Add 1 cup of white vinegar or 1/2 cup of baking soda. Soak the towels for 30 minutes to an hour. Wash the towels in hot water with a good quality laundry detergent. Add 1 cup of bleach (if the towels are 100% cotton and bleach-safe) or an oxygen-based bleach (like OxiClean) for color-safe options.
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.
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.
To remove yellow stains from white towels, start by pre-treating the affected areas with a paste of baking soda and water. Then, wash the towels with oxygen bleach or borax. You can also try using a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water or lemon juice to brighten the fabric.
If your sheets look dingy, stripping will help remove buildup and restore brightness. Note: the stripping recipe of Borax, washing soda, and detergent is not a bleach. If your sheets or towels smell musty even after washing, stripping will help remove trapped odors and freshen them.
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.
Creating a soaking solution with hot water and just one capful of an oxygen-based cleaner like OxiClean has proven to effectively remove tough stains without causing any harm or damage to your tea towel fibers.
Wash white towels separately from coloured clothing to prevent colour bleeding. Hard water can lead to dingy towels due to mineral deposits, so consider using a water softener. Despite its name, fabric softener can cause discolouration and reduce absorbency.
Use white vinegar:
Vinegar is also a great alternative to chlorine bleach. Add half a cup of white vinegar to your white laundry. This can remove the grey or yellow hues from your white clothes and restore their original color.
Instead, try soaking your towels in a solution of a baking soda and water before putting them in the machine. Adding a little baking soda to your wash cycle detergent can help too, as can distilled white vinegar added during the rinse cycle.
Soak towels in vinegar.
Soak your stinky towels in a bucket of white, distilled vinegar for 30 minutes to overnight with a tablespoon of detergent to help loosen body soils. Vinegar contains acetic acid that breaks up mineral deposits and dissolves the build-up of body soils on your towels. Rinse thoroughly.
Borax will make sure your whites stay white.
When mixed with water, borax converts water molecules into hydrogen peroxide, which is a natural whitening agent.
Adding vinegar directly to the wash with your laundry detergent may compromise its cleaning performance. Laundry detergents are formulated for specific pH levels, which may be disrupted by the acidity of vinegar, leading to less effective cleaning. It's best to avoid mixing them to ensure optimal results.
White vinegar, also known as distilled vinegar or spirit vinegar, is made by fermenting grain alcohol (ethanol) which then turns into acetic acid. Water is then added to the vinegar, so white vinegar is made of five to ten percent acetic acid and ninety to ninety-five percent water.
“For removing odors, I would say vinegar.” Some people, however, prefer white vinegar because it's not as harsh as bleach. Unless, of course, your washing machine has been completely neglected, and is now a breeding ground for bacteria and germs, and you want a power cleaner.
The short answer is no. And the long answer goes like this: When used together, baking soda and vinegar will neutralize each other, effectively canceling out the benefits of low pH for vinegar and high pH for baking soda.
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.
There are two main ways to restore the whiteness in your towels: one is using a non-chlorine (oxygen) bleach and the other is to try an all-natural method using baking soda, white vinegar or even lemon juice (but not together).
Hotels and laundries have a chemical called Potassium permanganate which is a very strong oxidizer that can kill everything and also remove stains effectively. So now you know how hotels manage to keep towels white. There are numerous stain remover solutions available in the market.
White clothes are notorious for yellowing around the underarms or collar. Perhaps your bedding has sweat stains after a particularly hot summer night. Whatever the case may be, learn how to use OxiClean™ White Revive™ to wash white socks, cloth diapers, towels and more to help keep them white and bright.