My towels smell musty

[Mydogsleepsonthebed]

I use liquitabs. And wash at 60 degrees. And they smell musty. might be because they lurk in kitbags for a while thank you DD

How can I make them smell nice? I've just washed them at 60 and stuck them out on the line and they smell horrible.

Does your washing machine smell?

This article has some excellent advice on dealing with a smelly washer.

One of the things I would do is ditch the liquitabs and go back to powder.

I'm thinking of a wee trip to Tescos and get some Ariel powder and stick them in a hot wash. Washer itself smells fine it's just DDs horrible sports kit towels. They reek.

if you're doing a hot-wash and line drying, then a maintenance wash on the machine is the only other thing left to try. Add half a cup of washing soda. If you give the machine a hot hot hot empty cycle with washing soda and no powder and the water goes grey or foams up, that is the old sludge dissolving. Do it again until the water stays clean. Wipe the rubber door-seal clean. Check there is nothing rotting on the pump filter.

Powders are usually more effective, but mostly contain bleaching agents that are good for whites but make colours fade.

BTW if you scoop the powder through the door it will not clog like it can in the powder drawer.

I used to have this problem until I found out (from MN) that liquitabs were causing this.

I did as other suggest and use soda crystals on a very hot wash with nothing in the machine.

And I now only use powder detergent. The horrible smell from the machine is long gone and all our clothes smell so much fresher. I no longer go around sniffing the freshly laundered clothes for musty smells and rewash them.

My utility room no longer smells like an old drain either.

It works!

Thats good to hear scandi1

yep, powder (esp. bio) gets stuff so much cleaner as well.

and funny enough, for really smelly things using less powder than usual helps. (maybe that's due to the slugde as well?)

Thanks to MN my washer doesn't smell. Another interesting point is that now I use Ariel bological (and Fairy for coloured washes) instead of Ecover powder and liquid DD's eczema has disappeared.

I washed them with Ariel powder and they don't smell

I use Fairy non bio as both myself and DS are allergic to bio laundry products.

When I used the liquitabs I noticed that DS was still getting a rash. I had attributed variously to shampoo and soaps. Within a week of sorting the washing machine issue, this had disappeared.

I guess that means previously all of our clothes were not entirely free of detergent because of the build up. Yuk.

Had exactly the same thing. After a lifetime of non bio washing powder I'd switched to liquitabs. Switched back to the good old fashioned powder and lovely fluffy fragrant towels a-go-go.