If your towels are stiff and scratchy after washing, it’s probably due to a lack of moving air in the room where they dried.
Forum Waschen, a Germany-based sustainable washing organisation, says the fibres or loops of towels go wild in the drum of the washing machine. If these upright ends dry in a room without air movement, they get stuck that way, leaving the textiles hard and rough.
Letting towels dry outdoors, where light winds will help the fibres settle, can help avoid this. You can also soften towels by stretching or beating them vigorously before folding them, the experts advise.
If that doesn’t help, your detergent dose might be off: Too much soap doesn’t rinse out well, too little can let calcium deposits build.
How much detergent the textiles require depends on how dirty they are, the size of the load and water hardness. Using fabric softener in the machine’s last rinsing cycle also helps against rigid towels. – dpa
