Ever wonder how come clean towels eventually end up smelling...well, not so fresh? If towels are clean, they should smell clean, right? Most times, it is our water being quite hard, mixed with the fragrances of detergents and fabric softeners, that build-up eventually takes a toll on those towels, resulting in foul-smelling, clean linen straight out of the dryer.

The solution? A simple, cheap DIY that just requires baking soda and vinegar.

1. Place your linen in the washing machine.

2. Instead of laundry detergent, put in a generous amount of baking soda (about 1/4 of a small box of baking soda.)

3. In the rinse cycle compartment, use white distiller vinegar (apple cider vinegar is a good alternative to use) instead of fabric softener.

4. Wash with hot water.

5. After the rinse cycle, put the freshly washed towels into the dryer. Out come clean and fresh towels without any hints of vinegar.

The result is fresh smelling towels, but they won’t have the smelly residues that the fragrances of the detergents, fabric softener and hard-water create. This method also works for those towels that have been stored in a linen closet for a long time.

Bonus side (laundry) tip - baking soda works wonders on set-in oil stains too.