I feel like I need a separate body towel (big towel), and 3 other small towels for hair, face, and hands. 4 towels in total. Is that normal?

No. It’s not normal at all. But you do you. No one is normal.

But I would be more worried about having OCD if you are worried that (not) using separate towels for your hands and face makes you less clean.

I don't understand the logic behind the idea that it makes you "less clean" to wipe yourself off of excess water literally seconds after cleaning yourself in the shower. Think about it: to legitimately spread germs around with the towel, you'd need either the towel, or the area you're wiping off, to be unclean in the first place.

My wife likes a separate towel for her hair, but it's because she has very long and thick hair that's hard to dry out. Not doing so would mean leaving a trail of water dripping on the ground.

For me that's just wasteful behavior - if you're that concerned about cleanliness, those towels need to be washed regularly, therefore 4x the water usage...

Seems a better solution would be a single, large bath/body towel to dry off the whole body after a shower, that itself gets washed after every use (personally, I wash my towels after two uses). Maybe have a towel just for hair, if your hair is long enough to need it.
Then have separate towels for use throughout the day. A hand towel for drying hands after washing them. A face towel for when you wash your face/brush teeth/shave. And wash those towels and they become soiled.
Using different towels as you just come out of the shower does seem a little redundant and wasteful.
How about the "logic" behind the separate hand towel?Unless you're drying your hands and putting gloves on before drying any other part of your body, you will be cross-contaminating by touching the other towels with your hands.
- I'd answer with a non answer: this is way too much thought put into how you use your towels. Just clean yourself properly before drying out your hands, wash your towels regularly, and you're good lol
- When I shower, my hands get dry with the rest of my body using the body towel. My hand towel is a separate smaller towel by my sink that I use after eliminating waste and subsequently washing my hands.
  I don't go as extreme as OP. I have 3 towel types: large body towel that I use to dry my entire face/hair/hands/body after bathing. Smaller hand towel by the sink for drying hands/face after using the sink. And finally a separate medium-sized hair towel to wrap my long hair for further drying after I've already got most of the water off with my body towel. I'll wear that towel for 5-10 minutes after bathing. That towel isn't necessary for short hair.
I’ve heard the separate towels for hands and face, but only in a shared situation. Some people may use a hand towel to wipe messy hands or sloppily rinse their hands instead of wash. You don’t want their germs and mess getting in your eye

/thread

One towel is all that's needed. Start at the top, work your way from head to feet, floss the crotch last,. When the towel dries, it forgets, and the towel is clean for the next shower. If you have long hair, a second towel may be useful as a turban

I like to use an old t-shirt for the hair. It helps preserve the curls shape.
- So… I just love that i basically wrote my post as a shitpost because i think the concept of towels forgetting is funny and you answered with a serious and informative response. It is, and i mean this with all sincerity, quite lovely.
  Sadly I don't need hair care tips anymore, but i bet someone will be like, "Heh, the towel forgets… oh, a T-shirt, that's brilliant!"

I cannot tell you how many towels the average person uses, or what the distribution is. Though it's probably less than 4. What I can say is that it doesn't hurt anybody, so if it feels good for you, just do it. That's the nice thing about being an adult, you can do what you want.

I would note though that it's probably much more important how often you change and wash your towels than how many you use.

I have figured that if I'm not clean enough to use the same towel all over, I haven't showered well enough. But I don't see any problem in having multiple towels

It depends on what you're wiping off. If it's for drying yourself after a shower, then I'd just use my big bath towel to dry every part of my body since they should all be clean by that point. I sometimes use an extra towel for my hair since I have long hair and it needs some extra fabric to help dry out.

This sounds like it might be an OCD thing, especially given your reasoning. Do you you have other OCD like habits? OCD is relentless once it gets ahold of you, and can have seriously negative effects for both yourself and your loved ones. The earlier you address it, the easier it is to keep it from ruling your life.

This is my worry, also. These are not normal thoughts.

Please don't try to emulate Patrick Bateman unironically

Shouldn't have to worry about the towel being clean if you cleaned yourself properly. You're just drying off water from a body with no oils or dirt.

The error is thinking that your own sebum is bad and should be avoided. It’s like hating that you have tears. If you like, dedicate zones of the towel to functions.

Run away from any OCD-like compulsions early, if that could be the case. please

I'm not sure how effective that would be at preventing it lol

Important question: Is this the only situation where you strictly divide clean and unclean?

That is not normal. You're just too keen on getting dry very fast

I can understand using more than one towel because they're dry, but to keep yourself clean after a shower sounds obsessive.

Excessive imo

Why do you feel like you would be less clean? Like peas touching carrots on a plate? You have 1 body.

IMO the different sized towels are all towels and are sized for convenience. If you only wash your hands you don’t want to have to use a blanket to dry them. When you wash your body you don’t want to use a box of tissue sized towels to dry off. It isn’t about contaminating part of your body.

Yes. A single human body. That is how I operate as well. In my human body.

I just start at the top and work my way down when I'm drying off. That being said if any part of you isn't clean enough to rub a towel on and then rub that towel on your face you aren't washing properly.

Balls and arse crack last - the towel forgets by the next day.
- If your balls and crack still smell after taking a shower: wash them too.

You're going to have microbes growing on the towels as soon as they're used. They're your microbes that grow on your skin. You're not going to make yourself sick by using the towel a couple times on yourself on all your different parts unless you're getting excessive with the booty drying. Swap the towels out more frequently if you're concerned, but what you're talking about sounds a little excessive.

For the last question I welcome you to !skincareaddiction@sh.itjust.works where's there's a lot of helpful people that can help you with that! 😊

Been waiting for this one, subbed.

It does sound like an obsessive trait but if it's not causing you any problems and it makes you happy, then why not?

Although, a tip for you or anyone else reading this - letting your hair completely dry naturally without towel-drying it can make the texture so much nicer. I stopped towel-drying mine completely and now it dries with lovely, soft waves, no frizz at all.

I think there's a missing detail.

Do you want to use different towels for the different parts of you even right after showering? Or only so that a different one for after shovering, another for your hands for when you just washed hands, and another for the face when you just washed your face?
I don't think the former is normal, but the latter is. A different one for showring and just washing your hands is good to have I think, and if you have got oily skin then a third one for your face is also completely understandable.

I had two towels at once for a while, as I'm quite hairy. One towel didn't feel quite enough to get ne fully dry.

4 towels seems a bit much if I'm honest!

It seems a bit weird to me, but these towels all exist already so, it's probably pretty normal lol

I just wash my towels frequently and only have body towels for showers/baths and hand towels for regular hand washing.

I've only ever used one towel for drying and 2-3 washcloths in the shower. If you do your shower right you will come out clean enough. If any body area still stinks up the towel even slightly you havent done a good enough job.

Here's my wash routine, its simple and effective. Warning it may be a little moein detail than you want to read about.

When washing I soap up the first cloth ad startwith the face then armpits, then crotch, then taint, finally ass crack. Get in there and be thorough, use a lot of soap. I use Dr.bronners 18 in 1 hemp tea tree liquid soap with water in a spray bottle.

Rinse soap, then use sterilizer on your pits and if you are brave enough the tiniest bit on crotch. alcohol is more powerful but quickly dries the skin so its a quick spritz and rinse. vinegar is more gentle for people with sensitive skin.

Retire first wash cloth, get second one soap it up and do a general scrub down of the body. Torso, shoulders, arms, legs, hands and feet,scrub nails. Then do part 1 again (minus the sterilizer)

If you do this properly you will come out so clean one towel is enough. I still start with the face and work my way down to crotch when drying anyways lol. Doing a final sniff test with the towel afterward is the best way to know if you did really well.

Do people really "sterilize" their armpits and taint with vinegar and I have been out of the loop for all this time? The hell are you sterilizing them for?
Honestly, the washcloth is mostly there for convenience and not having to touch your asshole with your hands. Water and friction with literally anything, including your other hand, is enough for a cleaning effect to happen. Soap helps dissolving the greases and oils. Only potential thing left is actual dirt, which would need a bit more scrubbing, but from a cleanliness perspective, that's all there is to it, really. If it's clean enough for surgeons to wash their hands by rubbing them together with water and hand soap before playing with your insides, it's clean enough for me to dry with a single towel after just washing everything once properly.
- Yes people really do sterilize those areas. Its more common when you need to take a farmers bath. You sterilize because the main cause of stink is not dirt or oil or sweat but microorganisms.
  Bacteria that live on your skin colonize and thrive in those areas. That smell is sulphur based waste they produce.
  Soap does not kill microorganisms very well on its own, instead it helps the water pick them up and wash them away. If you have a lot of clean running water and a lot of soap it works well enough but doesnt 100% get rid of the colony. sterilizer kills off whats left.
  That being said most people (me included) who use sterilizer are cautious about putting it on the groin/taint since those areas are so sensitive but a teeny tiny bit on a realy wet washrag seems to be okay imo. I mainly use it for the pits and just soap and scrub really well down below.
  Also about the surgeon thing I'm pretty sure they still use sterilized gloves in a sterilized environment with equipment that's been through riggerous decontamination. They probably use hand sanitizer too lol.
I use Dr.bronners 18 in 1 hemp tea tree liquid soap with water in a spray bottle.
Doc Bronner's tea tree on your taint is at least as effective as coffee in the morning, but I like the peppermint for that all-day tingle

Does it matter if it's normal? You using 4 towels isn't hurting anyone anymore than me using one towel does.

As for the skincare routine, I can't help there.

You using 4 towels isn't hurting anyone anymore than me using one towel does.
I can only guess where the idea of wastefulness is such an alien concept that it's completely overlooked here.
- Do you not wash and reuse towels...?

If I'm home, I use just one towel and keep using it for like a week or two. If I'm in a hotel, they usually have so many towels so I'll use the whole variety and fresh ones each day. It's nice, but too lazy to constantly be washing towels when I'm home lol.

I am a dude with long hair, so I need a separate towel for my hair and one for everything else. I even learned how women do that towel turban thing when I grew my hair out.

Why though. I have one that I use even when i haven't had a bath. This is one large body towel that I also use to dry my hands (and face) when it just hangs there. Not sure what people are afraid of really?it's your own body!

Not only is it your body, you just washed it. If you're concerned about contaminating your face or hair with the rest of your body, you should consider how well you washed.

All you really need is a bath towel and hand towel. There's no need to go nuts with it unless you love doing laundry. If you feel "less clean" then you might want to see a therapist or something. It might be too mild to be OCD but it might not.

I use 4 towels as well, big one for body, small ones for hair and hands and tiny one for the face. Last one is more like a washcloth and not a full fledged towel.

Could you have OCD?

It counts like you have a cleanliness compulsion. Which isn't a huge deal, but if it gets burdensome then you might want to speak with a psychiatrist about it.

It probably makes you less dirty, yes, but not to the point where you would get smelly.

I do have a hair towel - two actually, one smooth cotton and one microfiber. Use these for styling, they don't cause frizz and they get gunked up with conditioner and stuff so I'd not use them to dry off.

The rest of me gets one towel. As long as it has time to dry off between showers I figure it's hygenic enough, and I wash it weekly. Husband uses two body towels but no hair towel as his hair is so very short.

If you are asking about a good and easy skincare routine - CeraVe unscented lotion is good enough for face and cheap enough for body. Wash whatever needs to be washed in the shower, dry off but not super dry, apply the CeraVe everywhere. After you get dressed in morning, a sunscreen for your face. If you have acne and/or are older, add prescription Tretinoin, apply that at night before bed.

dicktowel.com

I have ~~seen~~ met people who use 3 towels. 4 may be uncommon, but not abnormal.

Something I learned taking college microbiology was that if you reuse towels for drying off make sure one end (like the end with the tag) is dedicated for your bottom half and the other for the top. That way you don't accidentally get your genital flora in your eyes/face.

I did not learn this in college microbiology and I don't think it's something that's generally taught. Lol

The thing that's not normal is that you don't have a seperate towel for your ass, but you have two - for face and hair. I guess you do you

Welcome to adulthood