Why do sheets get softer with each wash, while towels get coarser over time?
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it’s structural damage in both.
sheet is basically a weave strings, and each wash destroys some of the strings, making it easier to bend as there’s _less_ things to resist the bending.
towel is made to have a lot of protruding knobs, and each knob lined with a lot of soft fibers. this maximizes surface area (good for drying) and giving it a fluffy feel. each wash makes these knobs “go bald” and once they become bald, they feel less fluffy
Reminded me of a towel life-hack (I worked in marketing for a major US retailer for a decade).
If you like your towels, use liquid fabric softener in the wash vs. dryer sheets. I can’t recall the “why”, but the company “towel expert” did a presentation with towels from the product testing lab. After like a hundred wash/dry cycles, the liquid softener towels were like new, while the dryer-sheet towels were markedly eroded. It was really night and day when they passed the examples around. Wish I could remember the explanation, but it was pretty dramatic.
The real question is why does my flat sheet develop a crease in the top fold after the first wash that is more permanent than crimped steal?
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What gets wetter as it dries?
Well this post just got super informational! Way to go laundry nerds! I just learned a thing or two about a thing or two. Bravo!
Turkish towels get better and better over time. They take less time to dry and fold smaller but IMO are better at drying than terry cloth.
Likely culprit is fabric softener. Pro tip: do not use dryer sheets with your towels. They will stay like-new forever if you dry them alone after washing with detergent only. I’d recommend washing new fluffy towels together/separate for older, already-ruined towels.
Fabric softener actually makes towels less absorbent. I don’t know if this counts as an answer, but I felt it relevant.
It doesn’t help that towels are super soft when you buy them because they were heavily washed in softener. Have you ever tried drying yourself with a towel you just bought but haven’t washed yet? It isn’t absorbent. If you wash your towels with softener it’s not absorbent.
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