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. 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. Washing tea towels is a necessary household chore to prevent harmful bacteria spreading, plus it’s easy and effort-free! Simply putting your dish towels in the washing machine on a hot cycle with a stain-removing detergent like Persil will kill germs and ensure your tea towels are spotless! Washing Tea Towels: Detergents, Settings, and Cycles 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.

Line drying is the preferred method of drying dish towels, as there is the risk that a dryer could break down the fibres, or melt any stitching or glues holding patterns together. Quite often drying towels naturally isn’t recommended because it takes so long, and leaving a towel damp for a period of time will encourage mildew, but tea towels are so small and lightweight that they dry in no time, so there’s really no reason not to hang them on the line. How Often Should I Wash Tea Towels? 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? Similarly, if you wipe your wet hands on a dirty tea towel, you could be spreading harmful bacteria all over yourself. This could make you or someone in your house unwell. 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.

How to Maintain Tea Towels

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. Think about it like this, if you were to clean grease-stained tea towels with generally clean bath towels, the greasiness would transfer onto the bath towels. Wash used tea towels every day. And clean tea towels immediately if you’ve used them to clean up a spillage.

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. Hands up if you rarely wash your dishcloths! That’s most of us, because, after all, dishcloths are typically only used to dry dishes that have already been cleaned, so they don’t get dirty, right? Wrong. There are two issues when it comes to tea towels. First, when you’re wiping clean dishes, you’re not only removing excess water, but also any soapy remnants that can eventually cause bacteria to grow within the fibres. Second, a standard tea towel can absorb roughly 20 times its weight without feeling wet, which means that even if we think a kitchen towel is dry, it could actually be harbouring damp, which leads to mildew, mould, and so on. Want to know how to wash tea towels? Then read on. For more information on the ingredients in products mentioned in this tip, visit What’s in Unilever Products here. Originally published 19 July 2018 Make your voice matter 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.

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

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. 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. Wring your tea towels out if they become water-logged. Moisture filled tea towels are a haven for bacteria and can encourage mould growth. 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.

How to Wash Tea Towels

Now that you know how to wash kitchen towels, and how to dry them, you’re probably wondering how often they should be washed. To ensure good hygiene throughout your kitchen, you should really wash tea towels after every use or, at the very least, at the end of each day. Of course, if you use your kitchen towels to wipe up stains and spillages, particularly if raw meat or fish is involved, then you should wash immediately to prevent the spread of potentially harmful bacteria. Just remember that bleach may discolour your tea towels, and you need to wear rubber gloves when handling bleach. Disinfecting tea towels