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Kitchen towels are big helpers in the kitchen, but this help demands a high price. Towels become dingy and often very stained. Even if you wash a towel, it still looks dirty and you can hardly wipe anything with such a towel.
Kitchen towel
There may not even be bacteria in the towels, but the dirt and stains disgust us so much that we’d rather throw them straight into the trash, even if they have only been used once. But of course you don’t have to do that. We have instructions for you on how to wash towels so that not a single colored or greasy spot remains on them!
Stains
First of all, you need to realize that the towel you use is not for several days. If you wipe dishes, a wet countertop and anything else that happens to be in the kitchen, including your hands, then it belongs in the bin definitely every single day. Most women live under the impression that a towel will last even a week. The basic rule, however, is that if you don’t want stains to become unremovable, then you can’t let them dry. So if you soil a towel, it should at least go into warm water. Everything cleans more easily if it doesn’t remain hanging on the oven door.
When washing towels you should also observe the required temperature. Wash whites generally at 95 °C, colored ones at 40 to 60 °C, depending on the material and the degree of staining. Always iron towels after washing.
If you wipe the table, a dirty cupboard, or the stove with a towel, then you should stop this unbecoming habit immediately. A towel is for drying dishes and not for wiping hands, dirty surfaces and certainly not a greasy stove.
Red wine
Stains from red wine come out more easily. Prepare a mixture of water and salt in a 1:1 ratio and pour it well over the stains. Rinse the towels from the salt and only then put them to wash. Salt under the influence of hot water can even draw out the original color from colored fabrics.
Coffee and tea
Generally, the most unremovable stains are from coffee and black tea. To remove such stains you need to soak the towels before regular washing in an ammonia solution in a 1:1 ratio (ammonia:water). Spray or pour the solution onto the stains, wait a few minutes for it to take effect, and then put the towels straight into the wash.
Grease
Greasy stains are even easier to deal with than you might think. Just rub them well before washing with dishwashing liquid. Do not rinse the detergent off, but put the towels straight into the wash. Greasy spots should be a thing of the past.
Fruit and juice
Also unfortunate are stains from fruit and juices. These are easily removed by ordinary hair shampoo. Soak the towel in hot water, leave it there for 15 minutes and then wring it out. Apply shampoo to the stains, massage it a bit into the fabric and then let it act for half an hour. Finally, hand-wash the towel.
The most effective granny remedy
If you don’t feel like fighting individual stains, try this strong and highly effective homemade remedy that our grandmothers came up with.
What will you need? - 250 ml ethyl alcohol
- 2 tbsp baking soda
- 2 tbsp laundry detergent
- a basin with hot water
How to do it?
Pour hot water into a basin, put the towels in it and wait until the fabrics are completely soaked. Add the ethyl alcohol, baking soda and laundry detergent and mix everything well. Then agitate the towels for a while and leave them in the basin for 24 hours. If there is not enough water, feel free to add more, but it must be hot. After one day of standing, agitate the towels well, pour out the dirty water and rinse them one last time in clean warm water. Then put them in the washing machine on a regular wash cycle and after removing them they will be like new.
Tip
If your towels smell of food and leftovers, soak them in cold water with a little grated soap and potassium permanganate. After a few hours rinse them and there will be no trace of the smell.
