Baking soda or vinegar will do the trick. BAKING SODA: Adding baking soda to your towel wash helps remove soap and chemical residue that can end up covering your towels. Add half a cup of baking soda with your washing detergent, then wash as usual.
The main culprit for towels losing their magical softness is residue from detergents and body oils that build up within the fabric. This buildup of leftover products will cause stiffness and a rough, crackly feeling. These remnants from products also diminish your towel's ability to absorb moisture.
Towels are hard after washing because they build up soapy residue and are over-dried. Here's the good news: With a few simple tricks, you can restore your towels to their original softness and help ensure that they never go scratchy again. Use warm water.
Add Distilled White Vinegar and Wash as Usual
Instead, add two cups of distilled white vinegar to the washer drum. The vinegar will help strip away the residue left in the towels that is causing them to feel stiff.
Once dried, don't leave your towels sitting in the dryer. Take them out straight away and give them a shake to fluff them up. Adding wool dryer balls can also help. Wool dryer balls create air gaps between your towels as they dry which reduces the drying time.
What is this? Baking soda is another naturally effective way to soften your bath towels. Just add 1/2 cup of baking soda along with your normal amount of detergent in the wash. Like vinegar, baking soda will also help remove build up from your towels, making your towels softer.
Soak your stinky towels in a bucket of white, distilled vinegar for 30 minutes to overnight with a tablespoon of detergent to help loosen body soils. Vinegar contains acetic acid that breaks up mineral deposits and dissolves the build-up of body soils on your towels.
'Putting vinegar in the washing machine can be a useful method for cleaning and freshening your towels as well as other fabrics,' agrees home blogger Jenna Kate. 'You can have softer, cleaner, and fresher-smelling clothing and linens by introducing vinegar into your laundry routine.
White vinegar is an all-natural towel stain remover—and it can get rid of that musty towel smell, too. To use this ingredient to your benefit, follow Mooney's advice: "Soak items in distilled white vinegar for three minutes before adding them to your washing machine," she says.
Washing Towels with Vinegar
Use about half the recommended amount of detergent while washing and add ½ to 1 cup of white vinegar to the water during the rinse cycle. The vinegar helps set the colors and removes excess detergent residue.
Laundry strategy: Numerous hotels first treat all the stains on the laundry. Then, they toss them in a big pot full of a mixture of baking soda, laundry detergent or soap, and cold water. The hotel towels are then boiled for around half an hour, wrung out, and put into the laundry machine.
It might sound counterintuitive, but fabric softener isn't always the way to achieve cloudlike towels. Fabric softeners coat a towel's exterior and often contain oils and petroleum-based ingredients that hinder its absorbency. This filmy coating may mean more frequent washing, which breaks down the towel.
Shake towels out to maintain softness
Shake again for maximum softness. 'At the end of the drying cycle, or before hanging them outside if you are line drying, shake the towels a second time,' says Lucy. 'The act of shaking will loosen the fibers of the fabric, making your towels super plush and fluffy.
Baking soda in the laundry can be a great addition for a natural fabric softener or controlling excess suds, while vinegar in laundry can be an amazing agent for getting those whites extra sparkling and banishing mildew odor. They help even the best laundry detergents to be more effective.
Safe to use in both standard and high-efficiency washers, baking soda is one of the top two best products (along with distilled white vinegar) for making your laundry greener by reducing your dependence on harsh chemicals.
Add 1/2 cup baking soda right over the towels. Don't worry about using the dispenser, just pour it right over the towels. If you have a standard washer machine, use 1 cup of baking soda and add it to the towels and then fill with water.
Fabric softeners actually have oils and other ingredients that make towels less absorbent. Instead, pour a cup of distilled white vinegar into the fabric softener compartment, which softens the towels and kills bacteria. Don't use detergent for this load.
For a top-loading washing machine, a hot setting cycle with white vinegar will do the trick. To help prevent soap scum buildup, Gazzo likes to use eco-friendly products like white vinegar instead of fabric softener. “Vinegar won't leave any soap or fat residue on the drums or the drain,” he says.
Karina Toner recommends putting one to two cups of white vinegar directly into the washing machine drum regardless of your washing machine type and running it on a hot cycle. 'This will help to remove any soap, limescale build-up, or odors from your machine,' she says.