Towels per Person

[Chianti]

[quote="catherinedonegal"]
ah, chianti (without the flannel). it's only 5 bedroomed


Catherine

That's not a cottage it's a castle and I'm darn glad I'm not the cleaner Holy Whats its

Chianti the cleaner of a 1 bedroom apartment & that's not flannel

[Musetta]

This is the same price as duvet covers, but they wouldn't need to be pressed, which is what is hiking our laundry bill to over $100 a week without towels. Has anybody put them through a weekly pounding in the wash? .

haven't checked them out...mostly because it gets really chilly in evenings where we are...even in summer - so, rather the duvets than the extra electric heating costs I think it's a great idea though for spots wiith warm nights! (funny enough, IRONING is really cheap in Italy compared to here in the US...takes less time than laundry...persoannly, I think it's just a cultural thing...more ironing, in general, goes on in Europe than in the US)

[Wol]

A2 said:

I'm actually thinking of switching duvets for light cotton blankets this summer. From end of June, the duvets go straight on the floor and are not used. I saw some white Ralph Lauren cotton blankets for $49 last week in Home Goods. This is the same price as duvet covers, but they wouldn't need to be pressed, which is what is hiking our laundry bill to over $100 a week without towels. Has anybody put them through a weekly pounding in the wash? How do they stand up?

I have cotton blankets at home - the ones with a very loose weave (waffle weave?) They don't get washed weekly, but fairly frequently and are 20 years old with no signs of wear and tear at all.

MG said:

but after 20 years, some fabulous quality deep colour towels, given to us in the States, still bleed...Not a clue why.

Some dyestuffs react with some laundry detergents causing this problem. Try soaking them in a strong saline cold water solution, then in cold water with a good slurp of white malt vinegar. This may fix the dye. If not, nothing will.

And finally, to add my two cents worth to the original question - like Musetta and Brooke I have long thick hair, and need two towels. Also, the Wizard is large and hairy, and habitually uses two bath sheets. If he isn't provided with two of his own, he will just use my towel I thought a bath sheet, a bath towel, hand towel and face washer per person was standard issue so it is very interesting to see lots of differing opinions.

[Margaret]

10 days away and I come back to a 6 page topic on towels!

Anyway, we provide 1 bath towel and 1 hand towel per person booked and have never had any complaints. This may partly be because we have fitted all bathrooms with those heated towel rail type wall mounted radiators so they can always be dried as the heating is on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (even in summer, evenings can get cool). So they are easy to dry. I cannot get my head round washing any towel after 2 uses - sorry, but the use of water and electricity is too damaging to the environment to contemplate. We also provide bath mats - we had only thick fluffy ones until I got fed up with the length of time it took to get them dry, especially after short lets and got some cheap white Ikea ones for short lets.

As others have said, often not all the hand towels are used and sometimes not even all the bath towels, especially if there are children.

We do provide towels for the sauna which we also ask people to use if they are going swimming, to save on our nice quality house towels. But I don't think this is clearly mentioned on the website, so thanks for the tip on that.

We don't do individual soaps, although I would love to, for environmental reasons. We do provide liquid soap - at the moment, my number 1 challenge is to find nice, practical dispensers as our current ones are dark blue plastic which only look nice from a distance - we have better quality ones for shower gel.

[goosie]

you don't know the headaches this thread has caused me. Went down to our house at the weekend for a break but spent my time counting towels!!!

Anyhow, have now decided to do two things (you lot cost me money - I joined this forum to save mony from all your top tips!!!):

1. buy some more luxury bath towels and put them in the cupboards so that guests can use them if needed but hopefully will ignore them if they don't!

2. buy some cheap swimming towels that are so garish nobody will want to nick them.

I'll let you know about the rush of positive feedback I get from our guests when they experience this towel overload

[Chianti]

Ah but Goosie

Just think of the feedback and the advanced bookings you'll get for next year.

By the way, I don't think there is such a thing as a beach towel so garish that guests won't nick it. Most beach towels are revolting in the extreme!!

Chianti

[CostaBlanca]

Hi,
I provide 1 bath and 1 hand towel per person which seemed to be the norm here when I started renting. In our hot climate, a couple of showers a day is not unusual and the guests always seem to have the towels in the wash. What with the amount of sun tan lotions, hair dye, henna (?) type tattoos, etc, etc. the towels often need daily washing to avoid staining (well that's another topic . However, drying in open air takes a couple of hours at best here so that at least is not a problem.

Like Margaret, I am very careful about the usage of water and electricity especially since I arrived in such a dry country as Spain.

On a different tangent, without having to plough through the the original towel thread, was there a definitive answer on how the make your towels soft again without using a tumble dryer. Using vinegar maybe? how much per wash?
I bought some new towels last year but they are definitely not as soft as they were.

Maria

[Chianti]

Maria

We dry our indoors, while I can't say that our towels are fluffy, they certainly aren't crusty either. I like your idea of trying vinegar and may well do this and see if makes a difference.

Chianti

[Hells Bells]

Yes, use the maximum amount of detergent for your water hardness, and add a teacupful of vinegar to the rinse (add it to the bleach compartment in your powder dispenser)

[Margaret]

Does it matter what sort of vinegar?

[Giddy Goat]

was there a definitive answer on how the make your towels soft again without using a tumble dryer

Not the answer you're looking for, but in case you missed mention of the method, a compromise solution is to line dry the towels completely then give them a few minutes only in the tumble drier. Works a treat.

[Hells Bells]

Margaret, plain old white vinegar.

[CostaBlanca]

Thanks Helen,

Yes, use the maximum amount of detergent for your water hardness, and add a teacupful of vinegar to the rinse (add it to the bleach compartment in your powder dispenser)

I assume that can pour in the vinegar at the start of wash cycle into the bleach compartment and it should be released at the correct time? Otherwise, I will probably miss the critical moment for adding the vinegar......

Maria

[Hells Bells]

Yes of course