How to Keep Towels Soft, Fluffy, and Clean—No Matter How Many Times You Wash Them

Try a few of these smart laundry tactics to help your towels reach maximum coziness.

Your towels arrive from the store super soft and plush—but it's only a matter of time before they become rough and thin, right? Wrong! With the right care and laundering techniques, you can keep your towels soft and fluffy for a whole lot longer.

Related: The 11 Best Bath Towels of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

So if you're looking to preserve that perfect level of plushness, follow this expert advice to make your towels last longer.

Meet Our Expert

Becky Rapinchuk , cleaning expert of CLEAN MAMA

Use your towels more than once before you wash them

Washing and drying can be rough on your towels, so you probably don't want to wash them every time you use them—unless they've been in contact with a lot of sweat, dirt, or chlorine. Instead, opt to wash after a few uses, says Becky Rapinchuk, cleaning expert of CLEAN MAMA.

Related: Here’s How Often Experts Say You Should Change Out Your Bath Towel

Tips

Make sure you hang your towels between uses so they are able to dry out as quickly as possible. If they stay in a damp heap on your floor, you're more likely to develop mildew, bacterial growth, and other ick that you don't want to put back on your body after you've bathed.

Don't stuff the washing machine

This is good advice for anything you want to wash—as overloading your washing machine means less room for your clothing or towels to move, get exposed to the detergent, and really get clean.

The tip to ensuring that your clothing and towels have enough room to wash properly? Do the palm test. If you can fit your hand between the edge of the washing machine tub and your clothing, you haven't overstuffed it.

But because towels are heavier and absorb more water than clothing, you might want to err on the side of a smaller load (half-full) to minimize wear and tear on your washing machine from the weight of the wet towels.

Wash a towels-only load

Washing your towels with your clothing, sheets, or other fabrics can be bad for the other items—and not great for your towels either.

The texture of your towels can roughen up delicate fabrics and leave lots of lint and towel fibers on your clothes. Since towels require a longer drying time than most clothes, it can cause you to leave your clothing in the dryer much longer than necessary.

But your towels can also be damaged by washing with other items—all it takes is one red shirt in with a bunch of white towels to turn them pink.

Tips

You might also want to sort your towels by type—kitchen towels together, and bath towels together—so you can avoid potential cross-contamination of bacteria from different areas of your house.

Go easy on the laundry detergent

More isn't better when it comes to laundry detergent. In fact, using too much laundry detergent can actually cause buildup that makes your towels feel rough. (Which might just lead you to put more detergent in next time—and that becomes a vicious cycle leading to rougher and rougher towels!)

Instead, limit your detergent to just a couple of tablespoons, and you'll find that your towels will stay soft and be just as clean.

Tips

If your towels are already pretty rough, you might try laundry stripping to remove the residue, and hopefully soften up your towels.

Use vinegar, not fabric softener

You would think fabric softener would be the key to keeping your towels soft, but Rapinchuk says that it actually has some pretty undesirable effects on your towels. "It coats the fibers and prevents towels from getting clean."

Instead, Rapinchuk recommends using a quarter cup of vinegar during the rinse cycle to help remove excess detergent and leave your towels a bit softer and fluffier.

Related: How to Wash Towels to Keep Them Clean, Fresh, and Fluffy

Consider air-drying your towels

Even on the gentlest settings, your dryer can increase the wear and tear on your towels, leading to a shorter life span before they fray and lose plushness. You can hang dry your towels to minimize the stress on them, and help whiten white towels by drying them in the sunlight.

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