Buy good-quality towels made of pure cotton. Don't overuse laundry detergent during the wash, as it can lead to crunchy towels. Luckily, this can't happen if you're using All-in-1 PODs. Use a fabric softener like
Vinegar Soak: Place your towels in the washing machine and add one cup of white vinegar to the rinse cycle. The vinegar will break down mineral buildup and soap residue that can contribute to fabric stiffness.
If your towels come out hard and ``crunchy'', that means you have ``hard water'' containing lots of minerals, or else it's buildup from fabric softener liquid or dryer sheets, which ironically do the opposite. A water softener device can fix hard water. Also, try adding white vinegar to the wash.
Wash in Warm Water: Use warm water for washing towels, as it helps to relax the fibers better than cold water. Dry Properly: Tumble dry towels on a low heat setting. Over-drying can lead to stiffness, so remove them while they're still slightly damp to allow them to finish drying on a rack.
Incorporating natural additives such as vinegar or baking soda during the wash cycle can further enhance softness. Advanced drying methods, utilizing commercial-grade dryers with precise drying cycles, play a crucial role in preserving the towels' plush texture.
Add Baking Soda
Mix half a cup of baking soda along with a normal detergent dose for fluffier and cleaner towels. Baking soda also naturally eliminates musty and mildew smells that come from towels remaining damp for too long.
Towels air-dried outside become stiff and abrasive due to "bound water" that sticks to cotton fibers. Water's polar nature and unique hydrogen bonding, when bound to cotton cellulose fibers, result in the capillary adhesion that leads to fabric stiffness.
Hotels maintain the whiteness of their towels after multiple washes by using careful laundering techniques, high-quality detergents and optical brighteners. To keep towels smelling fresh, hotels use scented laundry products, prioritize proper drying and store the towels in clean and dry spaces.
Vinegar will both soften your linens and provide odor-eliminating benefits. If you're dealing with hard water deposits or any other residue, a wash with vinegar should help remedy your stiff-towel issues.
For super soft towels, add fabric conditioner to your load of laundry. Pouring a bit of liquid fabric conditioner like Lenor into your machine's dispenser drawer will prevent your towels from fading, stretching and bobbling during the wash, acting as a lubricant and helping to make them feel soft.
Using vinegar in laundry is simple. You can add it to the fabric softener dispenser in your washing machine or pour it in during the final rinse cycle. When adding vinegar towards the end of the cycle, manually pause your machine right before the final rinse cycle and add a 1/2 cup of diluted white vinegar to the load.
Softening towels with baking soda
Using baking soda may be a better option than vinegar for those worried about odours and contamination, as it is a more neutral substance that will not linger in any noticeable way.
Many believe that to keep towels soft and fluffy, you need fabric softener and dryer sheets. However, as mentioned above, fabric softener and dryer sheets contain PDMS, which will coat the towel fibers and cause them to lose absorbency and become stiff and scratchy.
Baking Soda and Vinegar
Add half a cup of baking soda to the detergent compartment of your washing machine. Pour half a cup of white vinegar into the fabric softener compartment. Wash your towels using hot water and run a complete cycle.
Hydrogen peroxide is great for dealing with mildew and the bad smells associated with it. But before you add it, your washer needs to be dry and empty. Then after setting the cycle to the clean setting (or the hottest water setting), add 2 cups of hydrogen peroxide to the tub and run the washer.
Choose Bleach or Vinegar for Whitening
Bleach can be effective for keeping white towels bright since there's no risk of color fading. However, vinegar is a safer, eco-friendly alternative that effectively whitens and freshens without the harsh effects of bleach.
If your towels are very stiff and scratchy, try adding around 250ml of vinegar to a wash along with your laundry liquid. Add it to the washing machine drum just before you load and set the cycle going, don't worry, it won't make your washing smell like a bag of chips.
What is the best detergent to wash towels? Heritage Park All-Purpose Laundry Detergent is a great choice for washing towels. It is a pH-neutral, plant-based, detergent that uses a proprietary enzyme blend to remove dirt, stains and odors without damaging fabric.
The rough texture can be a familiar yet puzzling outcome from towels to baby clothes. The stiffness is due to how the fibers in the fabric interact during the drying process. Unlike tumble drying, which fluffs up fibers, air drying can cause them to remain rigid or even attract residue like dust.
All you'll need is one cup of white vinegar and one cup of baking soda. You'll be using these two ingredients separately, as using them together will only cancel out the effectiveness of each one, during two washes on the same load of towels.
“Excessive amounts of fabric conditioner can create build up coating the terry loops which causes towels to go hard and scratchy, losing their absorbency,” advises Chrissie Rucker, OBE, founder of The White Company. And don't wash them at too high a temperature.