How to whiten sheets in a front loader

There’s nothing better than walking into your bedroom, pure white sheets on your bed, the smell of freshly washed laundry in the air. But keeping your white sheets white isn’t as easy as it looks. The smallest of stains can make white sheets look dirty, so it’s important to know exactly how to wash your sheets and what could be making your white laundry, well, not so white.

Table of Contents Show

The Do’s of How to Get Sheets White Again
Liquid Bluing
Lemon Juice
Baking Soda
The Don’ts of How to Whiten Your Sheets
Bleaching Your White Sheets
Tumble Drying Your White Sheets
Final Thoughts on How to Get White Sheets White Again
Helpful Tips:
Keys To Getting Your Whites White:
How To:
~Denise

Your cleaning techniques could make or break your white sheets, so let’s take a look at what you should and shouldn’t be doing to keep your sheets bright and clean.

The Do’s of How to Get Sheets White Again

Washing your white sheets can feel like a tricky task, but there are a few full-proof techniques that work every time. Here’s what you should be doing to clean white sheets.

Liquid Bluing

Bluing is a technique that’s often used by clothing manufacturers as the finishing process on white fabrics. Unfortunately, every time you wash your white sheets, this effect wears off a little more.

You can get this effect back by buying liquid bluing at your local grocery or hardware store and apply it to your white sheets. It’s most effective if you repeat this every couple of washes to keep your sheets looking brand spanking new.

Borax

Borax is a highly effective whitening agent available at most grocery stores. It’s a powdery white mineral that aids in lifting discolorations and stains, returning garments back to sparkling white. It works best when it’s exposed to the fabric for long periods of time. For this reason, adding it to water and soaking your white sheets overnight is often the most effective way to use Borax.

Vinegar

If you feel your sheets need a little something extra, vinegar makes a great natural pre-wash. Soak your sheets in a bucket of warm water and half a cup of vinegar for about an hour before you put them in the wash. This helps to whiten the sheet and also works as an incredible fabric softener.

Pro tip: If you are worried about the smell of vinegar sticking around on your sheets, air dry your sheets in the sun. This eliminates any lingering vinegar smell from your newly washed bedding.

Lemon Juice

Lemons contain loads of citric acid, which is great for whitening sheets. It’s also an easy-to-use solution for those under a time crunch. By adding the juice from one lemon to your washing machine, along with your regular detergent, you will see an increase in the brightness of your sheets.

One added benefit of this natural solution is that your sheets come out smelling lemon-fresh. This is especially helpful if you also opted to soak your sheets in vinegar before the wash, as the lemon completely takes away the smell of the vinegar.

Baking Soda

Although baking soda is often thought of as an odor neutralizer, it can also aid in whitening your sheets. Simply add baking soda to your normal detergent and it will enhance its whitening effects.

This is a great painless option for those who don’t have time to wait for their white bedsheets to soak before throwing them in the washing machine.

The Don’ts of How to Whiten Your Sheets

The way you clean your white sheets could be making a bad situation worse. These are a few of the cleaning techniques that can actually make your white sheets less white, while damaging their integrity.

Bleaching Your White Sheets

If you’re wondering how to bleach white sheets, let me interrupt that thought for a second. Bleaching your white sheets is not the answer. In fact, applying bleach to white sheets can actually have the exact opposite effect that you’re looking for. Although it’s known for whitening any and every color garment, on white, it causes the sheet to yellow.

Bleach contains a lot of chlorine, which chemically reacts with body oil and sweat, often causing yellow spots and stains to appear. If you wash your sheet before bleaching it, it can be effective, but it’s a risky process and best avoided.

Tumble Drying Your White Sheets

The drying of your sheets might not strike you as the most important or effective way to whiten them, but staying away from the tumble dryer just might. Tumble drying your sheets will make them look dingy and often damage the fabric. Air drying your sheets will preserve their lifespan, but also keep your white sheets from looking drab.

Final Thoughts on How to Get White Sheets White Again

Laying your head to rest on a clean white puffy cloud of white sheets after completing your bedtime routine is possibly one of the most satisfying feelings in the world. So don’t let dirty sheets ruin the little pleasures in life. Follow these do’s and don’ts to ensure your white sheets stay white without compromising their integrity.

If, you have a front loading washing machine and you cannot get your whites white. Your not alone! I have even replaced new whites, within 2-3 washes, they are still dingy and grey? See my way of getting our whites the whitest.

Front loaders relatively use small amounts of water and less detergents than top loaders. Therefore, it may leave mold and yucky smells which leaves your whites dingy.

Helpful Tips:

Before washing your whites. Make sure your washer is clean. I know…You have to clean something that cleans!!! The rubber seal around the door holds mold which can leave a yucky smell. And it can leave your whites looking a greyish color.
Clean your HE loader first. I use Tide Front Load Washer Cleaner. Why? It’s recommended. Some front loaders are known for having foul smells and mold.

Keys To Getting Your Whites White:

Wash your whites with other whites. Adding color clothes will not help to getting your whites their whitest.
Use the hottest water possible.
Only use bleach on cotton. Too much can turn your clothes greyish and yellow.

How To:

Add your regular detergent
Fill fabric softener cup with white vinegar
1/2 cup of baking soda into the washer itself.
Set on the hottest setting
Wash your whites weekly

Drying:

Dry on low heat. Drying them on high can make them look yellow.
Drying balls will help get your towels fluffy
Don’t use fabric softener or dryer sheets. Over time they leave a thin layer of wax build up. It will also leave your towels less absorbent.
Dry on the hottest setting ( To save energy hang on a dryer rack or clothes line.

In some cases you may need to just purchase a new set of white towels and sheets. Then use this system as you go. *If you have any tips of your own please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.

~Denise

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White towels and bed linens are dirtier than you think! Using proper technique and the right laundry products make it easy to keep them clean and white, wash after wash.

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Towels and bed sheets work hard to keep you dry, clean and comfortable. In the process they pick up stains, dirt and unseen “body soil” made up of body oils, dead skin flakes and sweat. Washing with detergent alone is not enough to keep sheets and towels truly clean.

That’s why good laundry habits combined with Clorox® Bleach makes all the difference. Clorox® Bleach breaks up stains, dirt, soils and organic matter, making it easier for your detergent to do its job. And Clorox® Bleach is EPA registered, so your sheets and towels aren’t just cleaner and whiter, they’re also germ free.

Here are Clorox’s tried and true tips for washing white sheets and towels for optimum cleaning and whitening:

The hotter the water, the better the cleaning. This makes a difference not just after one cycle, but also over time.

If you have a High-Efficiency (HE) washer (either a front loader or top loader), make sure you are using an HE detergent. Check the ingredient list and make sure it has enzymes and an optical whitener in addition to the cleaning agents.

Always avoid bleaching wool, silk, mohair, leather and spandex.

Using too much detergent can cause over-sudsing in the clothes washer, which cushions the load and reduces cleaning performance. This also makes it harder for the detergent to be completely rinsed from the load. Using too little detergent means you won’t have enough cleaning agents to remove dirt and soil. Always measure, and follow the instructions on the detergent package.

It’s very important that the laundry rotates or tumbles through the wash water freely. This is a challenge for large items like bedding and towels. Packing these items in too tightly means they won’t agitate properly or get as clean. Also, try to put in an even number of towels or sheets so the load balances properly in the spin cycle. Properly balanced loads can spin at higher rpms, extracting more wash water from the machine for more thorough rinsing.

Add Clorox® Bleach along with the detergent to get your sheets and towels as clean as possible. The difference in performance adds up over time, when sheets and towels washed with bleach are noticeably cleaner and whiter not just after one cycle, but all of the time.

For best results in a standard washer, dilute 2/3 cup bleach with 1 quart of water and add it 5 minutes after the machine has begun agitating.
If you have an HE washer, use the bleach dispenser to add the bleach and fill it to the “max-fill” line.

Fabric softener leaves a coating on the fabric that may help control static cling, but also reduces absorbency. If you must use softener, stick to dryer sheets.

Can I bleach sheets and towels labeled “Do Not Bleach”?

100% white cotton, and even polyester or poly/cotton sheets should be labeled “Any Bleach When Needed.” Know that some textile manufacturers cut costs by putting the most restrictive care instructions on everything regardless of how best to wash it, so they only have to make one type of care label.

This isn’t fair to consumers, who rely on accurate information to know how best to care for a garment or textile. So go ahead and bleach your white cotton sheets and towels!

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