If you are like most people, a luxuriously soft and fluffy bath towel appeals to your senses. Over time, however, especially in homes with hard water, bath towels can become scratchy and rough. Instead of throwing those towels away, rendering them as ‘spares,’ or purchasing new ones to replace them, you can revitalize the ones you have.
The following six tips will help you restore your towels to their once cushy condition, and keep them that way.
First of all, you want to plush up those fibers that have become matted and hard. You can do this by washing your towels, a few at a time, with a small bit of laundry detergent, and then putting a cup full of white vinegar in the rinse cycle. Don’t worry, the towels are not going to smell like vinegar when you are through. The vinegar serves to loosen the fibers up in the towel, helping them to be restored to their original state. Also, the more times you use the vinegar in the rinse cycle, the softer your towels will become because you are slowly removing the chemical build-up that has occurred within, since you began washing them.
Tip Two: Never use too much laundry detergent, it reverses the cleaning affect that it is supposed to have and bogs your towels down with too much junk to be cleaned off effectively in one washer load.
Tip Three: Skip the liquid fabric softener and the dryer sheets. While they claim to make items soft and delicious smelling, what they can really do, especially after time, is build up residue on your thick towels that weighs them down. Fabric softener is good for reducing or eliminating static cling, but the adverse affects are a waxy build up that destroys the absorbency of your towels.
Tip Four: Air dry your towels, if possible, and then put them in the dryer on the air fluff cycle for about fifteen minutes. You will be very surprised at how much of a difference this can make after just a couple of washings.
Tip Five: Throw four or five clean tennis balls in the electric dryer with your towels, if you have to use one to get them dry. Once they are dry, fluff them for a few minutes before folding. The balls serve to soften and fluff the towels, as well as remove any lumps. If you do not want to use tennis balls, they do have dryer balls available for purchase in many stores that serve the same purpose.
Tip Six: Never put more than a few towels in an electric dryer at once. Towels are heavy, and too many of them will keep the dryer from working as it is intended to do. The longer it takes to dry the towels, the higher the chance they will come out scratchy.
These six tips will help restore your towels to their former soft glory. Just remember not to use fabric softener (either liquid or the dryer sheets), once you have the towels back to their soft condition, or else you will find yourself right back at square one.
