Make sure you are using thin, quick dry towels... Nomadix makes a great one. They dry really fast and do not get nearly as funky as the traditional cotton towels. You can get away with washing once a week.

Anonymous wrote:People wash the swim parka?!

I know, right?

People wash the swim parka?!

Anonymous wrote:We rinse suits in cold water after each practice and hang to dry. We never wash them in the machine.

Towels- they get washed when remember which isn't very often. Kids swim 3-5 days a week.

Clearly we have low cleanliness standards.

Sounds fine to me. You aren’t supposed to put suits in the machine anyway!

I have two swimmers and we live in a dry climate. Mesh gear bags are left in the garage in bins. Drag suits are removed from the bay and hung up. Towels are hung on a rail in the mudroom. Suits are worn into the shower, rinsed (theoretically) and then hung up in the bathroom.

Towels are washed after 2-3 uses. Suits are hand washed after each use, but each kid has 6-7 practice suits, so they are washed in a batch once a week.

Everything dries very fast where I live - a damp towel will be dry within a couple of hours, gear in a mesh bag will be bone dry after a few hours, so I never worry about mildew.

Anonymous wrote:We rinse suits in cold water after each practice and hang to dry. We never wash them in the machine.

Towels- they get washed when remember which isn't very often. Kids swim 3-5 days a week.

Clearly we have low cleanliness standards.

Chlorine kills germs.

We rinse suits in cold water after each practice and hang to dry. We never wash them in the machine.

Towels- they get washed when remember which isn't very often. Kids swim 3-5 days a week.

Clearly we have low cleanliness standards.

Jammers, microfiber towels, and towel pants are hung up to dry as soon as they get home. Jammers get rinsed when I think of it. Towels and towel pants get washed 1x/week. Parka gets washed when I remember (every couple of months.)

Kids swim 3x/week.

Wash towels and suits every practice. Put jammers in a mesh bag. Parka every month or so. Bag every few months.

So suits get rinsed some of the time. Towels are cleaned once a week. We have the then quick dry towels and they don't seem to get as gross. About once a month I clean them all in white vinegar to get rid of odors.

The parka gets cleaned when it smells. Usually in vinegar as well.

Anonymous wrote:Towels and suits get shoved in bags to get gross all day in the trunk of a car. They get washed when we get around to it.

This.

Towels and suits get shoved in bags to get gross all day in the trunk of a car. They get washed when we get around to it.

Anonymous wrote:Curious what you do with towels, suits, and equipment after each practice. How often are you washing towels, after every practice, at the end of the week? Are you washing suits at all? Do you rinse the equipment (snorkel, fins, etc) after practice?

Our current routine is towels air dry on the back of our kitchen chairs, and are reused for the week. They get washed on the weekends. Suits are rinsed after each practice with cold water and left to air dry. We rarely wash the swim parka.

Anything else I should be doing for hygiene or to extend the life of these things?

This is almost exactly our routine(down to the parka ) but the towels and suits dry over night on the curtain rod or out on the deck when it's nicer. The main thing in extending life is rinsing the pool chemicals out every time.

We wash towels after every use. 2 rotating parkas gets washed maybe once every 8-12 weeks. Swim suits are rinsed in cold water after use. I use ovacion liquid detergent by forever new when the suits need more than the cold rinse. We hang the bag to dry in the laundry room. My son tends to lose gear before it wears out/gets funky.

Curious what you do with towels, suits, and equipment after each practice. How often are you washing towels, after every practice, at the end of the week? Are you washing suits at all? Do you rinse the equipment (snorkel, fins, etc) after practice?

Our current routine is towels air dry on the back of our kitchen chairs, and are reused for the week. They get washed on the weekends. Suits are rinsed after each practice with cold water and left to air dry. We rarely wash the swim parka.

Anything else I should be doing for hygiene or to extend the life of these things?