I have two kids who like most kids make a huge mess in less than 5 minutes so you will never find me far from a cleaning product.  I’m on constant alert, just waiting for the next mess to happen when I’ll need a dishcloth or paper towel, carpet cleaner, or stain remover, for a mess that someone has made.

I used dish cloths to clean up messes in our kitchen for years.  I used reusable dish cloths because I didn’t like the idea of throwing away paper towel after paper towel.

My mom even made me about a dozen beautiful knit dish cloths and I used them to clean anything and everything in the kitchen.   The knit dish cloths are soft and pretty.  However, the knit didn’t help combat the dishcloth smell I experienced with ‘regular’ dish cloths.

To top it off, it seems that everyone in my family feels the need to use a new dishcloth every time we clean a surface.

Why do I use a new dishcloth almost every time I need one?

1. After just one day there can be millions of germs on a dishcloth.  Read Prevention Magazine’s 10 Worst Germ Hot Spots for more on this.
2. Used dish cloths smell and I don’t purposely touch smelly things.
3. I have no idea what my husband or son used a dishcloth on, so why would I want to use it to clean my kitchen counters?   They have been known to clean spills off the floor with a dishcloth and put it back on the sink to reuse later.  Yuck!

Isn’t the idea of re-depositing something that you wiped off one surface, onto another surface gross?  I think so.  So when there was a dishcloth on the sink that I didn’t use in the past day, I put it in the dirty laundry and replaced it with a new clean dishcloth.  Also, it’s a well-known fact that germs thrive on moistness so what do you think happens to a wet dishcloth as it’s hanging on the side of the sink?  The germs on it multiply!  Most people hang a used dishcloth on the edge of their kitchen sink which does not allow the dishcloth to completely dry.   What do you use a dishcloth or paper towel for in the first place?  To clean surfaces and get rid of germs!

Designed with more fibers that hold together even when wet, Bounty DuraTowel feels and cleans like a cloth to tackle the toughest projects.  In a secure P&G lab demonstration, a black  light revealed that even after rinsing a used dish  cloth can still drag around old clean-ups. A fresh  DuraTowel leaves surfaces three times cleaner than  a used dishcloth.*

In a secure P&G lab demonstration, a black light reveals that even after rinsing, a used dishcloth can still drag old clean-ups around. However, when you start fresh with a Bounty DuraTowel, you can feel good about tackling tough jobs knowing your DuraTowel will leave surfaces three times cleaner than a used dishcloth.*

My Dishcloth Germ & Bacteria Test Results

The P&G Research & Development team conducted ATP (see below for explanation) testing on a dishcloth that I used for several days and the results were 18,262!  As you can see, after only three day’s use, my dishcloth harbored millions of germs and bacteria.

The ATP test is a process of rapidly measuring actively growing microorganisms through detection of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.  ATP is a molecule found in and around living cells, and as such it gives a direct measure of biological concentration and health. ATP is quantified by measuring the light produced through its reaction with the naturally occurring firefly enzyme luciferase using a luminometer. The amount of light produced is directly proportional to the amount of living organisms present in the sample.

DuraTowel has a suggested retail price of $3.19.

I am a compensated P&G blogger.  All opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.

Related post: Do you clean like a tortoise or a hare?