Tea towels are one of those items that people use day in and day out, but when it comes to cleaning them, they can often be overlooked. However, if you don’t wash your towels regularly, bacteria and mildew can leave them smelling terrible.
While you may be tempted to chuck a tea towel in with your normal laundry load, washing them in the washing machine can actually have an adverse effect. Chef Charles Kim, widely known as Chef Fatty on social media, recently urged people to stop washing their towels in the washing machine, using a simpler method instead to get rid of bad smells. In the video, Chef Fatty warned: “Never ever ever wash a stinky towel. Let me explain.”
How to clean dirty towels
The chef continued: “If your towel still smells after you wash it, it’s because the bacteria is living inside the fibres. And a normal wash won’t get rid of it.
“And using more detergent actually makes it worse by trapping the gunk inside the fibres and making it harder to actually wash out.”
Using too much detergent or fabric softener leaves a waxy coating on towels’ fibres. This residue traps body oils, dead skin cells, and moisture instead of rinsing away, feeding odour-causing bacteria.
Towels also hold more water than ordinary clothes. If they stay damp too long, mildew and bacteria can rapidly multiply and leave the towel smelling worse.
Instead, the chef recommends a simple cleaning treatment. Fill a bucket or large pan with boiling water, and add around two tablespoons of washing soda.
Heating baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) converts it to washing soda (sodium carbonate), a stronger, more alkaline cleaner used in washing powder. Heating the baking soda triggers a chemical reaction that removes water and produces carbon dioxide gas. The pH rises during heating, making it much more effective at cutting grease, softening hard water, and lifting stains.
Once the washing soda is added to the boiling water, boil the towel for at least 15 minutes. If you don’t have a big enough bucket or pan, Chef Fatty recommended putting the washing machine to the hottest setting and using oxygen bleach powder and detergent to wash the towel.
However, under no circumstances should you use fabric softener when cleaning the towels.