How to make towels soft again

[Sunflower6]

Has anyone got any tips on how to make towels soft again once they have gone hard? I tried washing without fabric conditioner but that hasn't helped.

No softener and tumble dry .

Wash with soda crystals only in your machine - no washing powder/liquid - on a hot cottons wash, then tumble dry. Towels tend to go hard when they have washing powder/liquid residue in them. They should be washed at 60 degrees (or hotter) with only a little detergent and no fabric softener. Don't mix them with other washing - wash towels together, separately from clothes, etc.

Reading with interest! What if you haven't got a tumble drier? Does it still work to hot wash them without detergent? Are the soda crystal essential? I don't use fabric conditioner and my mum always says that's why my towels are hard - glad to know she is wrong! (Hope this is not so much a hijack as a development of the OP!)

Lovage - the soda crystals will clean the towels and break down the detergent deposits making them hard. Tumble dryer is optional, but it's the best way of getting lovely fluffy towels at home - you could always take them to the launderette to use the dryer there. I find line dried towels go crisp - you can kind of soften them up (and someone I used to work with swore by ironing them to do so!), but it's not the same.

Tbh I bet you could wash towels on a really hot cotton wash without any detergent at all - if your household has showers and uses shower gel, there will residue of that on bath towels, especially in a soft water area as you hardly need any soap of any kind to get a lather so we probably use too much of everything. I always use only a minimal amount of detergent in the machine with towels and there is always loads of lather - we live in the NW where the tap water comes from the Lake District.

Some people recommend white vinegar in the machine as a substitute for fabric softener - I tried this once when I ran out softener and it made everything smell like a chippy although I only used a small amount. I had to wash it all again.

not too much washing powder/liquid, no conditioner, wash at 60 and dry outside on a breezy day. And buy Wilkinson's one up from the cheapest towels which stay lovely and soft.

Thank you wowfudge. We're in a hard water area, but I will try just hot wash without detergent. It may also just be that my towels are too old and I am too skinflint! Many are 10+ years. But even my new towels seem to go hard within a few months, so I don't think it's just that.

A lot of it will be down to the hard water - soda crystals help with that.

Aha! Thanks, will add soda crystals to my shopping list.

If you have no tumble drier, a washing line will do. Draped over an airer is no good.

Ah. I have no washing line, just indoor airers (well-ventilated room). Maybe I need to go go and flap them every 5 minutes