Why White Bath Towels Are Your Best Choice

If you often find yourself wondering how to eliminate odors from your towels, chances are they're not clean enough—or not drying thoroughly between uses. Learning the best way to wash towels is an excellent starting point, as is knowing how to select quality towels. Even so, despite your best efforts, you may still face issues with mildew and lingering smells.

Proper care of your towels is essential—and so is ensuring they're stored in the right place—but there's another tip to keep your towels fresh and smelling great for longer. It comes from Erin Napier, one of the stars of HGTV's Home Town, and she swears by it: white bath towels.

"Ben's mom shared this tip with me," Erin recalls. "She lives with a bunch of big, tough men who play sports and work on cars, getting all greasy and filthy, yet her towels always smell fresh."

In the South, where Erin and her mother-in-law reside, the high humidity makes towels more prone to mildew and odors, making her mother-in-law’s fresh-smelling towels an even greater achievement.

What Makes White Towels So Unique?

"It's simple—you just bleach them," Erin explains. "Each time you wash them, add a bit of bleach, and they'll last indefinitely. They won’t mildew, and they’ll always smell fresh."

Erin refers to this as "Southern mama wisdom," but hotels have been using the same approach worldwide. Think about it: Hotel towels are nearly always white, probably for this exact reason. They can be lightly bleached with every wash, keeping them looking fresh and clean for a long time, without the bleach stains you’d get from using the same technique on colored towels. Nothing exudes luxury quite like the sight of bright, fresh, fluffy bath towels in a hotel bathroom.

White towels may not be everyone’s first choice. They do tend to show dirt and wear faster than darker towels, but that might be an indicator that you need to wash your towels more frequently. (One expert suggests towels shouldn’t be used more than three times between washes.) However, this can actually work to your advantage: White towels provide a visual cue for when they need to be washed and bleached, and that’s a true win-win.