Why Hooks Aren't The Best Option For Dry And Fluffy Towels

Who doesn't love stepping out of the shower or bath and wrapping themselves in the warm, soft embrace of a dry, fluffy towel? A good quality towel can make your bathroom feel like a spa and bring a little extra joy to your morning or nighttime routine. The one thing standing in your way of having dry and fluffy towels might be your towel hook. With only one spot to hang on, hooks can wear through the fabric of your towels, causing holes, shedding, and an overall decrease in the softness of the material. Additionally, hooks leave the fabric of the towels more bunched together, which prevents them from drying quickly, especially in humid climates.

A better alternative to hooks is to install a towel bar into your bathroom instead. With more room to spread out the fabric, your towels will dry quicker and experience less pilling and wear and tear than with a hook. This simple swap can help make a difference in the quality and lifespan of your towels.

Aside from the fact that wet shower towels are unpleasant, they can also harbor harmful bacteria. A 2020 study published in the African Journal of Infectious Diseases and included in the National Library of Medicine that analyzed toothbrush and towel handling practices by university students discovered that 100% of sampled towels in the study tested positive for E. coli. Since E. coli is a bacteria that requires a damp environment to survive, it's important to get those towels as dry as possible, which likely means swapping out your towel hooks for towel bars. With more surface area for those towels to dry, they'll dry much faster than if they were on a hook. 

A key component to keeping your towels clean and bacteria-free is to let them completely dry between uses. In addition to hanging them on a towel bar, it might be useful to dry your towels outside of your bathroom where humidity might be trapped, or if they are drying in the bathroom, to at least turn your bathroom fan on. It's also important to keep towels separate from one another when drying. If your towels are touching, they'll not only dry slower, but it might cause more bacteria to spread. Finally, be sure to clean your bath towels often to cut back on the spread of bacteria. It's a good rule of thumb to wash your towels on their own in hot water after about three uses and to definitely wash them if they start to smell.

Towel bars not only help your towels dry faster, but they also can prolong the life of your towels while providing a stylish and much neater look to your home. Wet towels can be heavy, and all that weight in one spot on your towel can damage the fabric over time. With a towel bar, the weight of the towel will be dispersed much more evenly, which will help the towel last longer.

Style is another reason to go forgo towel hooks for towel bars. While it might be convenient to be able to throw your wet towel on a hook right after using it, towels hanging on hooks aren't the neatest look in your home. If you have beautiful, fluffy towels that you want to show off, folding them crisply over a towel bar is a great way to do so — while keeping them nice, clean, and dry at the same time. During installation, keep in mind that there is an ideal height for your towel bar. This will keep your towels clean, off the floor, and optimally functional.