If you work in any kind of environment where towels are provided for any reason, you may have found yourself struggling to keep them smelling fresh. From guest houses to gyms to spas to office showers, towels play an important role in what you do, but may occasionally let you down.
First of all, the good news is that you’re certainly not alone in your plight. Far from it in fact, as musty and damp-smelling towels are a quite incredibly common problem across business and domestic circles alike. You wash them regularly and even intensively, you do your level best to keep them pristine and yet they still come out anything but fresh.
Which of course begs the question – what gives?
Well, the simple fact of the matter is that in every instance where towels smell, there’s a good reason why this is the case. Which in turn means that if you can isolate the reason, you can do something about it.
So with this in mind, what follows is a rundown of the most common explanation for towels that aren’t exactly doing you any favours:
1 – They’re Not Drying Fast Enough
First of all, the single most common cause of towels smelling unpleasant is them simply not being dried fast enough. When towels remain wet or damp for too long, the kinds of bacteria that produce those unpleasant smells have more time to build up and do their bidding. If drying towels indoors, it can be hugely helpful to position an oscillating fan in close proximity to them, in order to ensure that the air circulates. It’s when damp air sticks around for too long that towels fail to dry adequately quickly, resulting in bad smells.
2 – You’re Using Too Much Detergent
Contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to laundry detergent. One of the most common mistakes of all is that of finding the towels aren’t smelling great, only to then go and start putting more and more detergent in with the wash to try and combat the problem. The result – things end up even worse than they were before. Why is this? Well, quite simply because if there’s too much detergent, it doesn’t get fully rinsed from the towels during the wash. It dries, it effectively goes rotten and in doing so harbours bacteria – all adding up to unpleasant smells.
3 – Your Washing Machine Is Dirty
Last but not least, there are a variety of things (including using too much detergent) that can lead to the washing machine itself becoming dirty and unable to do its job properly. On the plus side, this can usually be remedied with a specialised cleaning product and the appropriate hot setting. It’s recommended that you wash your washer about once every 40 cycles. So if you haven’t been doing this, chances are you have your answer as to what’s going wrong with your towels and fabrics.
For more handy cleaning solutions check out our blog or to enquire about our cleaning service contact a member of the AGS team now on 0161 491 4477.