Trying to keep your white clothing and towels white? Here are the best hacks

Keep those white pieces crisp and bright for the summer

Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Summertime means breaking out that white clothing you’ve had in the closet waiting to make its seasonal debut.

The downfall? White clothing and towels never seem to stay as crisp and bright as they are when we first get them. Luckily, there are a few hacks to keep your whites as white as possible, which I learned from the great people of the r/laundry Subreddit.

Here are the best tips I found and how you can execute them at home. How to keep your white clothing and towels white: four best hacks Separate and wash on hot While the first tip may seem obvious, you’d be shocked at how many people don’t think of it. If you want your whites to stay as bright as possible, you need to separate them from your coloured pieces when washing.

I recommend getting a laundry basket that has two compartments so you can sort as you go about your week. Once you’re ready to wash your separated whites, make sure you use hot water (54°C+ / 130°F+). Of course, look at the labels of your clothing or towel to make sure the fabric can be washed in hot water.

Warmer water helps expand cotton fibres and loosen any dirt that may be nestled into your pieces, resulting in brighter whites. Products we recommend: - Large Double Laundry Basket with Removable Bags, $45 CAD - Laundry Hamper with Removable Compartment Bags, $36 CAD Use oxygen bleach instead of chlorine bleach If you’re like me, you may be tempted to just bleach your whites with a jug of the good ol’ fashioned stuff, but this can actually work against you.

Chlorine bleach is a thing of the past – usually something our parents or grandparents would use when washing whites. Chlorine bleach can actually break down the fibres of your clothing and cause reactions to certain oils and bacteria that can cause the opposite effect of what you want and turn your items a yellowish colour. What you want to use instead is hydrogen peroxide bleach, like Oxiclean.

Hydrogen peroxide works by fusing with organic matter and lifting it to the surface, which makes washing out dirt way easier. Chlorine just bleaches the colour out of stains without actually lifting stains. Products we recommend: - OxiClean All Purpose, $13 CAD - Nellie’s Oxygen Brightener, $35 CAD Bluing your laundry

Okay, this trick is apparently what a lot of hotels do to keep their sheets as bright white as possible. Bluing is a liquid agent that can be added to laundry in small, diluted amounts. How it works is that the blue colouring cancels out any yellow colouring since they’re opposites on the colour wheel.

You have to make sure you’re only adding a very small amount, though, or your clothes will just turn blue. A recommended method is to find a one-gallon jug, fill it with water and add one tablespoon of bluing. From there, use one quart of the solution for a large load of whites.

Products we recommend: - Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing 8oz, $13 CAD Dry your whites in the sun The last step involves drying your whites, and according to Reddit, “sun bleaching” is the best way to keep whites white. I actually went to the r/askscience Subreddit for this one, and according to a very active commenter, sun bleaching works because the colour disappears as sunlight “slowly converts some coloured compounds into some uncoloured ones. Many coloured compounds contain chromophores, fragments of a molecule responsible for its colour.

These fragments can degrade after exposure to sunlight, so when this happens, the colour will fade away.” So, basically, if there is any yellow colour left on your whites, the sun can help strip it while drying your pieces. Products we recommend: - 3 Tier Clothes Drying Rack, $40 CAD - Strata Super Heavy Duty Clothes Line Kit, $98 CAD Why trust us: We research, test and vet

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