If you fly in first or business class, it’s normal to receive a hot towel, either one or multiple times per flight. However, sometimes I just can’t wrap my head around how people choose to use them.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in hot towel autonomy, and I’m not judging. I just want to understand the logic, similar to how I’d love to understand the thought process of people who swerve through Miami rush hour traffic in their Dodge Chargers, only to not actually get ahead of those people who aren’t driving like idiots. I digress…
The practice of hot towels in airline premium cabins
It’s common for airlines to offer premium cabin travelers hot towels (or sometimes even cold towels) throughout the service. Sometimes they’re offered upon boarding, sometimes they’re offered before the meal, sometimes they’re offered after the meal, sometimes they’re offered upon waking up, sometimes they’re just thrown at you throughout the flight with no rhyme or reason, etc.
Presumably the intent with hot towels is similar to the Japanese tradition of oshibori (where you’ll often find towels offered in restaurants, hotels, etc.), which are meant to cleanse and refresh your hands, and they act as a gesture of hospitality and comfort.
Personally, I use the airplane hot towels in one of two ways:
- I sometimes use them to wipe my hands, though honestly, I often don’t, since they dry out my skin (and I try to moisturize my hands every so often, since dry air on planes often chaps my skin, especially when I’m flying a lot)
- Alternatively, I use them to just wipe down the area around my seat, since often aircraft seating isn’t cleaned very well; while these wipes aren’t antibacterial, at least they help with getting any sort of obviously sticky things off the area around the seat
For those curious about the logistics of how airplane hot towels are prepared, airlines generally have these towels arranged in trays, and then they’re either heated, or hot water is poured over them (from the airplane’s water tanks). Some airlines will put a mild scent into the towels as well, be it a lemon or rose scent. And nowadays some airlines even have individually packaged towels.
Why do people wipe their faces with hot towels?
I think among many travelers, there’s confusion about what you’re actually supposed to do with hot towels on airplanes. For example, the below video has been viewed close to 90 million times on Instagram, and I think it sums up the confusion that some people feel (I’m not sure how many views were for the person/thigh vs. the hot towel, but I’m focused on the hot towel here, okay?).
Here’s the thing I can never make sense of — why do so many passengers immediately use the hot towel to just start wiping their face? There seems to be a bit of a gender divide here, and in my experience, it’s more common for men to do that than woman.
I’m not even coming at this from an etiquette perspective, and suggesting it’s inappropriate, or something (after all, we wear pajamas on planes, so therefore we can do whatever we want). I just don’t understand the logic?
Let me start by acknowledging that before I met Ford (well over a decade ago), I’m not sure I was familiar with the concept of skincare or washing your face (or the importance of sunscreen, for that matter). But he’s super militant about it, and it has rubbed off on me, so I use a cleanser, moisturizer, etc. Okay, maybe I don’t use it quite as often as he thinks I do (I probably average once a day rather than the twice a day he assumes), but still, at least I’m in a routine.
So anyway, let me come at this from both a skincare and non-skincare routine perspective…
If you do have a skincare routine, you wouldn’t just wipe your face with a hot towel, since it would take off whatever moisturizer you put on your face. For that matter, you’d probably want to clean your face with a cleanser, rather than just rubbing a rough towel across it.
Meanwhile if you don’t have a skincare routine, I also don’t understand what wiping your face with a hot towel accomplishes? The air in an aircraft cabin is really dry, and simply running a hot towel across your face will dry out your skin even more, no? Like, your skin produces natural oil that’s good for you, especially in a worse air environment, so wiping out those oils and drying up your skin seems counterproductive to me…?
Air in aircraft cabins is actually pretty clean, so it’s not like you need to wipe down your face as if you’ve somehow been in a sandstorm, or something.
Like I said, everyone should do what they want, and I have no issues with however anyone wants to use their hot towels. I’d just love to understand the logic, out of my own curiosity. Is there some explanation I’m missing? Do people just do it instinctively because they see other people do it, without thinking much of it?
After watching so many people run hot towels across their faces five times on a flight, I’m just genuinely curious to understand what I’m missing, so please teach me!
Bottom line
It’s common for airlines to hand out hot towels in premium cabins, and it’s fascinating to see the different approaches that people take with them. To me, it seems logical to use them to clean your hands, if that’s something that works for you.
However, there’s such a common trend whereby people just constantly wipe down their face with the hot towels, and I just don’t get what that’s supposed to accomplish? Is it about cleaning skin? Is it about “refreshing” skin (by drying it out)? Is there something else I’m missing?
Anyone have any airplane hot towel insights?