Have your white towels gone dingy and developed a brown spot in the center that only seems to grow worse with time? White towels are beautiful and feel like you’re staying in a five star hotel…for about a year. Then inevitably the brown spot of doom appears.
If you’re anything like me, you first start off with an extra hot wash cycle with more detergent to see if that does the trick then you escalate to:
- Bleach: Can permanently damage fibers, yellows white towels with any polyester content
- Oxiclean overnight soak: Helps but takes several rounds to really work. That gets expensive
- Baking soda + vinegar: For the love of! Can we stop suggesting this works for anything but elementary school volcano projects?
- Boiling with baking soda: Suggested by LL Bean. They almost had it right but not quite. Boiling with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) does jack doo doo. Boiling with washing soda (sodium carbonate) removes dirt really well. It is also corrosive and can give you chemical burns. It left my washcloth feeling very rough.
On the topic of boiling white towels, I wish I had a large enough pot to boil my bath sheets! The problem is that the very large pots available to purchase (like the one we use for crawfish boils) are aluminum. Aluminum is highly reactive to laundering chemicals. If you have ever dried aluminum sheet pans or a Kitchenaid mixer attachment that have gone through the dishwasher with a white kitchen towel, you know the silver metal stain it leaves is impossible to remove. I’m not risking that on my white bath sheet towels.
If you boil your white towels or washcloths, please only do so in a stainless steel pot only.
How to Whiten White Towels
After several years of experimenting, I have finally found the combination of products that do the trick! Yes, this will be a two step process but you will only need to do it once a year so I say it’s totally worth it. Below I show the results of my white towel whitening techniques on our four cotton bath sheet towels bought at the same time and used regularly.
From left to right: Clean but browned white towel, Oxiclean soak several times, Rit Brightener and Whitener then Oxiclean only, Out Brite White then Oxiclean only.
As you can see, the browning had gotten really bad even though we were hanging them out to dry and washing once a week. Very frustrating to say the least.
It’s hard to compare on screen how each product performed in removing the dingy brown from our white towels (left) so with a little color and contrast manipulation (right), the true winner is revealed. It’s not even a close call.
A long, hot cycle with Rit’s Brightener and Whitener then a Oxiclean cycle removed the brown stain completely and left the white towel so bright, it kind of hurts my eyes. I can even open the white towel up in front of a window and not see an iota of dingy brown. It’s a miracle!
See below for full step-by-step directions.
I am very thankful Rit won because Out’s Brite White smells so bad as it’s working. Even after putting plastic wrap over the washer door in an attempt to keep the rotten egg smell from escaping, I still had to open all my windows to air the house out. If you need to remove iron or clay stains from your white towels, Brite White is a great product for that but it’s not great on brown stains.
How to Whiten Towels without Bleach
When used in tandem, Rit’s Whitener and Brightener tackles dingy brown stains while Oxiclean comes in to lift the last traces leaving you with super white, hotel worthy towels.
- Start with a clean towel
If the towel has been used and is dirty, wash it with regular laundry detergent to remove all dirt so the whitening products can start with a clean slate.
- Rit Whitener and Brightener
In a top loading HE washing machine, select the hottest and longest cycle. Start machine with white towel in tub. Add powder once you have an inch or two of water. Add a kettle of boiling water for extra whitening boost.
- Oxiclean
If browning still remains, repeat the hot, long cycle with a concentrated oxiclean wash using 1 scoop per gallon of water.
Quick and Dirty Whitening Product Review
| Product | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Rit Whitener and Brightener | – Safe on whites and colors – Really makes whites look brighter – No offensive smell – Inexpensive | – Doesn’t completely remove brown stains by itself. |
| Oxiclean | – Widely available – Works on lots of stains – Gentle on fabrics – Color-safe | – Does not completely remove browning on its own. – Once mixed, only effective at warm temps for 8 hours |
| Out Brite White | – Very good at removing clay and iron based stains on cotton and synthetics – Only use on white – Inexpensive | – Dear gawd, the smell. – Not color-safe – Will fade colored logos |
| Rit White-Wash Rit Color Remover (Same product, different packaging) | – Removes all color when boiled – Only use on white – Inexpensive | – Similar to Brite White, it smells terrible. – Not color-safe – Will fade colored logos |
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