Cold is relative
I think it's fascinating just how warm "cold" water is, depending on where you live.
For my parents in the Rocky Mountains, "cold" is 1-2C (34-36F) for a good part of the year.
For me, in my part of Munich (different parts of the city have different water supplies, we are one of the very few parts of the city with water from the city itself), "cold" all year round is 12C (54F).
In Cheyenne, "cold" in summer is well into the 15C+ range (59F+) and in winter the pipes can freeze.
Obviously, if your cold water is warm enough to shower, then it is not "cold" by my definition of just barely not flowing ice in the mountains.
I know that we will eventually have the technology to clean in any temperature of liquid water as well as we do today in boiling hot water. The question is, when?
Until then, I'm sticking with the analysis done by our version of Consumer Reports. They recently stated that the 20C (68F) laundry detergents clean adequately if clothes are not too dirty, the wash program is appropriately long, the load is not too large...but they absolutely, totally, completely fail at reducing the microbial load compared to the TAED systems at 40C (104F) and can only be considered hygenic when soil deposition was light and an extra anti-microbial like Sagrotan is used. (Except in the UK, chlorine bleach is seldom used in Europe and I don't know anyone in Germany who uses it except as a last resort).
Their advice is based on scientifically valid testing and they are independent of the manufacturers. I think I'll stick with their advice for now - 40C for normal laundry and for towels, underwear and bed linens, 60C.
I don't use fabric towels in the kitchen, I use paper towels. This annoys my Öko-friends no end, but I will never forget the evening I saw my room mate use a towel to dry the dishes which he'd used that afternoon to clean up after one of the cats had gifted us with a hair-ball. He'd rinsed it out and hung it up to dry and forgotten to put it in the dirty laundry.
No way, no way. Never again. Same goes for handkerchiefs. Totally disgusting. And something the Japanese don't use, either.