Towel maintenance

[Paul]

I like towels. I liked them even before I found Douglas Adams. He made me like them more, but they were already good.

I get attached to towels. I have favourites. I look forward to them coming around in the rotation. I change my towel every Saturday morning (whether it needs it or not! Boom Boom!). Having your own towel, that you chose, is one of those signs of adulthood, like deciding how many pairs of underpants is enough, that makes it all worthwhile. Well, worthwhile enough.

But they don't last. They become crispy and largely water-repellant. Is there any way to delay this? Wash them more often, or less? Hotter or cooler? Air, tumble* or hung over something to dry?

Or is it just inevitable, and my expectations are too great?

(*not an option for me, just curious)

[quixoticgeek]

Dunno if you are or not. But don't use fabric softener. It may mean the first use each time after washing isn't as soft. But it wears in by the time your most or the way dry...

J

[Paul]

Dunno if you are or not. But don't use fabric softener. It may mean the first use each time after washing isn't as soft. But it wears in by the time your most or the way dry...

J

I don't. Does it make things worse?

Last year I stayed at my brother's house. There, they tumble dried the two faithful, crispy towels I had with me and they turned out as fluffy as when they were new. Like you, I don't have a tumble drier so those two towels are becoming crispy once again.

Hmm. Would he do mine?

[Cudzoziemiec]

No advice, but 'Towel maintenance' has to be one of the best thread titles in the history of YACF.

[Mrs Pingu]

Try two things, but not at the same time.
Put a cup of vinegar in a pre wash (on a cool wash, not super hot!)
Or
Chuck in some soda crystals (half a cup maybe) into a pre wash.
https://www.dri-pak.co.uk/cleaning-products/soda-crystals/
I find one of these helps strip the fatty soapy/organic stuff off.
Also use biological powder to help chew up all those organics during normal washes.

Soaking in absolution of soda crystals also recommended if you get manky stained pillowcases too.
Also all for sorts of good stuff like chucking down the plughole and sticking in a washer maintenance wash.

[Mrs Pingu]

Adding fabric softener makes towels less good at drying as it flattens all the little fibrous bits that help absorb the water.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Soaking in absolution

You are the pope and I claim my communion wafer. 

[Mrs Pingu]

Haha, fat fingers

[Mrs Pingu]

I note the Dri pak website even says

Remember that you can use white vinegar in place of fabric conditioner. It helps keep your machine limescale free and your towels fluffy. It doesn't leave an odour and you can even add some drops of essential oil if you like a fragrance.

[slope]

Recent new (5 month old) plain coloured John Lewis "Egyptian cotton" bath towels are still shedding lots of their micro fluff into all the bathroom nooks and crannies 

Don't have a tumble drier - don't need one - would struggle with conscience - there's a lot of wind in Snowdonia + radiators in Snowdon Towers

JL do recommend:

1. Wash towels at between 30-60°C - see care label
2. Wash with similar colours or use a colour catcher
3. For coloured towels, use detergent without added bleach or optical brightening agents as these can affect colour intensity; the opposite is true for white towels, to keep them bright white
4. Use fabric conditioners sparingly and not in every wash as they decrease absorbency
5. Shake towels before and after washing; this opens up the fibres slightly to allow the detergent to sink in, and helps to promote drying .
6. Avoid using fabric conditioner the first few times you wash new towels
7. Tumble dry your towels to keep them soft and fluffy

The personally particular in me, always uses the rougher side of the towels where the label resides 

[hellymedic]

My Miele washing machine manual specifically advises against colour catchers. I've not used them anyway.

Crispiness is in part caused by limescale in hard water areas and vinegar will counter/dissolve this.

Fabric softener impairs towels' drying performance (but my partner DEMANDS).

Tumble drying will soften and fluff up towels but causes fibre shedding and uses much power.

Line drying is a good compromise but rather difficult this time of year.

[L CC]

I like my towels crispy, and ideally a bit threadbare. Free exfoliation. I do not allow them to be tumble dried and it is one of the (many many) things my childers ridicule me about.

[Kim]

I never knew towels could be so complicated...

(Crispy and varying degrees of threadbare here.  No point in throwing away a perfectly good towel just because you can see through it.  You never know when something might leak.)

[spesh]

Try two things, but not at the same time.
Put a cup of vinegar in a pre wash (on a cool wash, not super hot!)
Or
Chuck in some soda crystals (half a cup maybe) into a pre wash.
https://www.dri-pak.co.uk/cleaning-products/soda-crystals/
I find one of these helps strip the fatty soapy/organic stuff off.
Also use biological powder to help chew up all those organics during normal washes.

Soaking in absolution of soda crystals also recommended if you get manky stained pillowcases too.

Don't forget to say "Ego te absolvo" as you put them in the washing machine.

[Paul H]

Chuck in some soda crystals (half a cup maybe) into a pre wash.
https://www.dri-pak.co.uk/cleaning-products/soda-crystals/

+1
I'm doing most of my laundry with a mixture of dri-pak products, a mix of the liquid soap and the soda crystals. Gets stuff clean and that's it, nothing fancy, just clean.
Both those products are available as Wilkinson's own brand, the company say so on their website which makes a change from the usual.
I have two hotel towels, paid for, yes really, they've never been soft, they've never needed any special maintenance, and they are fantastic, well worn yet still functioning better than the newer, softer, more expensive one which I reserve as a guest towel.

[Paul]

(...No point in throwing away a perfectly good towel just because you can see through it.  You never know when something might leak.)

Quite. Or need cushioning. Or insulating. Or covering. I also keep an otherwise unwanted beach towel in the boot of the car. Just in case of things. And beaches.

[FifeingEejit]

Towels left to dry naturally round here usually turn to sandpaper; this has been most informative.
But I think I'll just buy a tumble dryer, because half the time it's also so damp that nothing dries without assistance anyway.

[robgul]

Towels left to dry naturally round here usually turn to sandpaper; this has been most informative.
But I think I'll just buy a tumble dryer, because half the time it's also so damp that nothing dries without assistance anyway.

I'm told by my personal laundry manager that the optimum is line drying outside anf 5 mins in the tumbling machine on low heat.

[FifeingEejit]

Looks outside... 3 pegger and would be a second wash cycle.

[hellymedic]

(...No point in throwing away a perfectly good towel just because you can see through it.  You never know when something might leak.)

Quite. Or need cushioning. Or insulating. Or covering. I also keep an otherwise unwanted beach towel in the boot of the car. Just in case of things. And beaches.

Threadbare towels are excellent travelling companions; they fold up small, dry users quickly and dry up quickly.
They're no great loss if they go AWOL as they're only one hop from the recycling.

[Notsototalnewbie]

I'm with the crispy towel lovers. I never use fabric softener on anything and we don't own a tumble drier though we do have a dehumidifier which makes sure everything dries in decent time if you put it in the same room.

I do sometimes wonder if the crispy towels upset guests, but that happens infrequently enough that it's not worth worrying about. Especially right now.

[phantasmagoriana]

This thread is very well-timed: just this weekend I was attempting to research the exact same thing.

I ended up trying soda crystals, white vinegar (in the softener drawer - I never use softener on towels anyway) and even resorted to using "dryer balls" in the spin cycle (no longer have a dryer). Nothing seemed to work. The only time I ever managed to get the towels soft was when I had a tumble dryer. I think I'm resigned to a future of crispy towels...

[T42]

Remember Tom Sawyer, post-bath, being scrubbed down with a towel like a file?  Thus my youth, although after a certain age I was allowed to file myself down.

[citoyen]

We currently have a couple of towels in our airing cupboard that are the best part of 40 years old. They might not be as fluffy as they once were, but they still do a job.

They were one my parents bought when my siblings and I were still very young. One of them is an Ipanema beach towel, which my dad brought back from one of his business trips to Venezuela. Another has a picture of Tigger on it - the Disney version. I don't recall how we ended up with them in our possession.

This morning I dried myself post-shower with a towel bearing a picture of Buzz Lightyear - we must have got this when our son was tiny, so it's a relative whippersnapper at only ~20 years old. It's a good towel - decent size, which is just as important as other qualities such as absorbency. Also it has a picture of Buzz Lightyear on it, and what's not to like about that?

[Cudzoziemiec]

To the bathroom, and beyond!