Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The War on TOWELS

Some of the biggest fights I have had with my youngest daughter was over towels. Yes, towels. But first, I must go back a few years...

Several years ago I kept noticing all our clothes having big bleach spots. Knowing that I do all the laundry, and rarely use liquid bleach because of it's toxicity, I couldn't figure out what was causing it. But many pricey clothes, not to mention all my towels, had big bleach spots. So I thought it might be my washer, since it was aging. Maybe it was leaking some kind of fluid into the wash cycle, or something. I went to Sears and bought a very nice tumble washer and dryer. But it continued! I called Sears and they replaced that washer with an agitator as I thought maybe it was something wrong with the tumble-type. I could not figure it out! But then I noticed it happened more on the towels in the girl's bath than mine. Hmmm what could it be? Let me read the ingredients on their zit cream....

Yes, you have probably figured this out way before me - it was the benzoperioxide in the zit cream they both so lavishly used! Ugh! So the towels were already ruined, and I replaced any and all towels they used with white ones. I warned them within an inch of their lives to ONLY use the white towels and I washed them separately. I also encouraged them to forgo the zit cream - but you can guess how that went. Anyway, I bought some beautiful maroon towels to go into my bathroom here at the Lake and begged them to stay in their own bathroom when visiting - their towels were either blotched or white. One night Jill was in her last year of high school, and knew everything, when she blatantly walked into my bathroom, without thinking, and wiped her newly washed face on my maroon towel! I said, (okay, yelled), that she had just ruined my new towel, upon which she bellowed, (okay, yelled), she did not, and that I was just crazy! Isn't it fun to have high-schoolers when you are in the worst of menopause??

Needless to say, several years have gone by, and I have resigned myself to the white blotch on my maroon towel. Which brings me to now. I want to buy some really beautiful green towels to go into the guest bath which is being newly remodeled. Do I dare????? I know Jill no longer needs the zit cream but Jen is using SOMETHING since having problems with pregnancy-acne that I think has the dreaded benzoperoxide. My husband, knowing the history, has suggested the green towels be bought after Christmas...

6 comments:

Faithful said...

I have the same problem , only in reverse, my kids say I keep putting white spots on THEIR clothes. And I do't use Bleach or ZIT cream!

Mae Lee said...

Maybe you can the pretty green towels and then switch them with white ones when the girls come. Evil maybe but then you get the pretty ones for most of the time and then you and they don't have to worry about it.

Jen said...

Yeah I would just keep white ones for when we visit. Just to be safe

Jo-Mama said...

The wonder of it all would be if the last towel spoiled had a full face imprint on it, ala Forrest Gump! That would be suitable for framing and hanging for posterity in the "guest" bathroom. Just a thought. Don't kill me Jen

California Girl said...

This is an interesting post. I've had the same problem over the years and I guess if I think about it, the towels with the bleached out spots were definitely in the boys' bathrooms. It remained a mystery until now. I have always wondered how the towels and wash clothes could get so many bleached out looking areas. Mystery solved!

Rose said...

After I read that Jaclyn Smith only used white towels because they were better for your skin.....well, I have never used colored ones again. That was 20 some years ago.