Dear Home Ec 101:
My towels all smell funky. Is it my teenage son? He’s usually pretty good about hanging up his towel, but lately they’ve all developed a stink. There is nothing quite like stepping out of the shower to be greeted with a musty, smelly towel.
Help!
~Musty in Muncie
Heather says:
Funkified towels will shortly be the merest whiff of a memory. First of all, go sniff your washer. No, really, especially if you have one of those new fangled, high efficiency front loading wonder machines. They are notorious for harboring mildew. If the machine is the source of your funk, check out this post, you’ll have things smelling sweet in no time. 
If your washing machine is not the source of the odor problem, we must dig a little deeper. Make sure your son is hanging up his towels. If they stay wet for any length of time, it’s like inviting all your mildew friends to party and just like your husband’s obnoxious cousin, they just don’t take a hint.
Now that we know that little Bobby is hanging up his towels and the washer is not the source of the funk, it’s time to address the towels themselves. This may sound counter-intuitive, but often an underlying cause of odor is the overuse of detergent. Deposits can build up on the towels and odor molecules just love to cling to these sticky spots.
The following tips apply ONLY to your everyday towels. For your guest and decorative towels always follow the label directions. These methods are for the ones you don’t mind fading. Personally, I’d rather use soft, slightly-faded, odor free towels on a regular basis and have a few set aside for decoration or guests.
If your towels are fairly ripe, it may be time to strip them of the residue. Wash them in very hot water with baking soda, borax
, or washing soda, and add vinegar to the rinse cycle. If possible, observe the rinse water for sudsing. If the towels are creating soapy bubbles, you may need to repeat the first step. Otherwise, dry them immediately and thoroughly.
Fabric softeners can build up on towels making them less absorbent. 1/4 to 1/2 cup of white vinegar in the rinse cycle will naturally soften towels and help retard mildew growth. If all you have on hand is vinegar of the balsamic or red wine varieties, temporarily skip the vinegar step.
*Frugal Tip* Manufacturers often include suggested amounts well over the minimum necessary to complete a desired job. With items such as laundry and dish detergent it may be worth your time to experiment and find the least amount necessary to achieve desired results. Too much detergent can build up on your clothing while too much dish soap just washes down the drain unused. Rather than blindly scooping to the recommended line with each load, try cutting back. When you first notice that you are not getting the desired results, go back to the last amount that worked well. Don’t forget to mark your new amount on the measuring cup.
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{ 9 comments }
I have also discovered towels with fabric that is antibacterial and odor-repellent. They have made such a big difference especially during the rainy season when it’s very difficul to dry clothes without a dryer.
Unfortunately, the Philippine manufacturer, Bench, seems to have stopped producing these towels and I wasn’t able to stock up much. Your tips will come in handy for my next batch of towels,and for my old non-antibacterialones.
Thanks for sharing.
I thought of two more possible causes:
Are the towels being folded and put away without being 100% dry? Residual moisture will cause a musty odor.
Is the bathroom closet itself a source of musty odor? We had a slight plumbing leak in the shared wall between shower and bathroom closet. I couldn’t detect moisture by sniffing, but the towels, which were stored there for days, clued us in. Opening a can of Damp-Rid can remove the remaining moisture.
I will add one more to the cause list, that you sort of mention at a glance, but don’t really go into. The bathroom itself where the towel is hung.
In a poorly ventilated bathroom (especially one that has outside facing walls which will often keep the room cooler than the rest of the house), that steamy air helps keep the towel moist longer, and thus allowing that musty smell to embed itself. This of course is exacerbated by bathrooms with outside facing walls, where the coolness help breed those little suckers into the towels.
I did not know about fabric softeners reducing the absorbency of towels. I’ll have to tell my parents that – I never feel dry after a shower at their house, and now I know why!
We don’t use fabric softners. I use Borax. I found not only were the clothes and towels much more softer but they smelled just clean. And it’s less expensive then fabric softners.
I have a LG front loading HE washer. After reading many websites, I swithced from liquid HE Tide soap to a powder soap for my front load washer. This was 8 months ago, approxiametly. We live in a brand new house, w/ a brand new washer, so I was assured that I was doing the right thing by switching from liquid to powder to reduce the smell in our towels. Now, 9 months later, and $900 later after having to dig up our sewer system becaue the powder tide stuck to it, I’m not so sure. Any suggestions? I guess I’m back to the liquid for now, although I’m afraid of burning up my new washer!
It’s the Tide–period. Tide is bad on many accounts. It is bad for people with allergies and sensitive skin. It bad for your clothes, it builds up and dulls them. AND it is horrid for sewer lines and septic systems. There are alot of other choices that work great. Just throw out the Tide, liquid or powder.
This is how to get mold and mildew out of clothes and how to get the smell of mildew out of clothes SmellyWasher Cleaner is a completely organic powder that is used to clear fungus from any clothes washer. The cleaner is used by adding a small amount (1 tablespoon normally suffices) to a hot setting in your washer and allowing it to complete the cycle.
In order to remove fungus from towels and clothing use just one teaspoon of cleaner instead of detergent. Rinse and dry as normal. This product is super simple and works great! I found it at http://www.smellytowel.com
My husband is a university science student and mentioned something to me that I haven't seen anywhere on this post board or a few others: they use UV light kills bacteria in the lab. Hang your towels outside to dry on a sunny day, flip them for full sunshine exposure and see if that helps!
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