I used a freshly-laundered towel today, and it stank of mildew. I’m guessing mildew broke out in the towel hamper because of dampness, but even washing didn’t take the pong away. There’s no visible evidence of mildew on the clean towel, but you can sure smell it.
All of my towels are colored, so I can’t wash them with bleach. What product will deodorize them? I was looking at Febreze at the supermarket this morning, but the instructions just said to spray it on clean laundry - plus, it had a perfumey smell, which my husband will not tolerate. I wanted something that I can throw in the wash with the towels to thoroughly clean them out and deodorize them. Does anything like this exist?
I would suggest not trying both of these at the same time. insert I Love Lucy moment
When I had laundry not coming out as fresh as it should, I used an extra long cycle with OxyClean and detergent, with the hottest water I had, and made sure not to overfill the machine. That did the trick. You may want to skip the Oxy and use Borax instead. Dry promptly.
Huh. Can I just pour some Febreze in the washing machine in addition to the detergent I’m using? That way, in case it leaves a bit of perfume in the towels, it’ll only be the towels that I’m using it on and not laundry in general.
Vinegar is much cheaper than Febreeze, and leaves no detectable scent behind, unless you use a scented fabric softener of course. I wind up re-washing a load that’s been forgotten about every other week, so I just keep a jug of cheap vinegar right with the laundry stuff.
I’d go with the vinegar solution, pun intended. Oh…and…use white vinegar. Apple Cider vinegar could get, well, disgusting.
My grandmother told me that in the old country ( pre-WWII Germany ) they didn’t have bleach. They kept things white by laying them out in the sunlight all day as they dried. I always found this a bit suspect, as most things don’t fade that fast in a day of bright sunlight.
Then again, she was my grandmother and I might well go to Hell for doubting her veracity…
I had this problem when I left towels in the washing machine for, say, 16 hours, before drying them. When I changed my procedures to only wash them when I knew I could throw them in the dryer soon afterward, it went away.
No, they definately used to do that, especially (IIRC) with linens. I’m sure it worked, if they did it - housewives didn’t do things that didn’t work back when there was so much work.