How to Get the Smell Out of Your Towels

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By SetApart
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Have you noticed that your laundry always smells so fresh, but your towels tend to carry that sour smell? Even when you wash them and switch to the dryer quickly, they seem to hang on to that stinky mildew odor! How do you ever get rid of it!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Awareness

Step 1

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Don't leave in the washer too long: This is really a no brainer, but if you leave your towels (or any laundry) in the washer too long, bacteria and mildew builds up and will result in a stench that most of us are familiar with. It happens to the best of us because our lives get so busy! However, making sure that your laundry gets switched to the dryer within a few hours is very important in keeping them smelling fresh.
Step 2

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Make sure laundry is completely dry: Laundry can get put into the dryer quickly and run through the appropriate cycle, but can still harbor bacteria after the buzzer goes off. If your clothes and towels are still damp at this point, mildew and bacteria will form and create the offensive odor that you are trying to avoid.
Step 3

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My towels still stink!: You can follow all of the above steps for fresh smelling towels and still end up with that dreaded sour smell! There is nothing worse than grabbing what you think is a clean, nice smelling towel after you get out of the shower, only to discover that it coats your skin with the subtle smell of mildew all day.

Towels are a different animal. Avoiding foul smells in regular clothing is not difficult and is successully avoided by most. Towels are made with very dense material, so following the first two steps in this article may not be the only weapon against fighting odor in your towels.
Step 4

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Secret: Because towels are so thick and dense, they hold on to the bacteria very easily and repeatedly adding more detergent to the washing machine only contributes to the problem. Try washing a load of towels without using any detergent or fabric softener in addition to following the first steps outlined in this article. Oddly, the detergent and softener stay trapped inside the material of the towel and continues to build and harbor stinky bacteria. Running your towels through a washing cylce without detergent sounds crazy, but you will discover that they will come out smelling fresh! Do not do this every time, but try it on occasion, and you will be amazed.