How to stop ruining bathroom towels
Thursday, May 31, 2012 at 6:15AM
;)
I just had a huge revelation (in the shower, where most of my big breakthroughs shake loose). When I was doing laundry the other day I found a bleached spot on my fave bathroom towel. This came as a huge surprise since we don’t even have bleach in the house.
I thought about it and realized that whitening toothpastes utilize hydrogen peroxide to keep those pearly whites in tip top shape. Hydrogen peroxide (aka a glob of toothpaste spittle) left to just hang out on your towel will slowly create a bleached spot. (This might be a fun experiment for removing a small stain from a white cloth!)
So, for those of you who use a whitening toothpaste, when you are drying your mouth after brushing your teeth, give your face a complimentary splash with water before toweling off. You’ll save your towel from a case of the bleachy measles.
Reader Comments (7)
Who knew? I never would have thought of that! Smarty!
WOW! I would have never considered that.
Also, I find that all my towels have lots of pulls in them. I'm not sure what causes that (middle spindle in the washing machine?), but do you have any thoughts/ideas on how to avoid?
Well I guess it is just as well I switched to white towels in our main bathroom.
Those are gorgeous towels BTW. What kind are they? Not that I need more towels...
Oh, that makes perfect sense! I gave up using colored towels and sheets when my daughter was a pre-teen because no amount of coaxing, begging or pleading with her to use makeup remover ever worked. All of my best linens were covered with the stuff, and with that "24 hour lipstick" (which is more like 365 day lipstick when it's on your best towels). So I switched to white since I can bleach them.
She's 21 now and lives on her own. I really should consider getting pretty colored towels like yours!
Wow, who would have known. Makes sense!
My teenage daughter had a acne medication that also bleached out some of my towels. She would apply the cream, then without washing off her hands or maybe just a quick rinse, wipe them on the towel=towels with white marks!
Some of the whitening toothpastes & rinses use hydrogen peroxide. If left on materials, it bleaches them. You can mix 1 part water to 1 part hydrogen peroxide and rinse (tastes horrible btw).. then brush your teeth as usual. (DO NOT SWALLOW the rinse!)
And don't put too much in your mouth as it does get foamy.