If you have white towels, you may notice that they might not be as white as they used to be.
Wouldn't you love to have towels or sheets as white as in a hotel?
In order to get your towels back to sparkling white, try the following solutions:
photo courtesy of Scott Robinson http://www.flickr.com/photos/clearlyambiguous/83590462/Chlorine Bleach
If the wash label on your towels allows it, wash your towels in hot water with chlorine bleach and your regular detergent.
In order to make sure the water in your washer is hot, run water in a nearby sink until it turns hot before starting the washer.
You can even boil water in a kettle on your stove and add the boiling water to your washer to get the water extra hot.
Once the wash has started agitating for about 5 minutes, you may want to stop the washer for about an hour or two and let everything soak.
Run an extra rinse cycle when using bleach to ensure the bleach is rinsed out of the towels thoroughly.
You may want to wash the towels in just bleach, then wash them again immediately after using your normal detergent to ensure all of the bleach has been removed and they smell fresh.
Bleach can eat away your towel fibers, so don't let the bleach sit for more than a few hours.
Be very careful using bleach because it can discolor other fabrics & materials if you accidentally splash it on your clothes or other items.
Borax
Borax is a detergent booster that has been used for over 100 years.
You can add 1/2 cup of borax to your laundry to increase its cleaning capabilities and odor removal (both whites and colors).
Consider using borax with the bleach method above.
Powdered Dishwasher Soap
In addition to the bleach, regular detergent, and borax, consider adding 1 cup of powdered dishwasher detergent to the mix.
All 4 cleaners working together should get your towels ultra white.
Hang Outside
A traditional method for keeping towels white is to hang them in the sun.
The sun bleaches the towels a bit and keeps them white, not to mention smell great.
Many people believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
photo courtesy of Nan Palmero flickr.com/photos/nanpalmero/14187962637/Lemon Juice or Vinegar
You can use lemon juice or vinegar to whiten linens.
Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil on your stove. Add 1/2 cup of lemon juice or vinegar and your white linens.
Stir the mixture, then remove from heat.
Let the linens soak for an hour or so.
Wash the linens as usual, preferably in hot water.
Make sure to only soak similar fabrics - do not mix some cotton and some linen.
The lemon juice or vinegar solution will also make your home's air feel fresher.
Bluing
After using the bleach, regular detergent, borax, and dishwasher soap method, you can use bluing if your towels are not as white as you want.
Bluing has been around for over 100 years (a brand name is Mrs. Stewart's Bluing #ad ).
Bluing adds a tiny bit of blue to your whites to make them appear whiter.
Most fabrics are a gray color instead of plain white.
Adding the blue to the dull white makes it seem bright white.
Bluing is added to the final rinse of a laundry cycle.
Follow the directions on the package for the best results.
No Cheap Detergent
Cheap laundry detergent can make your white towels look dingy after just a few washes (that includes DIY detergents).
Now that you have made your white towels white again, keep them white by using high quality detergent.
Tide Ultra #ad is not the cheapest laundry detergent, but it currently ranks best by independent tests.
Make sure to not use too much laundry detergent, else you may not be able to rinse all of the soap away and your towels will remain dingy.
For more information, see the video below.
