How Often You Should Wash a Swedish Dishcloth

Rinse and wring your Swedish dishcloth after every use, hang it open to dry, and give it a full wash at least once a week. If you use it all day, or it has touched raw meat or seafood, wash it every 2 to 3 days, or right away after the raw food. Replace it when it thins, tears, stops absorbing or keeps a smell after washing. For a cloth in daily use that usually means a few months, not years.

That routine is the answer to the hygiene worry that stops many people from giving up paper towels. A Swedish dishcloth is not cleaner than a sponge by nature. It is easier to keep clean, but only if you let it dry.

Bacteria grow in a cloth that stays damp and holds food residue. The numbers on ordinary kitchen sponges and dishcloths are the reason for a weekly wash. A Clemson Cooperative Extension fact sheet reports about 400,000 bacteria on a cloth after one week of use and roughly 20 million by weeks 2 to 3. It also reports that 75% of household sponges and dishcloths tested positive for coliform bacteria. The cloth carries far more than the surfaces it wipes: about 32,000 bacteria per 25 cm² in a kitchen sink, and only 316 to 398 on counters and toilet seats. Scrubbing harder with a dirty cloth moves more of it onto your counter.

Those figures come from sponges and cloths in general. None of the sources tested Swedish dishcloths specifically, so treat them as the case for washing, not as a measurement of your cloth.

Where Swedish dishcloths do have an edge is drying. They are thin and flat, so hung in open air they dry faster than a thick sponge. The Giro Company is clear that the cloths are not self-sanitizing. The fast drying helps only if you give the cloth air. A cloth left bunched by the faucet stays wet and loses that edge.

For the weekly wash, the easiest option is the top rack of the dishwasher with your dishes. Clemson notes that a complete high-heat dishwasher cycle disinfects cloths effectively. Your other options:

• Washing machine: use a warm cycle with a mild detergent and no fabric softener, which reduces absorbency.
• Microwave: soak the cloth thoroughly, then heat it on high for 1 minute. Only do this if the cloth has no metal in it, and handle it carefully afterward because it will be hot.
• Boiling: use it occasionally for a deep clean. Koh gives 2 to 3 minutes and Sweetgum 3 to 5. SustainabilityNook warns that boiling speeds up wear, so don't make it your routine.

The sources disagree on heat, so check the label on your pack. Koh says to machine wash at 30°C (86°F). Sweetgum Home recommends above 140°F for sanitizing. Wettex USA, as cited by SustainabilityNook, says its cloths last several years when washed at around 140°F. The sources agree on two rules: never put the cloths in a tumble dryer, where they shrink and can fall apart, and always air dry them.

Bleach is the other split. Clemson lists a bleach soak as an effective disinfectant for cloths in general, but Koh and Nellie's say to skip it on Swedish dishcloths. If you use it at all, RusticWise and Sweetgum give a dilute ratio of 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon per quart of water for 1 to 2 minutes, and only now and then.

Rinsing removes food so bacteria have less to feed on, but it does not disinfect anything. That is why the rinse happens every time and the full wash happens on a schedule. Odor resistance is not the same as cleanliness either. Ecologie credits the cloths' fast drying for keeping smells away. A cloth that does not smell yet is not proof that it is clean. It only means the smell has not started.

Estimates of how long a cloth lasts vary widely, and the pattern is clear: the harder you use a cloth, the sooner it goes.

• Koh: about 3 months with daily use.
• The Giro Company: 2 to 3 months with regular use.
• Wet-It!: 4 to 6 months for high use, and 8 to 12 months for light use.
• Sweetgum: 6 to 9 months in general.
• Ecologie: 9 months or more.

If one cloth does all your wiping, plan on replacing it about every three months. If you rotate several, 6 to 9 months is realistic. Nellie's says rotating spreads the wear, and Koh counts a 4-pack as about a year of use.

Don't go by the calendar alone. Retire a cloth early if it thins, tears, stops absorbing or keeps a smell after a proper wash. Clemson adds that worn and torn cloths give bacteria more places to hide, and Giro advises against covering a lasting odor with fragrance. When a cloth is done, cut it into strips and add it to the compost or green waste bin. Koh says its cloths break down within 24 weeks.

If you are still deciding whether a cellulose cloth is the right material for you, the comparison of flannel, unpaper and other paper towel alternatives covers the trade-offs.