Make sure you’ve got lots of tea towels at home, so you can continuously swap and wash your tea towels. In addition to the above, you can also neutralise poor odours by adding some vinegar, or bicarbonate of soda, to the rinse cycle as the tea towels are being cleaned. However, it’s better to try and air dry them as much as you can. The natural sunlight will help to bleach any stains and will act as a disinfectant. And the fresh air will help to release any trapped smells from the tea towels’ fibres.

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If you don’t have an outside space, you can use a clothes horse or heated airer. Just be sure to hang your wet tea towels up. You don’t want to leave them in a wet heap as this will lead to problems. In some cases, you may have to bleach your white coloured tea towels using chlorine bleach. Or a colour-safe bleach to clean coloured tea towels. This is usually done to remove toughened dirt and/or heavy stains. So, it’s absolutely vital that these multipurpose towels get some TLC at the end of a busy day! How do you do this? Easy… Wash your tea towels. Wring your tea towels out if they become water-logged. Moisture filled tea towels are a haven for bacteria and can encourage mould growth. Washing your tea towels is the only way of keeping your tea towels clean, free from germs, and hygienic.

How to Maintain Tea Towels

Or you could soak some smelly tea towels in some white vinegar or bicarbonate of soda overnight and then wash them.

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Hang your tea towel up when you’re done using it. Plenty of air will reach the material and will also begin to dry it. Don’t be afraid to clean your tea towels with a disinfectant cleaner/laundry sanitiser, like Dettol Antibacterial Laundry Cleanser. A product like this will be able to remove germs from the material. If your tea towel smells, swap it for a fresh one immediately. Likewise, if it’s soaking wet, it’s time to get a clean, dry one out. If you’ve used it to mop up spills or there’s visible food on it, throw it in the washing machine and get a replacement. Should you wash tea towels separately? You can add a laundry sanitiser as well, like Persil Antibacterial Laundry Sanitiser. However, this isn’t essential. Pre-treat stains with a stain remover or rub detergent into the marked area. In some cases, the stains will be too bad and will require bleaching.

We’d love to give you a hard and fast rule, but it really does depend on how much you use them. In a very busy family kitchen where all meals are prepared at home and the tea towel is in constant use, it’s best to throw that well-used tea towel into the wash every day. In turn, the bath towels would end up feeling and smelling a little greasy. And drying yourself with these bath towels would be a little unpleasant. Tea towels get wet, are used to mop up food waste, become riddled with liquids and grease, and because they’re usually damp, they can encourage mould growth. In turn, the tea towels turn into a circus for bacteria and become super unsanitary. In theory, you should have a separate hand towel and dish towel, but in practice most of us use one for everything. If you do use the same one for hands and dishes, as well as mopping up spills, be extra vigilant about washing it frequently, to avoid a build up of bacteria. How do you remove stains on tea towels?

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Just remember that bleach may discolour your tea towels, and you need to wear rubber gloves when handling bleach. Disinfecting tea towels And you can also add vinegar or bicarbonate of soda into the machine during the rinse cycle to remove any stinky smells from the tea towels. Ideally you should wash your tea towels on their own, and then wash your bath towels on their own. This will prevent any cross-contamination from occurring. Store clean tea towels folded in the kitchen. The best place is near the sink, so you can easily grab a fresh one in a hurry. When a tea towel is in use, always hang it to allow it to dry; never leave it crumpled on the worktop. And while it’s tempting to hide tea towels away by hanging them on a hidden hook inside a cupboard – this is also a no-no. With little air circulation, damp tea towels won’t dry and will become a potential breeding ground for bacteria. How do you know when a tea towel is too old to use? Wash used tea towels every day. And clean tea towels immediately if you’ve used them to clean up a spillage.

How to Wash Tea Towels

Yes, you can wash tea towels in a washing machine. In fact, unless you’re told not to do so by the care label, cleaning tea towels in this manner is the easiest way to keep them clean and sanitary. Hand-washing tea towels is also an option. All you need to do is apply the steps above, but instead of using a machine, you clean the tea towels in a tub or sink. Simply pre-treat stains first, then fill a tub/sink with warm water, pop the tea towels in (make sure you keep similar colours together), add a biological detergent to the water and wait an hour or so. You can then start agitating the tea towels in the water to clean them.

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To disinfect your tea towels either clean them according to the steps above, use a bleach-based cleaning agent to clean them (may discolour coloured tea towels, so buy a colour-safe bleach), add an antibacterial laundry sanitiser to your washes, or clean the tea towels on a hot cycle. Drying tea towels Once you’ve washed your tea towels, dry them. You shouldn’t leave wet tea towels hanging around because they’ll go smelly, bacteria may start setting up home in the fabric, and mould will start to thrive. Generally, you should wash tea towels on their own, so you can prevent the cross-contamination of germs.

What Should You Wash Tea Towels With?

As you might’ve guessed, tea towels are normally exposed to lots of dirt, from grease, to food waste, and from grubby water to soap. The simplest way to clean tea towels is to throw them into a washing machine and to run a washing cycle. You can, however, wash them by hand. Find out what you need to do below. The enzymes in question break down proteins, fats, grease and general dirt on the tea towels, so they can be washed away. In turn, the tea towels will be clean and bacteria free when they come out of the wash. Further to this, tea towels are used to wipe dishes in a lot of homes. So, it’s imperative that the tea towels are clean, otherwise when you wipe your plates, glasses and cutlery you’ll splatter them with microorganisms. If you were to consume these germs you could be seriously ill. And although you might think that washing tea towels and bath towels is okay, this is usually not a good idea. You really don’t want to start mixing up the germs found on your bath towels and kitchen tea towels, and vice versa. It’s not sanitary to do this.