5 Tips From A Top Hotel On How To Wash Your Whites

We all want to keep our white laundry looking bright and beautiful, but all too often food stains, pesky red socks and that gradual greying we all hate gets in the way.

One person who has to deal with a lot of white linen is the London Hilton’s Head of Laundry, Katarzyna Kurylek (below), who oversees the washing of everything from tablecloths to towels. And, of course, hotel guests aren’t expecting any splodges, stains or grey napkins during their stay!

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We asked Katarzyna for her top tips on how to keep those whites brilliant, and she had plenty of useful advice:

1. How to stop white laundry from going grey

Katarzyna explains: ‘Put 3tbsp of laundry soap and 3tbsp of baking soda into a big enamel or stainless steel pot. Then put in the clothing and fill the pot with clean, cold water (any stains on the clothes should already have been treated).

‘Next, gently boil the clothes on the hob for at least half an hour, punching down any fabric that pops up out of the water. Allow them to cool, wring out and toss into the washing machine to rinse and spin, they dry as usual.’

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2. How to get food stains out of white napkins and tablecloths

‘A great tip for this is to cover it with artificial sweetener as soon as the stain gets on to the fabric’ says Katarzyna. ‘The fine powder absorbs the oil and prevents it from making a permanent stain.’

3. How to tackle tomato stains on white linen

‘Tomato-based stains are particularly difficult to remove’ reveals Katarzyna. ‘If you’ve tried all the conventional methods (pre-treatment, a bleach and cold-water soak), then you can try the DIY approach, spraying WD-40 over the stain, leaving it for 5 to 10 minutes and then removing any oily residue in cold, soapy water.’

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4. How to get make-up stains out of white towels

‘Detergent with bleach helps keep white towels bright,’ says Katarzyna. ‘I use a mixture of bleach and water with detergent to soak the towels in first, then rinse them out. Then I do a regular wash. This process should remove any make-up stains from white towels.’

5. How to stop detergent residue building up on your whites

‘Putting a single cup of white vinegar in your wash with detergent is great for cutting through the claggy residue that detergent can leave behind,’ reveals Katarzyna.

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