HOW TO KEEP THOSE TEA TOWELS FRESH!
If you are reading this blog post, I take it that you know exactly what I am referring to when I say that you have tea towels that smell badly (I used to have them smell like sick as soon as they were wet). I tried everything for many years from a tonne of bleach, using double quantities of washing detergent and conditioner. Nothing seemed to get rid of this ghastly smell.
What I am about to tell you is so simple and so cheap to buy you will not believe the main product to help get rid of all smells. It is vinegar! I have generally a hate for this stuff as the smell is just too strong, but would you believe that it works and they don’t smell of vinegar afterwards either.
I personally wait till I have a large number of tea towels to wash before cleaning them to save on washing, so I use my bath for the first step, but if you have a small quantity then perhaps a bucket will be more than sufficient.
As all our towels are really old, I am not too worried anymore about the stains, but if you do have fresh stains I would always initially recommend cleaning them in cold water to remove the stain before following the instructions below.
Keep those tea towels fresh
Equipment
- big bucket or bathtub
- washing machine
Materials
- 1 bottle vinegar white
- hot water
- 1 cap washing detergent
- 1 splash thin bleach I use a drop of it in all my washing, but this is optional
- ½ mug bicarbonate of soda / baking soda if you only have sachets use around 5
Instructions
- Fill the bucket or bath with enough hot water so that the towels can properly soak and then pour into this the bottle of vinegar.
- Leave them to soak for half an hour and then give the towels a good hand scrub and then leave again for another half an hour.
- Drain off the towels and squeeze out the liquid before putting them into the washing machine.
- I have a bucket of bicarbonate of soda always on standby for cleaning and the mug stays in the bucket, but if you use the sachets you may need around 5 of them to do the job.
- Place the bicarbonate of soda into the drum with the towels and close the door.
- Place the detergent as you would into the drawer along with the bleach (if you wish to).
- Turn the washing machine onto the hottest setting possible (ours has a setting which reaches 95 degrees celsius) and then either use the tumble dryer or a clothes horse to hang them to dry.