How to give used towels a second chance

Bathroom textiles also lose quality over time. This can happen for various reasons, which are explained in more detail in another blog post. Towels often become thinner and rougher with age and then no longer dry properly. But before throwing them out, you can give them a second chance. A rejuvenating treatment is often worthwhile. For this, you can either buy specialist products from the chemist’s or use more environmentally friendly household remedies.

Vinegar, citric acid & co. – a rejuvenating treatment with household remedies

Vinegar is a true all-rounder in the home. If it is not used undiluted, the rather pungent smell disappears after a short time. Faded, rough or slightly musty towels can be freshened up again with a vinegar treatment: soak the laundry in hot water with vinegar for a few hours and then wash it as usual. This removes limescale and old soap residue.

But vinegar does not just help fix colours – it also helps against lint. If you wash new towels once briefly with vinegar, you create the ideal conditions for their first use and a long lifespan. A regular vinegar treatment keeps textiles fresh for a long time. It is best to add half a cup of vinegar to the detergent drawer with every wash as soon as the main wash cycle starts. Standard white vinegar with 5% acidity is best suited for this.  

Vinegar essence with a high acid content, on the other hand, has a bleaching effect. It is therefore ideal for refreshing and whitening old white towels. Alternatively, bicarbonate of soda can also be used. One cup of baking soda to around 3.5 litres of water creates the perfect solution in which white towels can be refreshed after a few hours. Regularly adding half a cup of bicarbonate of soda to the wash also has a positive long-term effect.

Citric acid and washing soda are also suitable for reviving old fabrics. These household remedies can also be combined with one another, just not with other bleaching agents, as this can lead to the formation of toxic gases. The ideal dosage depends on the hardness of the water and the capacity of the washing machine. These substances are by no means as aggressive as chemical dye removers. Even so, you should not use too much. With coloured laundry in particular, this could produce a result that goes further than intended.

How about refreshing the colour?

If old towels are still in good condition but no longer much to look at, you can also give them a colour refresh. Textile dye can be used to re-dye or recolour towels easily. Unfortunately, there are not many alternatives available in shops to conventional textile dyes, which may contain questionable preservatives such as parabens. If, for example, you dye towels that are no longer quite white, you can turn them into fresh pastel-coloured towels by using only a small amount of textile dye.

You can also use natural dyes, which are found in abundance in spinach and red cabbage, for example. Unfortunately, this method is not really suitable for the washing machine and is more of a saucepan job. Another option that involves less work, but is only suitable for dyeing individual items because you need sealable glass containers of the appropriate size, is solar dyeing. In a water bath over several days with dye-rich flowers or leaves, the textiles gradually absorb colour with the help of sunlight. But be careful: there is a risk of creating a tie-dye pattern, which can also look quite decorative (at least on towels) and may even be a desirable effect.

There is still more life in them!

At some point, however, the day comes when every towel has done its duty in the bathroom. Before throwing it away ungratefully, you could first send it into semi-retirement. It can still be of service one last time as a cleaning cloth, as bedding for a hamster cage or as packing material. Together with children, you can even give towels a second life: with the help of needle and thread, glue and old cushion stuffing, discarded towels can be turned into imaginative soft toys.