What do you do about facecloths that have gone stiff?

[ChocolateCinderToffee]

I don't mean freshly-washed, nice and crisp, I mean like cardboard.

I've tried washing with vinegar, to no effect. I've tried boiling them for an hour, ditto. Is there some magic solution (literal or metaphorical) that I should try?

Mine go literally stiff, very much like cardboard. Maybe as if they've been starched? (I don't know, I've never starched anything personally). I always just assumed that was what facecloths did and went on with life, as it makes no difference to their use. They've done it on rainwater, town water, and with different washing detergents, but I do always line dry, so maybe tumble drying is the secret to soft cloths...?

But surely they don't stay stiff? By the time they have been taken off the line, folded, put on the shelf, picked up again, the stiffness is gone, even before they get further softened in the water. And I agree with you that it makes no difference to their use. It's an absolute revelation to me that this could be considered a problem by the OP!

If they have soap residue you need to strip them. Super hot water wash with vinegar and no detergent. You may need to repeat until there is no sign of bubbles.

You could also boil them if your machine can’t get very hot.

Oh God, me too🤣🤣

Facecloths, like t-shirts, make their way down the hierarchy of usability in our house. Once they’re a bit threadbare or crispy, they become cloths for giving the windows or floors a wipe or drying the washing line, or for spillages etc. Then they become one-off cloths for wiping vomit or mould or whatever off something and thrown away.

Oh no, they stay stiff! Or at least, my rather elderly ones do (from 10 to 20 years old, some of them). I crush (fold) them into smaller squares and stack them up in the hot water cupboard with all the other linens, and they're still stiff as a board when I go to use them 🫣
But yes, once they're wet I can't really tell the difference!

No of course I don't. I wash them with the towels.

Or do you advocate never washing towels?

So are you boiling towels for an hour as well?

I’m genuinely puzzled.

(I knew a very wealthy woman in the 80s who used to boil her smalls, and no doubt facecloths too, in a big saucepan on the Aga while her cook was trying to get the Sunday lunch ready. 1980s not 1880s - all mod cons in the house plus hot and cold running domestic staff.)

Add a scoop of soda crystals to your wash, and when you take them out of the machine (and towels too) give them a really vigorous shake from one side, turn towel/flannel 180deg and shake v vigorously again. It lifts all the little cotton loops that get stuck together after the spin cycle and helps them to be soft again once they're dried.

What a charming OP. One normal post followed by three snarky ones.

Presumably the same saucepan used for boiling stock!

I’m doing better than you, love, as you appear to have joined the thread just to snipe.

Although when I look through your recent replies on other threads, I can see you seem to specialise in criticising people who've asked for support.

Mine go stiff very quickly. I live in an extremely hard water area so I think it's that.

I am afraid I don't have a solution OP, but I use old flannels and baby muslin as cleaning cloths / in lieu of kitchen roll.

Buy new ones

Ah, soft water here. Perhaps that's why I don't have a grasp of what the problem is.

Probably! There was a thread on here once about cleaning toilets where the soft water people really couldn't understand what the hard water women were talking about! I often resort to sandpaper to get the bowl truly clean from limescale.

Oh blimey. Sandpapering the toilet bowl. ick! Perhaps the stiff flannels could be recruited for toilet limescale removal

If you haven't got a tumble dryer then the only thing you can do is sit there and rub them together in the way the tumble dryer does.

This is fine if you have hours and hours and hours to sit there and rub things together. Or you can do it when you're watching telly and if you enjoy rubbing things together while doing so.

If you don't you just have to put up with them being stiff.

Me too - I’m nicking it. It’s quite cheered me up.

Use them as cleaning cloths and buy new ones?

Our towels do this after every wash ( hard water here) they’re stiff like board. I’m afraid the only thing I’ve found to fix it is ten minutes in a tumble dryer. I know you don’t have one so you may just have to get used to scratchy face cloths, exfoliation will be great though !