How To Bring Your Towels Back To Life

Have you ever opened the doors to your linen press and wanted to throw it all out and start again?

Well, don’t do that until you have tried some of these gems.

Yes. It is possible to breathe new life into your linen.

How to Revitalise Your Towels

Towels are one of those items we just can’t live without. We want our encounters to be as pleasant as possible but after a few years, the love seems to have faded along with the colour. It is possible to get back some of that “new love spark” in just two quick washes.

First, wash towels in the hottest water you can. Follow the instructions on the label if you can still read otherwise….Hot for white and not so hot for colours. NO detergent and NO fabric softener at all just a cup of vinegar.

Second, wash again in hot or not so hot water with NO detergent and NO fabric softener. This time add a half a cup of baking soda in the wash. You see, the detergents and fabric softeners build up on the towels and it is the residue that causes the dirt to stick in the fibres of your towels and make them look grubby. This same residue coats the fibres and stops them from fluffing up and being their absorbent. This also stops them from drying out properly and then your towels are smelly.

So do try this, it really does work. Both vinegar and baking soda are readily available in your home or can be purchased for just a few dollars. Once you own them you will find they have hundreds of applications in and around the home.

Before You Use Your Towels

I know how exciting a “life-changing event” like getting new towels can be. But, before you get too excited ask yourself this.  How long do you want these towels to last? Are they an important part of the decor? Are matching things important to you? If so, you may want to buy two or three sets of towels. So instead of 2 towels, 2 hand towels, 2 face washers and 2 bath mats you may want 4 or even six. This will prolong the life of each, obviously.

Anyway, before you use your towels for the first time you should follow the instructions above …. How to revitalise your towels. This is why — when you walk through the department store or your favourite linen distributor, your first instinct is to touch the towels. You squeeze them and rub your face on them to test them, right? Yes and the manufacturer knows that we all do this.

Guess what, they have a little trick.  So that their towels feel really nice in the stores, they use a special fabric softening agent.  This agent also has water-repelling properties and has to be stripped from the towels before they will be effective.

The baking soda will do that for you and the vinegar will help set the colours in the fibres so they won’t fade as quickly too.  This will also remove the greasy finger and faceprints.  It is like insurance for your towels, so take the time to do this.

Soap & Softener

We all use way too much of these.  They are costly and in some cases, like that of towels, they are doing more harm than good.  Use about half of the detergent recommended by the manufacturer to clean your towels and really it is best to avoid fabric softener all together.  If you must use it, only put it in every second or third time you wash.  Your towels will be more absorbent and without the build up, they will last longer.

Sort Your Washing

Towels really should be washed in a load on their own for sanitary reasons.  They should also be sorted in colours if you want them to look their best.  The nature of a towel is to absorb and they will absorb random colours from the washing water so wash similar colours together.

Drying

Allowing your towels to dry properly between uses is imperative.  Choose towel rails rather than hooks for your bathrooms if possible.  Use the clothes line if you can too.  It will save you money on electricity and replacement costs of the towels.  Using a clothes dryer may make your towels feel good but it does ruin the fibres.

Storing

Finally, your towels are clean and folded but if your linen press has a musty odour, chances are, so will your towels in a matter of days and then that smell ends up in the bathroom.  That would be a shame.  There are quite a few solutions to this.  Try keeping a fresh cake of soap on each shelf or use perfumed drawer liners.  You can buy special sachets or just keep your favourite scented candle in there when you are not burning it.  These are simple things that make a house a home.

What other tricks do you know of to keep those towels clean?