simply not hanging them up soon enough. Ideally, you should be hanging your towels up to dry straight after you use them, unless you’re putting them in the wash. 

3. Shake Them Before You Hang Them

A small thing you can do to help your towels dry faster and stop being damp is just shaking them before you hang them up. It’s quick and easy, and it helps with separating your towel’s fibres, which then means the towel will dry more evenly. 

If your towel is extremely wet, then it can get rid of some of that excess moisture too - just be careful of where you’re shaking it! You might want to do it over the bath or in the shower if your towels are really wet.

4. Heated Towel Rail

But as well as how you hang up your towels, you should also consider where you’re hanging them up. One of the best setups is a heated towel rail, because then your towels aren’t just being air dried, but also dried with the heat from the towel rail.

But even with a heated towel rail, you should remember the best practice tips mentioned above: keep towels apart from each other and spread out as much as possible, without folding or scrunching.

5. Bars Not Hooks

If you don’t have a heated towel rail, then you can still make a small change that can help with keeping your bathroom towels dry: use towel bars, not towel hooks, in your bathroom. 

Bars are much better for giving your towels room to spread out while they dry, since a hook keeps your towel a bit more bunched up. Even without the bar being heated, its shape can help to get your towels dry faster and more consistently than towel hooks.

6. Dry Your Towels Outside If Possible

While you may not always be able to dry your towels outside, it is a really effective way to avoid them staying damp, and to keep that moisture out of your home. Drying your bathroom towels on a washing line outside, ideally under direct sunlight, can get them dry quick and also has some interesting benefits. UV rays from the sun are actually capable of killing bacteria that might be on your towels, meaning you get a cleanliness benefit without a whole washing cycle.

With that being said, you should still be washing your towels regularly, even if you’re air drying them. Once a week is usually a good schedule to keep, but this may depend on how often you use your towels. If you’re showering twice a day, for example, your towels may need washing twice as often as someone who showers once a day, so you may want to wash them twice a week.

7. Bathroom Ventilation

If you’re hanging your bathroom towels up to dry in your bathroom, then it’s best to make sure that your bathroom has as much ventilation as possible. If you’ve got an extractor fan in your bathroom, then make sure it’s running while you shower and for about 20-30 minutes afterwards. You can also leave a window open during and after your shower to help out with ventilation.

The better your bathroom’s ventilation, the less humid it’ll be, and that means your bathroom towels will be able to dry quicker. It also reduces the chance of your towels staying damp and not drying at all, which can lead to even more problems with moisture and damp in the room.

8. Microfibre Towels

But if changing up your method for drying your towels hasn’t helped, then it might be time to take drastic action. Swapping out your cotton towels for microfibre towels might seem like a big change, but microfibre bathroom towels are both more absorbent and quicker at drying than cotton towels.

Their small fibres mean that they have a larger surface areas than cotton towels, which have larger fibres, and this makes the drying process faster. 

9. Not Using Them Before They Dry

While it can be annoying to reach for a towel after your shower and discover that it’s still damp, it’s important that you don’t then use the towel anyway. Giving your towels enough time to fully dry between uses means that you’re reducing the chance of mould and smell issues. 

10. Have Enough Towels

A great way to make sure you’re not having to use your drying towels while they’re still damp is to have several towels that you use on a rotation. This doesn’t just have to be your bath towels, either; your hand towels should also be given time to dry properly if they’ve gotten quite damp. 

So, make sure you have a couple (per person, for bath towels) that can be switched out as needed. Relying on just one bath or hand towel means that you’re more likely to have to use it while it’s still drying, whereas giving yourself options means that you can always ensure there’s a dry towel available.

Last Thoughts On Avoiding Damp Bathroom Towels

Although your bathroom towels being damp isn’t the end of the world, it’s a small issue that can contribute to higher humidity and moisture levels in your bathroom. Over time, your towels will start getting smelly and musty, and you could start seeing mould issues in your bathroom.

It’s best to get it sorted as soon as possible by making some small changes like the ones we’ve covered. And while you’re thinking about keeping your home clean, you might want to check out our guide to cleaning your fake plants, or how to wash your bedspread.