Ditch Paper Towels For Good With These Simple Swaps

Oh, paper towels. You don’t know what you got till it’s gone, they say. And with this COVID-19 crisis, one of those things for us is paper towels.

I cannot find them anywhere! But honestly, just a month or two ago I mentioned to my husband how much I wanted to ditch paper towels altogether. Stop wasting, and start finding items that we could reuse instead.

He shrugged his shoulders and said that would be fine, and that was that. I kind of forgot about it until all of a sudden we couldn’t find any anywhere.

And because I’m trying hard to stay positive about all the things, I took this to be the perfect opportunity for me to implement my ‘no more paper towels’ strategy!

Now, this is not to say that once they are restocked we won’t buy more. Honestly, I’ll probably have to wean myself off of them. After all, we have a house full of toddlers who spill all. the. time.

But this will certainly get us started!

And to start, we’re sticking with 3 simple tips. I’m sharing them with you today (including some fun options to shop) so that maybe just maybe you could start ditching paper towels too!

DITCH PAPER TOWELS FOR GOOD WITH THESE SIMPLE SWAPS

SIMPLE SWAP #1: CLOTH NAPKINS

Now maybe you use disposable napkins instead of paper towels at meals, but we don’t. We use paper towels for every single meal, so obviously it adds up fast just how many we use on a daily basis.

But now that they cannot be found, it was time to make the switch to cloth napkins!

I see that face you’re making — “Aren’t they too fancy? They’ll get dirty so quickly.”

But if you’re like me, you’re constantly doing laundry anyway. All you have to do is toss them in with your next load!

Grab a couple of cute packs, maybe some neutrals and some seasonal colors, and look for darker colors that will hide any stains.

Here are a few of my favorites right now…

These pretty rose-colored napkins are from Target and are just $10 for a pack of 4! Plus, last time I checked in my store, they were on sale!

I love a pretty natural linen colored napkin to go from season to season! Plus this color is just dark enough to hide your normal stains! Win-win!

And can you even get over these cute striped napkins? Sure they’re white, but they’re just too cute not to have in the mix!

SIMPLE SWAP #2: CLEANING CLOTHS

We use paper towels to clean up all the messes, but we’re quickly realizing that doesn’t have to be the case! I have fallen in love with Unpaper Towels. Just $20 for a pack of 10, and you can wash and reuse for years!

SIMPLE SWAP #3: DISH TOWELS

This one might sound simple, but use your dish towels more! We always found ourselves grabbing for paper towels to dry the random dish or clean up the counter spill when in reality it was so unnecessary!

We have these incredibly absorbent Turkish towels from Olive & Linen that we just love. The more you wash them, the more absorbent they get!

They come in all kinds of cute styles…

Like the Marlow…