Your towels are way dirtier than you think

Dirty towels can carry a huge variety of microbes, and they've even been linked to spreading infectious disease. You can’t keep your towels 100% germ-free, experts say, but you can limit the grossest ones by washing your towels—only way more often than you probably do now.

Towels are such great bacteria traps because every time you use a towel, you transfer your natural skin bacteria, and any other germs you’re carrying, onto their surface. Most of these germs won’t have any negative health effects because they’re coming from you. “Our bodies are adapted to being able to live in this environment with all of these microbes around,” says IHPI member Emily Martin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

But towels offer the perfect environment for bacteria and other microorganisms to grow because they’re often damp, warm and absorbent, and they hang in dark bathrooms.

Because your hands can transfer microbes to your towels from whatever they touch, the bathroom is an especially threatening place for a towel to spend most of its time.

Even so, it’s unlikely you’ll get sick just from touching a used towel, according to Whittier. The bigger risk comes if you have cuts or abrasions (as many athletes do) or dry skin that can let the microbes into your system, she says.