How to Enhance the Whiteness of Towels and Bedding

How can you make your towels and bed linens look as bright white as the ones in a luxury hotel? There is an optical brightener known as a fluorescent whitening agent that is found in most detergents. It consists of a colorless dye that is deposited on the fabric during washing. These dyes absorb light in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, which is not visible. They then reflect it in the visible part of the spectrum, usually the blue frequency, which increases the whiteness and compensates for the light trapped in fabric that isn’t clean. Light cannot reflect off fabric if it interacts with dirt. To get your towels and bed linens the brightest white, while still getting them clean, follow these steps:

1. Wash with hot water

   Select a hot water wash cycle. The hotter the water, the deeper the clean. Not only will you notice the difference after a cycle, but also during the life of the white laundry.

   The hot water entering the washing machine has the temperature selected for the wash cycle. If a much lower temperature has been selected to save energy, the washing efficiency will suffer.

2. Add Clorox®

   Pour 8 oz of Clorox^® Bleach or Clorox^® Scented Bleach*, or 3.5 oz of Clorox^® Clothes Stain Remover Supreme Whitener, or 1 oz (2 tablespoons) of Clorox^® Laundry Stain Remover Intense Whites in the washing machine, along with your favorite detergent. Using any of these Clorox® products will make your whites cleaner than they would with detergent alone; and the cleaner it is, the whiter it will look.

   * If using bleach, place the product in the water before loading the clothes to avoid direct contact of the product with the fabrics.

3. Measure the detergent

   Make sure you are using the correct amount of detergent. Using too much can cause a lot of foam, which lessens the friction of the clothes against each other and reduces the effectiveness of the wash. It also makes it difficult to rinse off all of the detergent. This means that there will be more particles on the surface of the fabric, preventing light from reflecting off the fabric. Using too little detergent means that there will not be enough cleaning agents to remove dust and dirt.

   Use a suitable and good-quality detergent. Check the ingredients list for enzymes and an optical brightener, in addition to cleaning agents.