I did white and a light aqua for my new master bath. My white towels and washcloths are dingy :( It's my water. I haven't bleached them but I use OxyClean, Tide and vinegar in the rinse water. I love the look of clean crisp white towels but am sad that I can't keep them clean.
Monica

I plan on using only white towels in my new master bath. I've always had colored and find the color fades and some how bleach gets on them. With white I will use bleach.

I would think that your DH should not be going directly from the garden into your master bath, but thats between you two. : )

One idea is paper towels...right now with just one bath in our house, I have a paper towel roll in the bathroom. The family has been trained that with extra dirty hands to use a paper towel NOT the hand towel.

Instructions with my white towels say no bleach. No trouble keeping white. I have Abyss in the master bath(love the bath towels but very expensive - I wait for sales) and Calvin Klein in the guest bath. Both very absorbant and lush. Only use colored towels for the beach.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plush White Towels

I have white towels and love them. We've been using them for 4 years and the ones I use are still very white. The towels my husband uses are dingy looking and I'm not sure why. Maybe because he is guy?

We've had white towels for years and the bath towels still look great-even after using bleach when the tag says not to. The washcloths are a little stained but that's from makeup-I've since bought dark washclothes and it isn't an issue now.

They are Martex Platinum-100% cotton Supima-no balls or loose threads after 5 years of use! Too bad I can't find them anywhere now.

I have white towels in a bath used by 4 teenagers. As silly as this sounds, after the reno (and new towels) I drilled in to them that RINSING well after washing their hands will keep my towels white and me off of their backs :). I was amazed at how dirty a towel used for drying clean hands was getting....so I watched them work in the sink expecting them to really be skipping the soap step. Nope...they used soap, but rinsed for maybe 10 seconds.

My towels are white-white and I am a happy camper.

HTH!!

I use Cheer and Borax on my towels, plus vinegar rinse when I'm in the vicinity of the washer when the rinse cycle begins. I no longer use bleach on my laundry. My towels look great after years of use: Lands End spa towels.

My mother, my sister, and I have nothing but white towels. I think they are so much easier to keep clean than colored towels. Also, we all use hot water and a little bleach to sanitize our towels, washcloths, etc. For washcloths, we buy the big bundles at Costco or Sam's. You get a bazillion for just a few bucks. As the washcloths get stained with make-up, we convert them to cleaning rags. All 3 of us have found however, that if you use the make-up removal washcloth the next day for your bath, the make-up stains much less.

I just had 3 teenage girl/young adult female houseguests and all 3 asked for white towels since they use acne treatments that bleach towels. Very considerate of them and I'm glad I had old white and ivory on hand for them.

White towels are TERRIFIC!! :-)

Wow, Bill. Not exactly a "poster child" for gleeming, white towels! And WHERE, pray tell, did you ever find those Laticrete towels? I've been looking EVERYWHERE for them; stores don't carry them anymore.

arline

Well, the small one usually stays in my truck. :-) As for where I "found" them, they were given to me as a gift by the VP of Laticrete, who is a close friend. :-)

Sue: we learned the hard way about what Pro Activ can do to towels. :-(

I had always used white towels and didn't realize what it would do to a colored towel until we visited my DH's uncle last summer. My DD didn't even realize it was happening until I saw it. Of course we were horrified and embarrassed. Turned out it wasn't a big deal to him but we sure learned our lesson. All white from now on for home and travel.