How to keep your towels softer for longer, naturally.
Wrapping yourself up in a soft, fluffy towel after a bath or a shower, adds an extra element of luxury to your bathroom routine. But when towels go stiff and scratchy, drying yourself with them can feel more like rubbing yourself with sandpaper than cotton.
If you find that your towels are getting rougher, and you want to restore drying yourself to a more comforting experience, then you’re in the right place. Here’s our easy tips to help make towels soft again naturally, with no tumble dryers or toxic chemicals required.
Why do towels lose their softness so quickly?
There are many reasons why towels can lose their soft feeling. If you’re not buying organic towels, then it’s important to be aware that many towels are coated in chemicals to make them feel softer than they actually are. Silicones are often used, but once you wash your towels, the coatings are washed off, sending these chemicals down the drain into our waterways and leaving you with tougher feeling towels after the first wash.
Other factors that turn towels tough and rough include build up of detergents, poor quality fibres, hard water and flattening of fibres through their daily use.
However, all these are easily recoverable, and we’ll explain how in our easy tips for keeping towels softer naturally.
Sustainable ways for keeping your towels soft and luxurious
1. Shake it up
Before and after washing your towels, give them a good shake up. This helps open up the fibres allowing them to absorb the detergent, and release it afterwards. Shaking towels when they’re dry can help wake the loops up too, and also be sure to store them somewhere that you know is nice and dry.
2. Dry them gradually
Tumble dryers are terrible for the amount of energy they use, and wherever possible we always recommend line drying your towels. A good blow in the fresh air will also help fluff up fibres, like a natural dryer.
3. Prevent minerals building up (for hard water areas)
60% of the UK has hard water, which means it contains a high level of minerals including calcium and magnesium. These minerals can attach to your towels, causing them to feel stiff (and also leave limescale inside your machine). An eco solution for keeping towels soft in a hard water area is to use a natural water softener like Sonetts. Made without fillers, phosphates and other petrochemical softening agents, adding natural water softener to your wash helps prevent the buildup of minerals on your towels, and from limescale from building up in your machine.
As a side note, if you have an issue with limescale, then run a wash without any laundry in your machine and a cup of white vinegar added to your detergent drawer.
4. Go easy on the laundry detergent and softener
Always check the amount of detergent you should be using for your laundry load, as using too much will cause the detergent to build up on your towels, a major cause of that stiff and crispy feeling you want to avoid. It may seem counter intuitive to not add a fabric softener to your towel wash, but they tend to coat the fibres making them less absorbent, and as with detergent, it can build up over time making your towels feel harder and scratchy.
5. Choose organic cotton and use natural detergents
Switching to a natural laundry detergent can also help. Many synthetic chemical based detergents can not only be irritating for your skin, but the harsh chemicals used damage cotton fibres, causing roughness and scratchiness on your skin. Consider switching to a plant based laundry powder or detergent like Sonetts range of natural laundry products, which are tough on stains, but gentle on cotton fibres keeping towels feel softer for longer. Organic cotton can also stay softer for longer, as organic cotton isn’t treated with harsh chemicals that damage fibres making them feel more scratchy.
6. But if you do use too much detergent…
Instead, use laundry rinse as a softener - it removes any dried on detergent from your towels that helps to keep them soft. Sonnets natural laundry rinse uses citric acid extracted from plant based products such as molasses. Citric acid is able to soften water at low temperatures, and smooth fibres keep them feeling soft. It’s particularly good for wool and silk, and can help revive colours and brighten whites for a fresh looking towel.
7. Don’t overload the washing machine
Packing out your washing time may feel like it helps conserve energy by running less washes. But, overloading your machine means that the detergent can’t clean and then rinse out of your clothing and towels, with the detergent residues contributing to crunchy feeling towels. A general guide is to fill your machine no more than three quarters full. Overloading your machine will put extra strain on it too, limiting its life and needing to be repaired or replaced sooner.
When it’s time to say goodbye
If after all these tips your towels still aren’t getting softer or there’s just too much wear and tear, then it might be time to downgrade them to handy cleaning cloths or drying the dog. If you’ve chosen pure organic cotton towels, then it’s good to know that even after you can no longer use them, they’re completely biodegradable, which means they’ll decompose without harming our planet.
