When I was a kid we always called kitchen towels tea towels. I think it's a British thing.
I always figured it was the outgassing that offered the protection, but I don't know that for sure. I imagine the foam has something to do with it. In my case of my only ever open fermentation, as soon as I cleaned up the basement and the ungodly mess caused by the bucket blowing the lid off, I put the lid back on. It had plenty of extra headspace because a good bit of the batch was all over my floor. The house smelled wonderful. I don't know that I would let the lid off for any significant amount of time. My point was simply that I don't think it's a big deal if a beer is working so much as to push one of those Lids up and off. They're only held in by some rubber rings on the lid. Silicone, whatever. My most recent White House Porter came out the airlock and was all over the inside of my stand-up freezer which I use as a fermentation control chamber. I must have scooped foam off the top of those 30 times that day before it finally cooled down enough to slow down the yeast. At first I was trying to be real careful and sanitary but after a while it was getting old so I just started scooping my hands in and throwing the stuff in a bucket. Those were screw on Lids so they weren't going to blow off but, I opened them enough that day you may as well have called it and open fermentation. The beer turned out fine and I never had any doubt it would. That was back in March so if it was going to be contaminated it should have been there by now.