Rough, stiff towels can be restored to softness in just 15 minutes using a natural item that is said to be better than vinegar: citric acid.
Why Towels Become Stiff
Fresh from the shop, towels feel like soft, fluffy clouds, but within just a few weeks they can start to resemble sandpaper against your skin. There are two key culprits behind rough towels: hard water residue and laundry products such as detergent and fabric softener.
While proper care can help, the build-up of these residues is difficult to avoid entirely — though it's not impossible to reverse. To bring towels back to their former glory, many people swear by natural cleaning remedies such as white vinegar, baking soda, or soda crystals. However, it turns out there's another natural cleaning solution that many cleaners prefer — citric acid.
What Is Citric Acid?
Citric acid is a mild organic acid that occurs naturally in citrus fruits such as lemons, limes and grapefruits. When it comes to cleaning and laundry, it's an absolute game-changer for two key reasons.
Citric acid latches onto minerals and draws them away from cotton fibres, making them water-soluble so they can be rinsed away. Vinegar can achieve this to a degree, but citric acid is generally far more effective at tackling stubborn mineral scale.
Most laundry detergents are alkaline (high pH) to help cut through grease and grime. If that detergent isn't fully rinsed out, your towels remain in an alkaline state, which can leave fibres feeling coarse. Citric acid (low pH) counteracts the alkalinity, restoring the fabric to a neutral state that feels naturally softer against the skin.
A further benefit of citric acid is that it is entirely odourless, leaving your towels smelling of nothing but fresh, clean cotton.
How to Soften Towels with Citric Acid
To breathe new life into extremely stiff and scratchy towels, cleaning experts at Smol recommend soaking them in a citric acid solution in your bathtub.
Begin by pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, then add a quarter cup of citric acid to half a bath of hot water and stir until fully dissolved. Submerge your towels in the solution and leave them to soak for 15 minutes, then drain the bath.
Run cold water into the bath to rinse the towels thoroughly, drain once more and wring them out before washing and drying as normal. When washing your towels, be careful not to use excessive amounts of detergent, as this leads to soapy residue being left behind on the fabric. This will cause the material to feel rigid and coarse, and prevent it from soaking up water properly.
Additionally, avoid using laundry powder, as it doesn't always dissolve completely, meaning it can settle into the towel fibres and create that unwanted stiffness once more.
