There is nothing like the feeling of jumping out of a nice shower and drying yourself off with a soft and snuggly towel. 

Unfortunately, as so often is the case, we can find ourselves hopping out of the shower into a coarse, scratchy and stiff towel.

Certain chemicals in laundry detergents, air drying the towels when they are still wet or washing them in hard water can cause the towels to lose their softness.

While cleaning your towels by simply throwing them in the washing machine may be the easiest and fastest way, it won’t help with keeping your towels fluffy and soft.

To fix crusty towels, laundry experts at Smol have shared their top tips to make them “soft and fluffy once again”.

Use capsules over loose powder or liquid

Many people often think more detergent means a deeper clean but it’s never usually the case. Using loose powder or bottles of liquid means you’re often overdosing laundry with too much detergent and too much detergent can mean a lot of soapy residue gets left behind in towels. 

It will make the fabric feel stiff and tough and stop it from absorbing water. On top of this, if you’re using a laundry powder, it doesn’t all dissolve. It’s going to deposit into the fibres of the towel causing “even more stiffness”.

The beauty of capsules is that the dose is pre-measured so you can’t pour in too much.

Turn down the temperature

Modern detergents don’t necessarily need the hot wash temperatures. If you’re using a bio detergent it’s best to wash below 40 degrees so you don’t destroy the enzymes.

Too high a temperature can damage towel fibres which can make them feel harsher on the skin. 

Try an acid bath

The laundry experts recommend households that struggle with hard and stiff towels opt for a citric acid bath for their towels.

The descaling abilities of citric acid can help remove mineral residues responsible for roughness.

For this tip, put on rubber gloves and add a quarter cup of citric acid to half a bath of hot water. Stir until dissolved.

Put your towels in the solution and let them soak and “they’ll soften in 15 minutes”.

Drain the bath and run cold water into the bath to rinse the towels. Drain again and ring out the towels before washing and drying them as usual. 

When you’re line-drying your towels, bring them in whilst still slightly damp. Give them a good old shake and this will help to fluff out the fibres. Leave them to dry that last little bit inside then put them away once fully dry.