It’s been two years since we’ve bought them. Paper towels, that is.
And we really haven’t missed them.
Prepare to surprise others with your decision
And while we haven’t missed using paper towels. We have certainly surprised my fair share of family and friends by this decision.
“HoW CouLD YoU LiVe without paper towels?!”, is generally the response we get.
Is it that weird we don’t stock our pantry with paper towels?
Apparently!
Decide to use dish towels for spills
I’ll admit, it does take some getting used to no longer having a throw-away-option for spills, crumbs, and other messes.
And switching to dish towels can seem like you’re taking one mess (the spill) and creating another mess (a new pile of dish towels to launder).
But for me, it was helpful to remember that paper towels are a relatively new invention–and that we’ve been surviving without them for time immemorial. Once I made that mental shift, things got a bit easier.
(Fun fact: paper towels were invented in 1879).
The darker the dish towel, the better
If you’re like me and your muscle memory involves only using paper towels for messy cleanups, it’s strange to suddenly start using pristine dish towels for your cleanup (spoiler alert: they won’t stay pristine for long).
This is why it’s a good idea to stock up on dark-colored dish towels that you don’t mind using to mop up liquid messes. Dark-colored dish towels are better at concealing wine, turmeric, or tomato sauce stains that a white tea towel or light-colored dish towel simply cannot be saved from.
Grab some bar towels for cleaning
If you like to separate materials you use for cleaning food surfaces versus the rest of your household, then grabbing a couple dozen bar towels isn’t a bad idea.
Bar towels are incredibly absorbent, affordable, and great for cleaning. And by using bar towels for the remainder of your household cleaning, you have a clear visual distinction between which towels are for kitchen cleanup versus bathrooms, bedrooms, etc.
Stock up on flour sack towels for napkins, bread proofing, & other kitchen projects
Flour sack towels are also affordable (although not as cheap as bar towels) and they provide a clean, crisp appearance to any kitchen.
Unless, of course, you make my mistake, and decide to use them for spills and cleaning.
Instead, keep your flour sack towels separately dedicated to bread proofing, cheese straining, hand drying clean dishes, and other similar kitchen projects, and you’ll be able to enjoy them for many seasons to come.
I also like to use folded flour sack towels as napkins for dinnertime. Most fine dining restaurants use white, or lightly-colored, cloth napkins, and I feel like our white flour sack towels are a pretty good close second.
How we clean our cloth towels
Any messes involving food crumbs are gently shaken out inside our trash can.
I make sure the towel is directly above, or partially inside the trash can, when I’m shaking it out. Otherwise, I might end up making another mess right onto the floor.
After shaking out the crumbs, then I toss the towels into a hamper.
The hamper we use for our dirty towels is right next to the kitchen in the laundry room, and that hamper is usually loaded with our dirty dish towels, wet socks, and other items that will get washed together with hot water, on a high soil setting, and full scoop of our Azure powder laundry detergent.
If the mess was goopy (spilt gravy, mashed potatoes, etc.), then I might rinse out the towel in the sink first.
Make the switch from paper to cloth towels more convenient
Hamper placement
I’m utterly convinced that only major convenience paper towels provide is that you get to “throw out” your mess. And the only thing convenient about that is you don’t have to go to two locations after a spill: the garbage can AND the laundry room.
The fact that you get to just wipe up the spill and dump it into the trash is why paper towels are appealing.
But what if you just placed your dish towel hamper adjacent to your kitchen waste basket?
Repurpose the recycling bin
Many modern kitchen cabinetry sets come equipped with trash and recycling “pull outs”. You can repurpose the recycling pull out bin as a laundry hamper instead—this way both are out of sight and out of mind until you need them.
While we don’t currently have this option, I hope to make this update to our kitchen soon.
Use an oversized drawer for dish towels
Dedicating a large drawer by your sink or dishwasher is a great idea. And the bigger, the better (okay, maybe keep the biggest drawer in your kitchen for your pots and pans).
For an added time-saver, don’t worry about folding your dish towels. Having a large bin or drawer to toss your towels into is “good enough” and can help make the transition from paper to cloth seem like less of a chore–since you’re not having to fold the towels on top of laundering them.
Invest in more towels than you think you’ll need
Ten dish towels may sound like a lot, but it’s not.
For perspective, I have thirty towels for our family of three and that’s just the right amount to make sure we never run out of clean towels for spills in a pinch.
In fact, I usually only make it halfway through our towel drawer before I’m stocking it up again with freshly laundered towels. But the very fact that I never have to worry if I’m going to run out, make cleanups more convenient.
Decide if you’ll use them as a “single use” or multiple times
It drives my husband a bit bananas, but I use our towels like a “single use” paper towel when I’m cleaning up messes.
But that’s because I find it gross to wipe up a mess with an already messy towel (even if it’s been rinsed out from a previous use). In my mind, I’m always wondering if that towel was clean enough or if I’m just spreading the mess around.
This is why I use our dish towels like a single use—as in, they get used one time.
Then, I’m shaking them out and throwing them in the hamper (and yes, I probably go through five dish towels a day minimum). But this is what works for me.
Prepare for more laundry
Ditching paper towels and switching to dish towels means more laundry.
I’d estimate that I went from doing five loads a week (this is our usual laundry amount living on a farm) to seven.
So for us, the biggest difference is that I feel like I can’t skip a day of doing laundry anymore.
But this is just what works for us, because I don’t like to have dirty clothes, diapers, or towels pile up.
I’m always chipping away.
I suggest playing around with what works for you and coming up with a system for how much you plan to re-use your “reusable paper towel” (aka your dish towel) before deciding it’s time for the laundry room.
This is where practice makes perfect.
Realize that paper towels really aren’t that convenient
After we overcame the initial awkwardness of slightly more laundry and no longer being able to throw out our messes, it dawned on me:
Paper towels aren’t even that convenient.
Think about it: you have to buy the darn things every time you grocery shop, bring them home, take them out of the packaging, and make space for them in your pantry or countertop… over and over and over again.
They take up a lot of space. They’re not aesthetically pleasing (to me anyway). And they cost money.
Paper towels purchases are like a subscription plan–you’re always on the hook for buying them every month.
It seems so wasteful to have to continually buy something that you’re continually throwing away.
Know that you can make the switch!
I know it can be an adjustment at first—especially when it seems like the norm is to always use paper towels.
But after two years of using cloth towels, I can tell you that I’ve found this alternative system to be far more convenient and affordable in the long run.
Now, I no longer look at using paper towels as something convenient. It’s no longer a challenge to live without them.
And we have a lot of messes around here. If we can do this, so can you!
