apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Love them!!!! Will, "it" actually - since I have't even had to break the second one out of the package after 6 months! I keep meaning to give the unused one to someone, but then my selfish gene kicks in and I decide to keep it! I have sworn off paper towels since my move into my new house two months age. I admit to doing my final clean-up at the old place with the last of my paper towels and the only other roll that's been in my house since I moved was one my mother insisted upon buying when she visited...and she took the remainder of the roll with her for the road trip home. This is great - washes up well - seems to get better with age.

yup, I use these.
they do wear well - mine's at least a year old.

I bought of several packs of these dish cloths from ikea as my paper towel replacement.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70069637

Mine are over a year old too -- still going strong. I love TJ's!

Where can I get these if there is no Trader Joe's near me? I can't find the Twist Euro Cloth, either, as I don't live near a Whole Foods, either. Any ideas? I took the suggestion of a commenter on the Twist Euro Cloth post and ordered the terry cloth rags from raglady.com, but I would like to have multiple options for clean up.

I'm for sure going to pick this up.

another great use for these: getting excess water out of your hair post-shower, resulting in less dripping as you air dry or less time using a hairdryer!

@Tyro Prate: You can buy the Twist Euro Cloths online at BlueHouse: http://www.shopbluehouse.com/browseproducts/Twist-Euro-Cloth-3-Pack.HTML

They look like they're the same material as my ShamWows. Can anyone confirm this? I know the ads are totally cheesy but the ShamWows are pretty darn great and I use the heck out of them.

How do you keep them from becoming a bacterial harvesting medium...especially if they are used to clean in the kitchen?

Same question as nephils...do you use them for egg spills and cleaning your boards and counters from meat and then go on to use them elsewhere? I'd rather be bacteria free and avoid cross contamination. Do you throw these in your dishwasher, because I wouldn't want these in with my clothes and since I pay for laundry, I'm not wasting gallons of water on 3 measly towels.

I bought a pack at TJs but have not used them as much as I would like. I was not sure if I could use them with a cleaning product. In addition to using them to wipe up excess water, have people used them for other kitchen clean ups?

I purchased a pack about a month ago and I LOVE THEM...

...just one thing: Cut 'em in half. They're super absorbent, so even us erratic dish-washers only need half to do the job, which means there's more dry squares to go around.

One note to those people with animals (and their fur): The fur peels off these as though they have anti-fur magnets after wiping, but be careful about putting them through the washer. Try to put them through with a clothing type that is also anti-fur, because the spin cycle locks the fur to them.

I've been using them for several years, halved, as mentioned.

I don't have an aversion to putting them through the laundry with my towels and washcloths: wouldn't you do the same with old-fashioned dishrags? But you do need to launder them, because, like anything that's repeatedly wetted, they smell rank if you don't.

I agree edava 72, I also have to pay for my laundry. What I do is fill up my wash basin with hot soapy water and just a little splash of bleach. Agitate them a bunch and let them soak. Then rinse them as clean as you can and hang them out to dry in the sun, it kills everything! I do all my kitchen laundry this way to save money.

I use one to wipe down my shower. And the other two for cleaning jobs around the house. They are great! Between those, microfiber cloths, and cut up t-shirt rags, I'm happy to say I'm paper towel free. If you don't want to mix in with your regular wash you could wash in the sink and then nuke in the microwave. My strategy is to save up a load of dirty rags, dishtowels, and "dirty stuff around the house and yard clothes" and do a hot wash cycle.

I don't use these, but I do use dish rags.

To prevent cross contamination, I keep all my dirty towels together, and then wash one load with bleach; I usually combine the dish towels and the whites, and this is the only load I do with hot water.

We also have separate dish, hand and "wiping" cloths. The dish cloth ONLY dries dishes, the hand towel ONLY dries hands, and the wiping cloth ONLY wipes things down. I change the wiping cloth every couple of days, and rinse it after every use. The dish and hand towel get changed weekly.