I am interested in the standards for washing bath towels. Do you need to use bleach for sanitation purposes, or will hot water do the trick?
- Bruce Koepp, Assistant Director, Recreational Services

Answer: Your state, city, or local government agency for health codes may have requirements specific to your business and therefore I may not have all the right information for you. Generally speaking, health-clubs and recreational centers do not have a requirement for sanitizing textiles. I have heard of washing requirements for some such business, and the only thing stated is that they be washed with a proper detergent, and dried completely.

When new businesses of this type open up and are inspected for local codes, this often is a time when it may be determined how hot the water should be, as well as the proper procedures for handling and storing towels used by the public. Check with your local health department and ask them for the regulation pertaining to washing towels for public use in your type of business. If this were my business or if using the towels, I would feel more comfortable if hot water (120 degrees +) were used with a good detergent and chlorine bleach. A proper wash formula for towels can be set up by a local institutional chemical company specializing in laundering supplies.

How do you remove laundry starch from shirts that have been starched? They are a 60/40-cotton//poly blend. They have been through the laundry several times and the starch remains, this was a commercial application. Is there something that will neutralize it? Thanks.
- Catherine Dmochowski

Answer: The sizing or starch should have washed out even using home-style laundry detergents. If the item is white and can be bleached try bleaching at 1.5 times the amount you would normally use, and use hot water for the washing with warm rinses. For colored items, let the textile soak in a warm bath of detergent for a few hours and wash as you normally would. Both starch products and sizing products are water soluble, so they should be removed generally quite easily. Certainly check with whomever did the starching to determine what they did. If some chemical product was used that is not water soluble, you might try having the textile dry cleaned.s.

Is there any information available concerning dimensional stability, i.e. shrinkage, of towels in repeated commercial laundering? Also, what is the average number of wash cycles that a towel goes through before it is discarded?
Clay Tingle, Technical Manager

Answer: The manufacturer should be able to provide this information for the specific towels that you are using or purchasing. There are, in my opinion, differences in domestic and imported textiles. Generally I have found that domestic products quality is better than most imports. The blend of the towel will make a difference in the amount of shrinkage, as will the temperatures of the washing and drying process. For instance a 100% cotton towel may shrink more than a blend of 86/14 cotton to polyester. Depending upon the manufacturer, towels washed in very hot water may cause them to shrink some. Most often the drying process can cause shrinkage by high temperatures and over drying of the fabric materials. Much of the shrinkage has to do with the manufacturing - how tight the product was woven. It is not unusual to see 10-15% shrinkage in most towels these days, and if enough bad conditions exist in the processing, 20% or more is possible.

The number of washings you might receive from a towel will depend on a number of circumstances.
• Quality of manufactured towel (most important)
• Purpose or use of the towel
• The severity of wash process (harshness of chemistry)
• Handling, drying and finishing

There in no ‘average’ number of wash cycles one can determine for any textile without information on use, or a tracking of historical use. I would recommend an evaluation of the items I mentioned, and testing different manufactures and qualities in a control process can often be extremely valuable.

In laundry terms, what is an emulsifier and where do I purchase it?
- Mark Davenport

Call us or email to find out more information on linking to our web site, listing in our web directory or how we can showcase your business site in our web site review column.