5 Mistakes That Are Damaging Your Kitchen Towels

Kitchen towels are so integral to our daily lives that we don't really even think about them. They are probably something you take for granted until they fall apart or stop doing their job. But kitchen towels serve an important purpose. They are there to dry your hands and your dishes, help clean up messy spills, and can be used in a pinch as a potholder to handle hot pans. You can also use them to help open stubborn jars, cover bread while it proofs, and even place it between your cutting board and the countertop to prevent slippage while you're working.

They are essentially an all-purpose tool that we can't really do without in the kitchen, so it stands to reason that you'll want to take care of these kitchen necessities so they can continue to take care of you while you cook. But there are a few things you might be doing that are damaging these underappreciated towels without even realizing it. Whether you favor the high-quality waffle weave cotton towels from Trader Joe's or buy them in bulk from Costco or Amazon, you'll want to avoid these common mistakes so your towels last.

You put a lot of care into how you wash your clothes, separating the whites from the darks and doing your delicates on cold, so why should your towels be treated any differently? Even if you buy the no-frills cotton bar towels — one of the best products to buy from Aldi — you want them to stay in good condition as long as possible. So take some extra care to avoid washing them with rags that could have harsh cleaning agents or greasy dirt stains that could spread to your kitchen towels and degrade the integrity of your towels' fibers.

Fabric softener is a great invention. Without it, our sheets would be scratchy and our underwear would make us want to go commando. But fabric softener can make the fabric lose its absorbency, which defeats the purpose of a kitchen towel that is primarily used to dry things and wipe up spills. The softener works by coating the fibers of the material in something called cationic surfactants, which creates a slippery surface and works as a barrier to repel water rather than absorb it. You don't have to wear them or sleep in them, so why worry about how soft kitchen towels are as long as they do their job?

Like fabric softener, bleach impacts the integrity of towels, but in a different way. Bleach is a harsh chemical that can damage the fibers of the material, causing them to break down faster than they would from normal wear and tear. Towels get stained — it is inevitable when using them in the kitchen around things like tomato sauce, coffee, red wine, beets, and other popular ingredients that we consume. There are plenty of ways to remove those stains with common pantry ingredients. But if you feel more comfortable with bleach, it is important to follow the manufacturer's instructions carefully, so you use just enough bleach to clean your towels without destroying them. 

You can probably think of a million uses for kitchen towels, and they will probably all work, but some uses are better left to different tools. Soaking up excess oil from food is a great example. If you've got an extra-greasy pizza on your hands or went a little overboard with the cooking oil in a stir fry, you might be tempted to soak it up with the nearest towel. But when a towel comes into contact with oil, the oil can infiltrate the fibers of the material and stick, leaving unsightly stains and lingering odors. And the longer you leave those stains, the harder they are to remove. Unless you plan to wash your towel immediately, you'll want to avoid this habit altogether and use disposable paper towels to soak up that excess grease and oil.

Laundry soap serves an important purpose, but it is actually a harsh chemical that can do some damage if used in excess. And kitchen towels take a lot of abuse, so it is tempting to toss in a little extra soap when you stick them in the wash to clean off stinky and unsightly food stains — after all, if they don't look and smell clean, you won't want to use them in your kitchen around the food you eat. It's a common misconception that when towels are really dirty, it takes more soap to clean them, but the truth is that extra detergent will simply linger on the material rather than wash off in the rinse cycle. This will leave your towels stiff and ineffective in the kitchen.