Caring for your towels

Saving Your Towels from Souring

Towels are often a dangerous time bomb of germs and smelliness if they aren't properly cleaned or are put away wet. That's why bath towels need to have special care in order to keep them from being ruined. Don't worry about feeling that you have a special problem, because this happens often. Why? Because towels dry so slowly, they are often thrown into the laundry hamper before they are totally dry.

If they are then put into the washer already germy or mildewed, the smell isn't going to go away. So you need some tips for taking care of those smelly towels, no matter what their size. This happens to bath towels, holiday beach towels, washcloths and everything in between. It doesn't matter. If you treat them with care, they are going to come out a lot sweeter than sour.

One of the first things you need to do in order to assure you don't end up with sour towels after you wash them is to keep a close eye on how many towels you are putting into the machine at one time. Towels are easy to overload the washing machine with, because usually they are separated from the rest of your laundry and are all part of a single load. You want to wash them all at once, so you end up cramming all of them in at once. But when you are dealing with big heavy towels like scotch beach towels and holiday beach towels, it may be too much for your washing machine to handle and get really clean. Throw something like a bathrobe in there and it will be a mess.

Once your towels are out of the dryer, you want to make sure they get properly dry. Often, after one full cycle in the dryer, towels are still going to be damp, especially the big ones like the scotch beach towels or the holiday beach towels. You need to hit that dryer button again and make sure they stay in there until they are totally dry. If you have something like a body wrap or a bathrobe in there, it will be best to have fewer things in the dryer to cut down on the time it takes to get it fully dry.

Of course, the dryer might not always be the best option. If you are really worried about smelliness, you could just hang your body wraps, washcloths or hand towels or something heftier like a bathrobe out on a line in the yard. The sunshine will act as a natural dryer and will infuse the towels and other linens with a natural scent which will smell clean and fresh, not sour or mildewed. Even towels that get the dirtiest in the house, like the pet towel you use to wash and dry the dog, can benefit.

Once you've tackled the problem of cleanliness through the washing and drying cycle, you may want to check out how you can clean your washing machine itself. If you have a hand towel (or even a pet towel) handy in the laundry room, you should soap it up and wash out the inside of your washing machine. If you are really worried about the cleanliness of the inside of the washer, you may want to add in some white vinegar to your cleaning solution and into a rinse cycle. Its natural cleaning ability will be sure to ban some of the odors and other nastiness that could creep into your linen. Baking soda is another natural solution that can be added to the washing machine list, thrown in during a rinse cycle or used as its own cleaning agent.

Stephen Pappalau is author of this article on Bath Robes. Find more information about Bath towels here.

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