White sheets are a great way to brighten up your bedroom, but they’re also more prone to collecting dirt, and keeping them looking shiny and new can be a challenge. This is especially tricky given that as we sleep, we naturally produce oils and sweat, which accumulate on our bed sheets.

You might have noticed that your bed sheets have gained a yellow hue over time. This is likely due to our bodies’ natural oils and sweat released during the night. Washing your white sheets separately from darker colours can help maintain their sparkle for longer, but it’s not always effective. One cleaning expert has shared the steps they follow when it comes to cleaning white sheets and recommends using a handy household item to keep them looking bright.

A fourth-generation dry cleaner based in New York, Zachary Pozniak shares cleaning hacks on his Instagram page @jeeves_ny. When it comes to whitening yellow sheets, Pozniak recommends pretreating them with dish soap.

Pozniak warns viewers “not to overdo it on the dish soap” as this can cause ‘over-sudsing’, which is essentially a build-up of soap that can damage sheets and leave stains.

Instead, Pozniak advises diluting the soap with water and using a spray bottle to apply the mix onto sheets in areas that are stained or particularly discoloured, saying this will “supercharge” the cleaning.

There’s also a few more steps that Pozniak follows to get his sheets “white, bright and squeaky clean.” After applying the dish soap, he recommends adding a booster to the drum of your machine, before loading your sheets.

Preferring to add powdered oxygen bleach, Pozniak explains how “this is going to create hydrogen peroxide, which is going to do most of the whitening.”

Powdered oxygen bleach is readily available in UK supermarkets, including online at Ocado for £3.50, and just £1.90 at Sainsbury’s.

If you usually add fabric softener to your wash, you can go ahead and use this as normal. Pozniak shares that he prefers a rinse product, but it won’t make a difference to the outcome.

However, his best tip for getting sparkling sheets is to soak them in hot water and powdered oxygen bleach overnight before washing them. “If you learn one thing from this video, let it be this,” he says.

But Pozniak advises that the key to doing this is timing, saying it works best to do it slowly at a high temperature, ideally 60C. You can even throw your towels in if they need a spruce, too.

If you’re not able to soak your sheets overnight, you can simply spray them with hydrogen peroxide and let them dry before loading them in for a wash.