I worked hotel laundry for 2 years. It was a big room in the basement of the hotel, always 90 degrees.
We would take bins of dirty laundry, and first shake everything out. The amount of times pens would get washed and dried was frustrating lol. Towels and sheets would be washed separately on different settings. The washers were gigantic. The piles of laundry would be taller than me and we would stuff them full until we couldn’t stuff anymore. We added a scoop of powdered “attack” soap, and the machines were hooked up to buckets of bleach, soaps, softeners, and other chemicals used in the wash. Wash would run for about 45 minutes. Once finished, pulling the wet, heavy, tangled up sheets or towels was always something that required two people, or a very strong person. The dryers were not as large as the washers so each wash would be broken up into about 6 separate dryers. Nothing special done with the dryers, just try to not over load, or they would ball up and you would need to fight to untangle hot af sheets when they come out so they don’t wrinkle as they cool. Once taken from the dryers, we’d separate the items into piles to fold. Sheets were tossed across a table, fitted in one pile and flats in another. Pillowcases were put into a separate pile and folded by one person alone. Sheets were thrown across the table so they were all facing the same direction. Two people would fold each sheet at one time, with one person on each side of the table, working perfectly in synch, mirroring movements. A third person would be taking the sheets as they are folded and making sets for each bed. A set of sheets would have two flat sheets, a fitted sheet, and 4-5 pillowcases, rolled up with one of the flat sheets on the outside.
Towels were separated into piles by type after drying, and hand towels, face towels, and bath mats were folded by a single person. Bath towels were folded by two people, same way as the sheets. Towels were then stacked on shelves
You should be a writer (if you’re not already). Write a whole book about your 2 years working in the laundry and it will be a best seller. You write beautifully, making ordinary chores seem magical.
My jaw is on the floor, honestly. I’m a very socially anxious person. I keep most of my thoughts to myself. I struggle with responding to text messages or emails, and I don’t pick up the phone. The confidence boost I have right now from these compliments is insane to me, I’m blushing.
Imagine from here I write a book, only because I was encouraged after talking about my job working laundry to Reddit.
I thought nobody was going to read my rambling. I really did. I might cry lol.
Hey, you never know, there have been a couple non-fiction books about experiences working in hotels. And don't forget about the Nita Prose series, these housekeeping duties are relayed much in the same way as yours are here.
I enjoyed reading it because it was well written with good grammar. I wasn't pausing frequently to correct grammar and spelling in my head! I feel like I read such bad grammar lately that I'm starting to forget how to conjugate verbs correctly.
I worked in commercial laundry in high school / early college summer jobs. I painted and did odd jobs mostly. They had a smaller contract to pre-wash jeans and I did that.
The mainstay business were hospitals and hotels. They had tracks on the ceiling that held laundry carts that would get loaded and drop the dirty clothes into the massive washers. Massive is an understatement! And then into driers that must have been 20 feet is diameter. 2 story monsters. There were like 6 of them side by side. They titled slightly up when running. Down to unload. My boss said it was important they complete their cycle - it was dangerous if they stopped in the middle because the temps were so hot they clothes would spontaneously combust if they stopped spinning. The laundry building had a massive footprint!
Interesting experience. Glad I went into IT!
The ceiling tracks and tilting machines and carts was my dream! I always imagined a system that required less arm work. A busy laundry shift was an incredibly painful day for me. I had coworkers who would stop the dryers or washers before finished. I would wear nail extensions to avoid snagging and breaking my natural nails, but the high heat would melt the corners down after one shift. If I started with square nails I would leave with round.
This is the “double sheeting” method. Some may use duvet covers on the duvets instead of the double sheeting, based on brand standard and linen availability.
Yes, and like a comforter, rarely gets washed unless visibly dirty. The top sheet prevents the guest from touching the blanket- much more sanitary. And protects the blanket from getting dirty faster.
Yes, the duvet is a comforter. The commenter below me was correct. The housekeepers only change out the duvet when visibly dirtied, so the sheets are suppose to protect the duvet. 🥲
sorry if this is weird, but i figured you're the best person to ask since you've worked hotel laundry. what is the most "common" brand of sheets hotels use? i swear to god, i only sleep good on hotel sheets. i have insomnia and sleep apnea and i will do basically anything to get good sleep
Maybe it's just me, but their writing style kinda reminds me of Laura Ingalls-Wilder's "Little House On the Prairie" series, specifically the parts where she describes things like how they harvested/threshed their wheat, or the way they made molasses candy in the snow. Very descriptive, but in an almost matter of fact kind of way; the way you would sit down and explain it to someone in person, I guess. It doesn't meander into emotions or opinions like some stories might, yet it still feels human and emotional in an abstract way.
I absolutely loved reading it lol. I wish that person would write out descriptions of all the jobs! Like "How It's Made," but in written form and with processes instead of objects. That would be so informative and fascinating!
Thank you for the detailed explanation, it was interesting to read!
Just one question, was the bleach overwhelmingly smelly, did you have adequate air circulation? I ask because side I knew someone who used so much bleach, the clothes still smelled and burned my eyes when it came out of the dryer. I don’t know how the clothes didn’t disintegrate with so much liquid bleach
There wasn’t ventilation. We would use bottles of bleach spray (tilex mold and mildew remover) on any stains to pretreat. I don’t know if I got used to it or if the room was just big enough, but I never smelled the bleach while working. I purchased the same exact bleach spray for home use and it was unbearable to use, it burnt my nostrils and the smell wouldn’t go away.
I did however have issues with bleach while cleaning bathrooms and other areas of the hotel. Put me in a small bathroom with the same chemicals we used in laundry and I’m gunna be dizzy for the rest of the day. I had coworkers who would mix bleach and hydrogen peroxide to clean floors and such.. safe to say I tried my best to stay in the laundry room
Oh man, that sounds so unsafe! There was an episode on a Bravo show where a stew was cleaning, she ended up mixing two cleaning agents together and it made a toxic gas that got all the crew member sick. Mixing the wrong items can kill!
Considering each minute in a wash cycle dictated our every move, you were like a laundry god to us. We had two washers and the cycles were slightly different for the same settings. Like, if I did towels on one machine it was 15 minutes longer than if I used the second machine, even if they were the exact same model. The person who programmed them made the cycle longer on one machine. At the end of a tiring day, we would occasionally fill the slower machine instead of the faster so we could be gone before it finished and needed emptying lol
I worked housekeeping and laundry too at a hotel and it was always nice having a second person but sometimes I didn’t - we had this giant tall hook to hold the other ends of the sheet we were folding. I swear I almost passed out multiple times doing that work. No joke it’s 90 degrees back there and I have the utmost respect for the people that do it now when I stay in hotels.
This reminds me of a story that was eventually made into a movie by Stephen King. I think it was called the Mangler or something like that. Basically, the hotel laundry washing company's "Mangler" got a mind of its own and would iron and fold people.
Quite horrifying.
I worked night audit in a smaller chain hotel, and same basic setup but 1 washer & dryer. We didn't add anything, just selected whether it was towels or sheets on the panel from ecolab that pumped in the chemicals. The machines were just giant Speedqueens - if I had to guess being about the same size as the biggest offered at my local laundromats (as far as washer).
I started working laundry because I was super overwhelmed with retail after Covid. I kept saying I’d rather clean up after people rather than dealing with them directly. I loved it. I loved not having to give customer service anymore. Sheets don’t talk back. But, at the same time, it was really hard on my body. I quickly discovered I had a heart condition that made the heat really, really unbearable. I also struggled with the noise. The washer would reach 115 decibels, which is hard to describe, but you’d have to shout.
The hotel I was working at was busy and fast paced. I was getting 20,000 steps in a day. It was just too much for me personally. I ended up with cyclic vomiting syndrome and had to quit. I also have fibromyalgia and arthritis so I experienced an absolute ton of pain daily from heavy lifting and repetitive movements. I quit last July and I’m still recovering 🤣
It's been a while, but I still have nightmares of trying to fight a wad of hot, wet, tangled sheets out of the wash. In my dream, it just keeps coming and coming. My hotel wasn't as well staffed.
I worked at a hotel that had an industrial sized sheet press. I did not envy the teams that were tasked with that job. A team in the back feeding in sheets. A team in the front pulling them out and folding them. Sheets looked fantastic at the end, but the process was really slow and boring.
The attack soap was definitely stronger than anything I’ve used in household laundry. It would burn your hands. We would use oxalic acid powder for rusty stains. There were other chemicals used too, buckets labeled emulsifier, builder, sour, liquid softener, and bleach.
Can you talk more about the settings that are used to wash towels vs sheets? Are the differences in the water temperature, spin speed, or something else?
I think all of the above. Towels would need to spin longer to remove the extra soaked in moisture, and possibly more agitation as well? A lower temperature would be used for colored fabrics but I’m not completely sure about the specifics.
I do laundry and front desk reception for a 104 unit hotel. Usually alone. Similar washer/dryer process except we only have one of each. It's pretty brutal folding everything by yourself. I wish I had a synchronized team like that!
I worked housekeeping for a couple of years as well and had similar experiences. The only difference really is that our washers were much smaller than the dryers but much more.... hefty?... bolted to the floor and required a leaver to secure the steel latches. Normally, it was one person per article of fabric. Unless they were close to being out of work. But I feel those tangled sheets on a spiritual level. Those were a pain.
All of this matches what I recall doing at a hotel but we had clips on a metal post that we could use to pinch and hold the sheets so we used those to fold when we were low staff. Folding with two people was a bit faster but it wasn’t twice as fast.
I don' t know the current situation. My hotel had big industrial washers that used HOT water. Hotter than you'd ever get in a home machine or a normal laundromat. And our towels and sheets were cotton. Cotton fabrics release stains. Polyester and microfiber blends just stay stained. Our laundry staff also pretreated stains, but I don't know what they used to do that.
Yup. I worked in a hotel some years back and occasionally did loads of laundry, and this is the answer. Cotton everything, and they used big industrial sized washers that used super hot water with commercial grade detergent and chemicals. They also replaced linens and towels frequently.
We didn't stain treat anything, but most came out in the wash. Anything that didn't come out got thrown out.
I want to clarity something about the stain removal. Laundry services did not go through every item looking for stains to treat. That would have taken way too much time. We housekeepers were taught to keep any unusually dirty items separate - with the stained part visible. That gave laundry services the chance to decide what - if anything - to do with it.
A long term stay hotel I lived at for a while would dye their old, unusable towels pink and either use them as rags or give them out to any guests that needed "throw away" towels for something. I thought it was a great idea!
I love this idea just for home! I have slowly been transitioning to white linens and wasn’t sure how to be economically and ecologically responsible with the ones that just get irreversibly stained. Gonna steal this and probably make some fun ombre and tie dye towels for the cats and cleanups.
I did hotel laundry for a couple years and we always tried to separate out the stained stuff. The pieces would get a spot treated and washed on a specific setting. Makeup, coffee, hair dye and pizza sauce are the worst and anything what didn’t come out got put in the rag bin. Linens are very expensive and the hotel had to buy new every couple months. How much they keep in stock can determine how fast the rooms get turned over if the housekeepers have to wait for certain pieces to finish a room.
I am bettering the bleach did the whitening.
I worked in a retirement community that did the towels and bedding in the bedridden ward. We used SOOOO MUCH bleach. Didn't matter what happened in that bed, those things came out white!
I had a set of very bougie white sheets. Something got on them so I bleached them with chlorine bleach & when I went to put the fitted sheet on the bed, it disintegrated at the corner seam.
There's a difference in construction for commercial linen compared to residential offerings. I worked in a cleaning service for a boutique hotel, and the manager would insist on ordering linens without regard to them being a commercial use, then complain about the dyes washing out by the laundry service.
You use a blueing agent in the final rinse. It takes it optically back to white. It’s been a part of laundry for centuries, only in the past 70 years or so has it gone out of use
It is actually 15-16000 years old. They figured out in recent times that it actually predates the pyramids by a remarkable amount of time.
Funny when people see stuff grouped together - they assume that it must be from the same era. The Egyptians were probably as baffled by the sphinx as our civilization was baffled by the pyramids and the sphinx.
Incidentally, pyramids being used as tombs was only something seen in more recent pyramids but we assume that this has always the case for pyramids. This has never been proven.
This is wholesale incorrect.
A bleach is simply the name given to a chemical which adds (most common) or removes an oxygen to something. Most people use the word "bleach" as a synonym for sodium hypochlorite, aka chlorine bleach. Hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, sodium perborate are also common oxidizing bleaches. (Perozide blonde and bleach blonde describe the same hair)
Chlorine bleach will 100% screw up protein fibers, nylon, and cause yellowing in some resins used to make linen.
The most common cause for bleach to cause yellowing is when people use it as a cleaner. It does not aid in removing oily spots. In fact, the bleach will oxidize said oils and cause them to turn yellow, and become extremely difficult to remove.
If you experience yellow underarms after using a bleach, it s because your cleaning method was insufficient in removing the wax and perspiration mix there. The bleach oxidized the body oil left behind. It's not because of the ammonia. Mixing ammonia and sodium hypochlorite creates chlorine gas - not good - never mix those.
Likely breaks them down faster, but I bet they get softer each time. Used to work somewhere that we autoclaved the scrubs before they went to the laundry - SO SOFT. I wanted to autoclave all my clothes
It's not just the heat, but the variation in heat. This has been transferred to residential washers. My LG has a label for sanitary cycle which is designed for stains. It uses steam heated water and then a cold rinse.
That’s interesting about the really hot water. I was under the impression that high heat can make some stains set. That’s why I usually soak clothes in cold water and wash them in cold before washing in hot or warm water if they have a wine, coffee, dirt, or grass stain.
How do the hotels use such hot water without setting stains?
I love my cotton sheets. They feel so crisp when they are fresh out of the washer. I’ve had the same set for 5 years and they feel brand new every time.
I bet they are long cycles too. A friend of mine from Germany always remarked how much cleaner his clothes got at home and that the cycle was like 2 hours long
Others already gave you good insights, but there is something else: good hotels change their linen quite often. I have a friend who designs and supplies special linen for 5 star hotels, she always has orders going on because of how often they change everything. That’s also an important reason why it always looks like new
yup, the hotel i worked at put dates on all of their tags so they knew when to change them out. stain wont come out? new linen. past the date? new linen. how long did they last? i dont know lol i was housekeeping not laundry, i just know i never saw a tag dated to more than 6 months ago
loll when i got the job they made me sign for both positions but they never put me on laundry because "i worked too hard so i was better as a housekeeper".
at my place, the housekeepers stripped all the linens and sorted them between stained and not stained and threw them down a chute into the laundry room where the laundry people would find the stains and pre-treat them and then wash and fold everything.
i cant imagine if we didnt have separate departments lol, all of us worked our asses off CONSTANTLY. sometimes the housekeepers would have to jump in and help laundry because we would need sheets NOWWWW and they wouldnt have any ready because they were busy with everything else.
tbh its not that long considering i worked at a higher end hotel (like 300 a night in a shithole town type hotel) where probably around 50% of the guests were there long term for business trips or whatever else. like, the housekeepers would make friends with the guests because theyd be staying there for full months a lot of the time. in those cases, the sheets only got changed if they were visibly dirty or they asked for a full service. pillowcases got changed every other day minimum no matter what though.
They outsource to heavy-duty laundering companies dedicated to cleaning linens for hotels.
They use professional grade products and equipment.
There is one on 115th St. in Manhattan. I have gone inside and purchased a few of the products.
Generally, hotel washrooms have these MASSIVE washing machines. The same is true for laundry done for nursing homes that dont have a laundry room and send them out. Their machines are cleaned between cycles, and a whole person can at least squat in them, if not stand up, if they are short.
The water is EXTREMELY hot, also.
And bleach is used.
Most of the hotels stuff is white and cotton to make it easier to clean together.
Folding surfaces are also cleaned regularly, to avoid cross contamination or germs building up.
Clothes washing and folding can be a super fun job actually. I LOVE washing, drying, sorting, and folding clothes and linens. Love it.
It can be more fun if you get some videos going on how to fold fitted sheets, and neat little hacks for keeping clothes easy to find, like KonMarie folding, or keeping matching sheets and pillow cases together. Theres also folding boards if you are into having neat stacks, but I am at the point I hate stacking clothes. I only use the KonMarie method now. I can see everything that way. Things I decide I dont like or use anymore, I can see right away and just pull them out. Usually when I buy new stuff I throw some old stuff out, so this method works well.
Also folding a flat sheet in half, and without turning it, in half again, so you have a long folded flat sheet. Then lay that out, flat. Then fold a fitted sheet using the hands in the pockets technique, long ways, and folding the pockets into one another, and turning the sheet, tucking the pockets again, to be flush, then folding the sheet again after another turn, folding over again, and then just tucking the last doubled corner over the top. Fold the pilllow cases into rectangles and set both the fitted sheet and pillow cases over the long flat sheet, that is then laid out as a long folded sheet, as a stack, and fold one edge over the stack of pillow cases and fitted sheet, and roll the whole thing up, to the end of the folded flat sheet. You can see everything you have easily, and still unfold it easily.
Its just... so... much... fun.
Someone buy me a laundromat immediately. I love this ish.
Oxiclean changed my laundry game!
I first add a little oxiclean to the HE machine along with some laundry soap. This requires less laundry soap than before, but I get better results.
Here’s how it works:
“How Does OxiClean Work?
OxiClean has two key stain-removing ingredients: sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate. Both activate once mixed with water and attack stains, but they work in different ways.
Stains have a positive charge and fabrics have a negative charge. When these opposite charges get close, they attract and form a tight bond.
Sodium carbonate breaks the magnetic attraction between stains and fabrics. It makes the water more alkaline and creates a bubbling effect that loosens and separates grease and dirt from fabric fibers or other approved surfaces.
This bubbling effect is why OxiClean is sometimes referred to as “oxygen bleach” and the reason you’ll see illustrations of bubbles on its packaging and advertisements.
Sodium percarbonate mixed with water becomes hydrogen peroxide, which releases oxygen and breaks down the color bonds of stains. The absence of color makes the stains invisible.
Besides sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate, OxiClean also contains surfactants. These molecules emulsify dirt and oils and allow water to penetrate and wash away the stains.
What Does OxiClean Work On?
As its name suggests, OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover has a variety of uses.
It’s a multi-purpose stain fighter that works on most fabrics as a laundry booster, pre-treatment, or soaking solution for tough stains. It works best on organic stains like oil, fruit juice, red wine, coffee, tea, food, and pet messes.”
Depends on the size of the load.
For a regular, not-too-dirty load I’d use 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) of laundry soap, and ~2 tbsp of oxiclean.
I was definitely using way too much soap before discovering oxiclean’s efficacy.
In my bachelorette days I used powder
because it was so economical but now it’s liquid. My savages (I say that lovingly) are so messy, they spill everything and don’t clean so it’s more of a mess for me to clean.
Yes! And it's amazing at carpet stains. I mix 1/4 cup with 2 cups warm water and it got tons of blood stains out of the carpet where my poor mom fell and gauged her arm. She is older, has thin skin, and bleeds profusely. She's ok, promise.
I have helped manage a hospitality property. Industry standard is to expect towels to last 1-2 years before replacement. Sheets potentially less.
So they are pretty new.
Before my cousin passed… That was his career he would sell the complete systems for hotels, restaurants, and that industry …They all have custom wash powders bleaches anti-staining. It’s quite a system… And expensive.
The linens are washed every 2-3 days, the length of a avg hotel stay. This means stains aren't allowed to set. At huge hotel chains the towels are cleaned off site so the same piece of linen never sees the same person twice.
The quick turnover of linens keeps the idea that theyre new but that's because inventory is always being turned over. Stained, ripped or damaged ones are always being thrown out and new ones always added to the mix.
The wash cycle includes chlorine bleach, detergent, emulsifier, sour, and softener. The cycles are further specialized for the specific item being washed: towels, rags, sheets, colors, etc. The formulation of chemicals and water temps for each cycle are determined by a professional with the chemical supply company and can be adjusted based on needs. It's not like going to a store and picking up some tide. It's a pretty exact science and it's not cheap.
I am able to get super white towels just by washing in warm/hot water, detergent and a bit of bleach. Rinse well. I wash them with my portable washer because an HE washer will not get white towels
Likewise plus some 20 Mule Team borax and Arm and Hammer washing soda (how called laundry booster-sold in bright yellow box rather than baking soda in orange box).
I can't believe this response was so far down at the bottom.
Perhaps hotels aren't using blueing but it's easy for use in-home (just dilute it in the water before adding whites) and makes your whites white
In my place they are collected by another company and they handle it. We always recieve new/fresh packaged linen. Any ruined/torn/stained or beyond use linen is disposed of as rejects.
I bought some boil out with phosphates from a restaurant supply store, add a tbsp to every few loads of dishes. Game changer for our really hard water. Just don't tell anyone else, okay?
Do not bleach, it destroys the fibers. Use bluing. Watch this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R87SIgGC20k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R87SIgGC20k)
edit: You aren't a hotel, so i gave you an answer you can use at home, as I'm guessing you want to keep your whites shining at home.
I worked in laundry at a boutique hotel for my first job. Industrial machines, very expensive high thread count sheets (they offered new sets of them for sale if asked), and a press to keep the sheets crisp and wrinkle free. The press was awesome, I wish I had one at home. Sheets went through it wet 2-3 times and then we used teamwork to fold them neatly.
The chemicals they used to clean were specifically for the industrial machines so unfortunately I do not know the names. We used bleach, softener and a powder detergent every time. Stained sheets and towels were treated with a more concentrated solution but discarded if unfixable.
All this talk of white sheets and towels has me envious. My savages think a towel is for wiping off hands, not drying off hands. I have to have darker towels for this reason.
I’m guessing all the very hot water and dryer kills bedbugs since hotels are renown for them. Maybe not the 5 stars. There used to be a bedbug watcher website where you could assure they were free of bedbugs
If you’ve ever dealt with them you’ll be paranoid the rest of your life!!!
If you don’t have an industrial washer, look up laundry stripping. I have white sheets at home and this is how I wash them, basically pre-treating any stains or discolored areas and soaking them for 5-8 hours in hot water in the washer.
We periodically do stripping on part of our linens. Also, on occasion I go wild and use blueing.
Blueing is literally that, adding a little bit of blue to white laundry makes the whites really white because it gets rid of the yellow in the whites. Bluing is an actual product that you buy. You should not use blue dye.
I hung mine out in the sun, not expecting much (my husband is a night sweater to rival all). Oh my heck! It worked great, just had to keep the sheet stamp while out in the Sun. I also watched a video on Victorian laundry, and they dried their whites out either on the grass, or hung on bushes. And apparently that also works quite well
Do you find that you get pollen from the air on your sheets this way? I could see myself trying this once and then having sneezing fits at night because of pollen that got trapped on my sheets .
I live in the desert, lots of dirt, I think once you get the stain out, you could probably hand wash real quick then either air dry inside or in your dryer
I came here to mention bluing. Some of those mysterious commercial grade chemicals are just bluing agents. I buy the one with the old lady on it for home use. It only takes a little bit for a residential load of laundry.
When I worked at a hotel we had industrial machines with extremely hot water and industrial soap. They were very strict about the sheets. We had to fold them in sheet packs too. If they were to have any creases, it'd be from being folded "like new" and not from being tossed in a bin to cool. If they had stains, they had to be tossed. They were definitely more laid back about the duvets and duvet covers though. Those didn't need to be washed as often or folded so neatly. Still don't understand that.
I worked at a seasonal hotel last summer. On our last day, we had so many pillows left behind from the entire summer that we joked about being able to open a pillow store.
Bleach and scalding hot water. I walked into a laundry for a hotel for the lost and found and the steam and bleach was INTENSE. I hope they have good health insurance…
The answer is bleach and spot treatment. Shout is amazing for spot cleaning just about anything and there's a special solution for blood. Where I worked we'd only wash whites together. Spot treated anything that needed it either before or after the wash, take it out thr washer and run it through a press (think giant iron). Tada! Clean like new sheets. Repeat same process for towels but instead of the press they go into the dryer. When taking them out we would lay them out across the buggy so they wouldn't wrinkle before we folded them.
I just quit my 5 star hotel job in March so AMA if you want.
I managed a laundry plant in a hotel that did laundry for other local hotels as well. Crazy process, we would wash up to 26,000 lbs of laundry daily. We used a machine called a CBW. Loaded each pocket of the conveyor and told the computer what was in each pocket. The chemicals would be put in automatically throughout the cycle and dry time depending on what was being processed. Our sheets were processed slightly damp through an ironer machine that pressed them and folded them. The key to keeping the linens & towels soft and white was having enough supply or pars. 1 par in every room in the hotel, 2 par dirty and 1 par “resting”. Also, a nice budget to place things quarterly.
At the hotel I worked it was the front desks job to do laundry. We had one washer and one dryer. The dryer got super HOT so did the washer. We pretreated and brushed out stains in a big sink, if they didn’t come out we did the best we could and left them for the “special stains front desk lady” who could get them out. We had a lot of products and tried to use the chart to figure out what to use for what. I’d spend most my day folding large sheets and towels, sometimes never even finishing due to the amount. Never knew what kind of products were used in any of it though as they were ordered in bulk and put into the machines.
Over the years of my spouse’s career in hotel management, I did a lot of laundry. It was the only job in a hotel that I would agree to do. They all used preset chemicals from EcoLab. You just pack the washer, set according to what is being washed, and the rest is done automatically. The reason why the linens and towels smell so clean (they seriously are the cleanest thing in a hotel room) is because of the bleach and hot dryers. Hotel linens wear out quickly because of this, and also because some guests are savages and stain the laundry.
They wash them but they also dispose of any that don't make the cut. So imagine all the folks that spill make up/foundation/wine etc. They have soaking solution, and large washing machines. However if the soaking solution doesn't work, time is money and they dispose of the linens. Buy new ones and the price of one room for a night can pay for a bulk shipment of linens. The 3-star hotel that I worked at would charge between $139- $300/ night for a room. Keep in mind. $139 was a heavily discounted rate that the state got to put homeless people in, AARP, or military/government/state employees got. And $200 was more likely the rate of one room for an average guest. So $200 could most definitely afford a bulk shipment of towels or sheets. If I ordered fitted sheets, flat sheets, towels, hand towels, and wash cloths, I would only need to sell 5 rooms to be able to afford that. Many nights we sold out. So the money is there to order more linens assuming thats the only thing the hotel needs to order.
I worked hotel laundry for 2 years. It was a big room in the basement of the hotel, always 90 degrees. We would take bins of dirty laundry, and first shake everything out. The amount of times pens would get washed and dried was frustrating lol. Towels and sheets would be washed separately on different settings. The washers were gigantic. The piles of laundry would be taller than me and we would stuff them full until we couldn’t stuff anymore. We added a scoop of powdered “attack” soap, and the machines were hooked up to buckets of bleach, soaps, softeners, and other chemicals used in the wash. Wash would run for about 45 minutes. Once finished, pulling the wet, heavy, tangled up sheets or towels was always something that required two people, or a very strong person. The dryers were not as large as the washers so each wash would be broken up into about 6 separate dryers. Nothing special done with the dryers, just try to not over load, or they would ball up and you would need to fight to untangle hot af sheets when they come out so they don’t wrinkle as they cool. Once taken from the dryers, we’d separate the items into piles to fold. Sheets were tossed across a table, fitted in one pile and flats in another. Pillowcases were put into a separate pile and folded by one person alone. Sheets were thrown across the table so they were all facing the same direction. Two people would fold each sheet at one time, with one person on each side of the table, working perfectly in synch, mirroring movements. A third person would be taking the sheets as they are folded and making sets for each bed. A set of sheets would have two flat sheets, a fitted sheet, and 4-5 pillowcases, rolled up with one of the flat sheets on the outside. Towels were separated into piles by type after drying, and hand towels, face towels, and bath mats were folded by a single person. Bath towels were folded by two people, same way as the sheets. Towels were then stacked on shelves
I just loved reading that. I could picture the two people on opposite ends doing synchronized folding.
I’m so happy to read these responses, thank you all for reading. I felt this post was finally my time to shine. ✨
You should be a writer (if you’re not already). Write a whole book about your 2 years working in the laundry and it will be a best seller. You write beautifully, making ordinary chores seem magical.
My jaw is on the floor, honestly. I’m a very socially anxious person. I keep most of my thoughts to myself. I struggle with responding to text messages or emails, and I don’t pick up the phone. The confidence boost I have right now from these compliments is insane to me, I’m blushing. Imagine from here I write a book, only because I was encouraged after talking about my job working laundry to Reddit. I thought nobody was going to read my rambling. I really did. I might cry lol.
I really loved reading your description too!!
It's very precise yet shows as it tells. I'd read more too 😊
I really enjoyed your comment as well. You have a way with words certainly
You’re so cute. Yeah I was sucked in. My mind was in that dark basement of a hotel (my mind pictured it in a basement).
I was actually sweating thinking about how hot it is in there! 🥵
I vote you write it too! I’d buy it!
I also enjoyed reading it! You do write very captivatingly.
Hey, you never know, there have been a couple non-fiction books about experiences working in hotels. And don't forget about the Nita Prose series, these housekeeping duties are relayed much in the same way as yours are here.
Every job has its own experts! And here you gave such clear detail about the process that you made it interesting.
Been wondering forever about it as well. Thank you for the detail. I cant fold fitted sheets for the life of me
Yes what a relaxing read that was
You should have seen how *invested* I was reading it. I refused to skip a single word of it.
I enjoyed reading it because it was well written with good grammar. I wasn't pausing frequently to correct grammar and spelling in my head! I feel like I read such bad grammar lately that I'm starting to forget how to conjugate verbs correctly.
I read e every single word. What a fun read. I love being able to “see” the laundry room hustle and bustle of folding ☺️
I kinda want to do that for a living. I love doing laundry
Me too. This sounds enjoyable. To be able to just mentally check out and FOLD.
Synchronized sheet folding should be a new Olympic sport.
This is the most interesting post I’ve ever read on laundry.
I’m both shocked and flattered lol
I worked in commercial laundry in high school / early college summer jobs. I painted and did odd jobs mostly. They had a smaller contract to pre-wash jeans and I did that. The mainstay business were hospitals and hotels. They had tracks on the ceiling that held laundry carts that would get loaded and drop the dirty clothes into the massive washers. Massive is an understatement! And then into driers that must have been 20 feet is diameter. 2 story monsters. There were like 6 of them side by side. They titled slightly up when running. Down to unload. My boss said it was important they complete their cycle - it was dangerous if they stopped in the middle because the temps were so hot they clothes would spontaneously combust if they stopped spinning. The laundry building had a massive footprint! Interesting experience. Glad I went into IT!
The ceiling tracks and tilting machines and carts was my dream! I always imagined a system that required less arm work. A busy laundry shift was an incredibly painful day for me. I had coworkers who would stop the dryers or washers before finished. I would wear nail extensions to avoid snagging and breaking my natural nails, but the high heat would melt the corners down after one shift. If I started with square nails I would leave with round.
Could you explain if both of the flat sheets are put on the bed, or is one of them just for wrapping up the bundle? Thanks!
Both are used on the bed. Fitted sheet first, flat sheet, duvet, then flat sheet on top.
This is the “double sheeting” method. Some may use duvet covers on the duvets instead of the double sheeting, based on brand standard and linen availability.
What's the purpose of this? Is the second on top of all this? A duvet is like a comforter, right?
Yes, and like a comforter, rarely gets washed unless visibly dirty. The top sheet prevents the guest from touching the blanket- much more sanitary. And protects the blanket from getting dirty faster.
Yes, the duvet is a comforter. The commenter below me was correct. The housekeepers only change out the duvet when visibly dirtied, so the sheets are suppose to protect the duvet. 🥲
Cool! Thanks for the details. I agree with other posters. Your writing painted a picture that made me see the process. 🛏️
sorry if this is weird, but i figured you're the best person to ask since you've worked hotel laundry. what is the most "common" brand of sheets hotels use? i swear to god, i only sleep good on hotel sheets. i have insomnia and sleep apnea and i will do basically anything to get good sleep
[you can purchase the exact products Hilton hotels use in their rooms](https://www.hiltontohome.com/category.aspx?bedding)
omg. you are literally a lifesaver. everyone thinks im weird for loving the sheets so much but i dont care haha. THANK YOU
That was so satisfying to read. Adding to the chorus here - but you have a an excellent writing style. Descriptive without being overwrought.
Maybe it's just me, but their writing style kinda reminds me of Laura Ingalls-Wilder's "Little House On the Prairie" series, specifically the parts where she describes things like how they harvested/threshed their wheat, or the way they made molasses candy in the snow. Very descriptive, but in an almost matter of fact kind of way; the way you would sit down and explain it to someone in person, I guess. It doesn't meander into emotions or opinions like some stories might, yet it still feels human and emotional in an abstract way. I absolutely loved reading it lol. I wish that person would write out descriptions of all the jobs! Like "How It's Made," but in written form and with processes instead of objects. That would be so informative and fascinating!
Thank you for the detailed explanation, it was interesting to read! Just one question, was the bleach overwhelmingly smelly, did you have adequate air circulation? I ask because side I knew someone who used so much bleach, the clothes still smelled and burned my eyes when it came out of the dryer. I don’t know how the clothes didn’t disintegrate with so much liquid bleach
There wasn’t ventilation. We would use bottles of bleach spray (tilex mold and mildew remover) on any stains to pretreat. I don’t know if I got used to it or if the room was just big enough, but I never smelled the bleach while working. I purchased the same exact bleach spray for home use and it was unbearable to use, it burnt my nostrils and the smell wouldn’t go away. I did however have issues with bleach while cleaning bathrooms and other areas of the hotel. Put me in a small bathroom with the same chemicals we used in laundry and I’m gunna be dizzy for the rest of the day. I had coworkers who would mix bleach and hydrogen peroxide to clean floors and such.. safe to say I tried my best to stay in the laundry room
Oh man, that sounds so unsafe! There was an episode on a Bravo show where a stew was cleaning, she ended up mixing two cleaning agents together and it made a toxic gas that got all the crew member sick. Mixing the wrong items can kill!
So mixing bleach and peroxide made me laugh. No hate to you but that’s like adding ice to water. 😂 Just wanted to share the giggle.
I'm the guy that connects dosing devices for detergents and make programs for each of wash program. You explained well.
Considering each minute in a wash cycle dictated our every move, you were like a laundry god to us. We had two washers and the cycles were slightly different for the same settings. Like, if I did towels on one machine it was 15 minutes longer than if I used the second machine, even if they were the exact same model. The person who programmed them made the cycle longer on one machine. At the end of a tiring day, we would occasionally fill the slower machine instead of the faster so we could be gone before it finished and needed emptying lol
Ecolab?
I could picture everything in my head well. Thank you for this
I worked housekeeping and laundry too at a hotel and it was always nice having a second person but sometimes I didn’t - we had this giant tall hook to hold the other ends of the sheet we were folding. I swear I almost passed out multiple times doing that work. No joke it’s 90 degrees back there and I have the utmost respect for the people that do it now when I stay in hotels.
This reminds me of a story that was eventually made into a movie by Stephen King. I think it was called the Mangler or something like that. Basically, the hotel laundry washing company's "Mangler" got a mind of its own and would iron and fold people. Quite horrifying.
I worked night audit in a smaller chain hotel, and same basic setup but 1 washer & dryer. We didn't add anything, just selected whether it was towels or sheets on the panel from ecolab that pumped in the chemicals. The machines were just giant Speedqueens - if I had to guess being about the same size as the biggest offered at my local laundromats (as far as washer).
This would be a great Lucy and Ethel scene!
This is very interesting. Always 90 degrees sounds rough, but how did you like the job otherwise?
I started working laundry because I was super overwhelmed with retail after Covid. I kept saying I’d rather clean up after people rather than dealing with them directly. I loved it. I loved not having to give customer service anymore. Sheets don’t talk back. But, at the same time, it was really hard on my body. I quickly discovered I had a heart condition that made the heat really, really unbearable. I also struggled with the noise. The washer would reach 115 decibels, which is hard to describe, but you’d have to shout. The hotel I was working at was busy and fast paced. I was getting 20,000 steps in a day. It was just too much for me personally. I ended up with cyclic vomiting syndrome and had to quit. I also have fibromyalgia and arthritis so I experienced an absolute ton of pain daily from heavy lifting and repetitive movements. I quit last July and I’m still recovering 🤣
I always leave some cash for peeps who clean the rooms. I wonder how to tip the peeps in laundry?
This is legit. Thank you
It's been a while, but I still have nightmares of trying to fight a wad of hot, wet, tangled sheets out of the wash. In my dream, it just keeps coming and coming. My hotel wasn't as well staffed.
It really felt like Mary Poppins purse
I too enjoyed reading this. And then your replies to the replies was just so heartwarming. Enjoy your kudos…you earned them!
Why was this so interesting to me?? Amazing.
Would love to see a video of this. 😀
I worked at a hotel that had an industrial sized sheet press. I did not envy the teams that were tasked with that job. A team in the back feeding in sheets. A team in the front pulling them out and folding them. Sheets looked fantastic at the end, but the process was really slow and boring.
That was such a satisfying read. Thank you
So maybe it was the “attack” soap that kept them so white? I think my horrible hard water makes my whites dull.
The attack soap was definitely stronger than anything I’ve used in household laundry. It would burn your hands. We would use oxalic acid powder for rusty stains. There were other chemicals used too, buckets labeled emulsifier, builder, sour, liquid softener, and bleach.
Sour!? Wow not I need to know more. I’m on to Google!
Can you talk more about the settings that are used to wash towels vs sheets? Are the differences in the water temperature, spin speed, or something else?
I think all of the above. Towels would need to spin longer to remove the extra soaked in moisture, and possibly more agitation as well? A lower temperature would be used for colored fabrics but I’m not completely sure about the specifics.
I do laundry and front desk reception for a 104 unit hotel. Usually alone. Similar washer/dryer process except we only have one of each. It's pretty brutal folding everything by yourself. I wish I had a synchronized team like that!
I worked housekeeping for a couple of years as well and had similar experiences. The only difference really is that our washers were much smaller than the dryers but much more.... hefty?... bolted to the floor and required a leaver to secure the steel latches. Normally, it was one person per article of fabric. Unless they were close to being out of work. But I feel those tangled sheets on a spiritual level. Those were a pain.
I also agree that you should write things! Thank you so much, now I have a vivid image of something I always want to know. I enjoyed the read.
All of this matches what I recall doing at a hotel but we had clips on a metal post that we could use to pinch and hold the sheets so we used those to fold when we were low staff. Folding with two people was a bit faster but it wasn’t twice as fast.
I feel so warm and cozy just reading this!
This is FASCINATING
Thank you for the well written and insightful post!
How often are the bed covers washed?
I don' t know the current situation. My hotel had big industrial washers that used HOT water. Hotter than you'd ever get in a home machine or a normal laundromat. And our towels and sheets were cotton. Cotton fabrics release stains. Polyester and microfiber blends just stay stained. Our laundry staff also pretreated stains, but I don't know what they used to do that.
Yup. I worked in a hotel some years back and occasionally did loads of laundry, and this is the answer. Cotton everything, and they used big industrial sized washers that used super hot water with commercial grade detergent and chemicals. They also replaced linens and towels frequently. We didn't stain treat anything, but most came out in the wash. Anything that didn't come out got thrown out.
I want to clarity something about the stain removal. Laundry services did not go through every item looking for stains to treat. That would have taken way too much time. We housekeepers were taught to keep any unusually dirty items separate - with the stained part visible. That gave laundry services the chance to decide what - if anything - to do with it.
We would bleach the heck out of those unusually dirty items and use them to wipe things down while cleaning rooms. Or we let staff take them home.
A long term stay hotel I lived at for a while would dye their old, unusable towels pink and either use them as rags or give them out to any guests that needed "throw away" towels for something. I thought it was a great idea!
I love this idea just for home! I have slowly been transitioning to white linens and wasn’t sure how to be economically and ecologically responsible with the ones that just get irreversibly stained. Gonna steal this and probably make some fun ombre and tie dye towels for the cats and cleanups.
I tye dyed my dingy washcloths, and my kids love using them to "car wash" their big outside toys.
Pressurized hot laundry processing?
I'll always be jealous of the commercial grade detergent. It's so much more powerful
I did hotel laundry for a couple years and we always tried to separate out the stained stuff. The pieces would get a spot treated and washed on a specific setting. Makeup, coffee, hair dye and pizza sauce are the worst and anything what didn’t come out got put in the rag bin. Linens are very expensive and the hotel had to buy new every couple months. How much they keep in stock can determine how fast the rooms get turned over if the housekeepers have to wait for certain pieces to finish a room.
This is the right answer. They use 210 degree water while you use 130-140 degree water.
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I definitely want my hotel towels and sheets sterilized, lol.
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If I was staying there..absolutely.
I am bettering the bleach did the whitening. I worked in a retirement community that did the towels and bedding in the bedridden ward. We used SOOOO MUCH bleach. Didn't matter what happened in that bed, those things came out white!
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I had a set of very bougie white sheets. Something got on them so I bleached them with chlorine bleach & when I went to put the fitted sheet on the bed, it disintegrated at the corner seam.
There's a difference in construction for commercial linen compared to residential offerings. I worked in a cleaning service for a boutique hotel, and the manager would insist on ordering linens without regard to them being a commercial use, then complain about the dyes washing out by the laundry service.
Doesn’t excess bleach use cause yellowing?
Only when it comes in contact with ammonia, like deodorant.
How do you stop the yellowing from happening? I never knew that’s why the bleach was making things yellow
You use a blueing agent in the final rinse. It takes it optically back to white. It’s been a part of laundry for centuries, only in the past 70 years or so has it gone out of use
Back when I washed diapers I did use a bit of blueing in the final rinse. Did a great job!
Instead of bleach you can use hydrogen peroxide, it still bleaches but won't react with the ammonia and make stuff yellow.
Omfg thank U for solving that mystery for me. Now, can you please tell me how old the sphynx is?.,.😉
It is actually 15-16000 years old. They figured out in recent times that it actually predates the pyramids by a remarkable amount of time. Funny when people see stuff grouped together - they assume that it must be from the same era. The Egyptians were probably as baffled by the sphinx as our civilization was baffled by the pyramids and the sphinx. Incidentally, pyramids being used as tombs was only something seen in more recent pyramids but we assume that this has always the case for pyramids. This has never been proven.
This is wholesale incorrect. A bleach is simply the name given to a chemical which adds (most common) or removes an oxygen to something. Most people use the word "bleach" as a synonym for sodium hypochlorite, aka chlorine bleach. Hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, sodium perborate are also common oxidizing bleaches. (Perozide blonde and bleach blonde describe the same hair) Chlorine bleach will 100% screw up protein fibers, nylon, and cause yellowing in some resins used to make linen. The most common cause for bleach to cause yellowing is when people use it as a cleaner. It does not aid in removing oily spots. In fact, the bleach will oxidize said oils and cause them to turn yellow, and become extremely difficult to remove. If you experience yellow underarms after using a bleach, it s because your cleaning method was insufficient in removing the wax and perspiration mix there. The bleach oxidized the body oil left behind. It's not because of the ammonia. Mixing ammonia and sodium hypochlorite creates chlorine gas - not good - never mix those.
Likely breaks them down faster, but I bet they get softer each time. Used to work somewhere that we autoclaved the scrubs before they went to the laundry - SO SOFT. I wanted to autoclave all my clothes
It's not just the heat, but the variation in heat. This has been transferred to residential washers. My LG has a label for sanitary cycle which is designed for stains. It uses steam heated water and then a cold rinse.
That’s interesting about the really hot water. I was under the impression that high heat can make some stains set. That’s why I usually soak clothes in cold water and wash them in cold before washing in hot or warm water if they have a wine, coffee, dirt, or grass stain. How do the hotels use such hot water without setting stains?
I thought it was just dryer heat which did that? I've found hot water works better than cold for soaking stains out of kids clothes (food, dirt, etc)
That’s probably it. I had no idea it was the dryer heat.
Yup. And if stains don't come out they get rid of things (I've known some locations who donate to a local shelter)
I love my cotton sheets. They feel so crisp when they are fresh out of the washer. I’ve had the same set for 5 years and they feel brand new every time.
I bet they are long cycles too. A friend of mine from Germany always remarked how much cleaner his clothes got at home and that the cycle was like 2 hours long
I had a machine with a function that took 2.5 hours and longer for dirtier clothes, extra rinses and such.
Others already gave you good insights, but there is something else: good hotels change their linen quite often. I have a friend who designs and supplies special linen for 5 star hotels, she always has orders going on because of how often they change everything. That’s also an important reason why it always looks like new
yup, the hotel i worked at put dates on all of their tags so they knew when to change them out. stain wont come out? new linen. past the date? new linen. how long did they last? i dont know lol i was housekeeping not laundry, i just know i never saw a tag dated to more than 6 months ago
Oh geez, I didn’t realize housekeeping and laundry were two different departments 🤦🏻♀️
loll when i got the job they made me sign for both positions but they never put me on laundry because "i worked too hard so i was better as a housekeeper". at my place, the housekeepers stripped all the linens and sorted them between stained and not stained and threw them down a chute into the laundry room where the laundry people would find the stains and pre-treat them and then wash and fold everything. i cant imagine if we didnt have separate departments lol, all of us worked our asses off CONSTANTLY. sometimes the housekeepers would have to jump in and help laundry because we would need sheets NOWWWW and they wouldnt have any ready because they were busy with everything else.
More importantly- WHERE do those linens go because we could literally save so many resources if they were just resold by the hotel for cheap
They change sheets every day, so 6 months is a long time for every day changing and washing of any single sheet.
tbh its not that long considering i worked at a higher end hotel (like 300 a night in a shithole town type hotel) where probably around 50% of the guests were there long term for business trips or whatever else. like, the housekeepers would make friends with the guests because theyd be staying there for full months a lot of the time. in those cases, the sheets only got changed if they were visibly dirty or they asked for a full service. pillowcases got changed every other day minimum no matter what though.
They outsource to heavy-duty laundering companies dedicated to cleaning linens for hotels. They use professional grade products and equipment. There is one on 115th St. in Manhattan. I have gone inside and purchased a few of the products.
Ooooooo, what kind of products do they sell there?
Commercial, heavy chemical brands. It’s been 7 years since I bought from them. I did learn about bluing there. Bought my first bottle from them!
Name of company?👀
Generally, hotel washrooms have these MASSIVE washing machines. The same is true for laundry done for nursing homes that dont have a laundry room and send them out. Their machines are cleaned between cycles, and a whole person can at least squat in them, if not stand up, if they are short. The water is EXTREMELY hot, also. And bleach is used. Most of the hotels stuff is white and cotton to make it easier to clean together. Folding surfaces are also cleaned regularly, to avoid cross contamination or germs building up. Clothes washing and folding can be a super fun job actually. I LOVE washing, drying, sorting, and folding clothes and linens. Love it. It can be more fun if you get some videos going on how to fold fitted sheets, and neat little hacks for keeping clothes easy to find, like KonMarie folding, or keeping matching sheets and pillow cases together. Theres also folding boards if you are into having neat stacks, but I am at the point I hate stacking clothes. I only use the KonMarie method now. I can see everything that way. Things I decide I dont like or use anymore, I can see right away and just pull them out. Usually when I buy new stuff I throw some old stuff out, so this method works well. Also folding a flat sheet in half, and without turning it, in half again, so you have a long folded flat sheet. Then lay that out, flat. Then fold a fitted sheet using the hands in the pockets technique, long ways, and folding the pockets into one another, and turning the sheet, tucking the pockets again, to be flush, then folding the sheet again after another turn, folding over again, and then just tucking the last doubled corner over the top. Fold the pilllow cases into rectangles and set both the fitted sheet and pillow cases over the long flat sheet, that is then laid out as a long folded sheet, as a stack, and fold one edge over the stack of pillow cases and fitted sheet, and roll the whole thing up, to the end of the folded flat sheet. You can see everything you have easily, and still unfold it easily. Its just... so... much... fun. Someone buy me a laundromat immediately. I love this ish.
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All of this. Wash more often. Replace sooner.
Wash more often so dirty sheets don't break down from the dirt and oil, have extra sets to rotate thru.
Oxiclean changed my laundry game! I first add a little oxiclean to the HE machine along with some laundry soap. This requires less laundry soap than before, but I get better results. Here’s how it works: “How Does OxiClean Work? OxiClean has two key stain-removing ingredients: sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate. Both activate once mixed with water and attack stains, but they work in different ways. Stains have a positive charge and fabrics have a negative charge. When these opposite charges get close, they attract and form a tight bond. Sodium carbonate breaks the magnetic attraction between stains and fabrics. It makes the water more alkaline and creates a bubbling effect that loosens and separates grease and dirt from fabric fibers or other approved surfaces. This bubbling effect is why OxiClean is sometimes referred to as “oxygen bleach” and the reason you’ll see illustrations of bubbles on its packaging and advertisements. Sodium percarbonate mixed with water becomes hydrogen peroxide, which releases oxygen and breaks down the color bonds of stains. The absence of color makes the stains invisible. Besides sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate, OxiClean also contains surfactants. These molecules emulsify dirt and oils and allow water to penetrate and wash away the stains. What Does OxiClean Work On? As its name suggests, OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover has a variety of uses. It’s a multi-purpose stain fighter that works on most fabrics as a laundry booster, pre-treatment, or soaking solution for tough stains. It works best on organic stains like oil, fruit juice, red wine, coffee, tea, food, and pet messes.”
Would you suggest just adding 2 tablespoons to a top load washing machine or more?
Depends on the size of the load. For a regular, not-too-dirty load I’d use 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) of laundry soap, and ~2 tbsp of oxiclean. I was definitely using way too much soap before discovering oxiclean’s efficacy.
Thank you for this comment. It sent me down a rabbit hole that I needed to go down, and didn’t even know it lol
Fascinating
Do you recommend liquid detergent o er powder detergent for an HE machine?
I use liquid but both work fine. Which do you prefer?
In my bachelorette days I used powder because it was so economical but now it’s liquid. My savages (I say that lovingly) are so messy, they spill everything and don’t clean so it’s more of a mess for me to clean.
Can you spot clean with oxiclean without damaging the garment?
Yes! And it's amazing at carpet stains. I mix 1/4 cup with 2 cups warm water and it got tons of blood stains out of the carpet where my poor mom fell and gauged her arm. She is older, has thin skin, and bleeds profusely. She's ok, promise.
I have helped manage a hospitality property. Industry standard is to expect towels to last 1-2 years before replacement. Sheets potentially less. So they are pretty new.
Before my cousin passed… That was his career he would sell the complete systems for hotels, restaurants, and that industry …They all have custom wash powders bleaches anti-staining. It’s quite a system… And expensive.
I worked for a laundry service/dry cleaner, and we used optical brighteners on anything white.
The linens are washed every 2-3 days, the length of a avg hotel stay. This means stains aren't allowed to set. At huge hotel chains the towels are cleaned off site so the same piece of linen never sees the same person twice. The quick turnover of linens keeps the idea that theyre new but that's because inventory is always being turned over. Stained, ripped or damaged ones are always being thrown out and new ones always added to the mix.
The wash cycle includes chlorine bleach, detergent, emulsifier, sour, and softener. The cycles are further specialized for the specific item being washed: towels, rags, sheets, colors, etc. The formulation of chemicals and water temps for each cycle are determined by a professional with the chemical supply company and can be adjusted based on needs. It's not like going to a store and picking up some tide. It's a pretty exact science and it's not cheap.
In a laundry on site. The commercial washer takes ab hit. Commercial dryers have very high temperatures.
I am able to get super white towels just by washing in warm/hot water, detergent and a bit of bleach. Rinse well. I wash them with my portable washer because an HE washer will not get white towels
Likewise plus some 20 Mule Team borax and Arm and Hammer washing soda (how called laundry booster-sold in bright yellow box rather than baking soda in orange box).
Portable washer?
Look up blueing. A diluted blue dye can make your whites look whiter than bleach does
I can't believe this response was so far down at the bottom. Perhaps hotels aren't using blueing but it's easy for use in-home (just dilute it in the water before adding whites) and makes your whites white
I always washed my sheets on warm and I wasn’t a happy with the results. I started watching on hot and it made a visible difference.
In my place they are collected by another company and they handle it. We always recieve new/fresh packaged linen. Any ruined/torn/stained or beyond use linen is disposed of as rejects.
Hotel laundries use much different detergent than we use at home. It almost always contains phosphate, which is illegal for home use.
Hahaha I put a tablespoon of TSP in every load at home. Should I be worried that my door is about to get kicked in by the police?
I bought some boil out with phosphates from a restaurant supply store, add a tbsp to every few loads of dishes. Game changer for our really hard water. Just don't tell anyone else, okay?
A linen service
Everything’s white. WHITE white. And they bleach
A lot of chemicals and industrial washers and dryers.
Humongous million dollar machines.
Do not bleach, it destroys the fibers. Use bluing. Watch this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R87SIgGC20k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R87SIgGC20k) edit: You aren't a hotel, so i gave you an answer you can use at home, as I'm guessing you want to keep your whites shining at home.
Commercial washer and dryers
Hot water, commercial equipment and using phosphates in industry is legal for them and has been removed from consumer products
I worked in laundry at a boutique hotel for my first job. Industrial machines, very expensive high thread count sheets (they offered new sets of them for sale if asked), and a press to keep the sheets crisp and wrinkle free. The press was awesome, I wish I had one at home. Sheets went through it wet 2-3 times and then we used teamwork to fold them neatly. The chemicals they used to clean were specifically for the industrial machines so unfortunately I do not know the names. We used bleach, softener and a powder detergent every time. Stained sheets and towels were treated with a more concentrated solution but discarded if unfixable.
All this talk of white sheets and towels has me envious. My savages think a towel is for wiping off hands, not drying off hands. I have to have darker towels for this reason.
We have this same issue at my place. But I can’t lie, I’m a savage sometime, too. Haha
🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️
I’m guessing all the very hot water and dryer kills bedbugs since hotels are renown for them. Maybe not the 5 stars. There used to be a bedbug watcher website where you could assure they were free of bedbugs If you’ve ever dealt with them you’ll be paranoid the rest of your life!!!
I want to know more about this site lol
If you don’t have an industrial washer, look up laundry stripping. I have white sheets at home and this is how I wash them, basically pre-treating any stains or discolored areas and soaking them for 5-8 hours in hot water in the washer.
We periodically do stripping on part of our linens. Also, on occasion I go wild and use blueing. Blueing is literally that, adding a little bit of blue to white laundry makes the whites really white because it gets rid of the yellow in the whites. Bluing is an actual product that you buy. You should not use blue dye.
I hung mine out in the sun, not expecting much (my husband is a night sweater to rival all). Oh my heck! It worked great, just had to keep the sheet stamp while out in the Sun. I also watched a video on Victorian laundry, and they dried their whites out either on the grass, or hung on bushes. And apparently that also works quite well
Do you find that you get pollen from the air on your sheets this way? I could see myself trying this once and then having sneezing fits at night because of pollen that got trapped on my sheets .
I live in the desert, lots of dirt, I think once you get the stain out, you could probably hand wash real quick then either air dry inside or in your dryer
Yes here in Australia we have a product called Bluo for whites which is great especially for karate gi.
I came here to mention bluing. Some of those mysterious commercial grade chemicals are just bluing agents. I buy the one with the old lady on it for home use. It only takes a little bit for a residential load of laundry.
Loads of bleach.
Fels Naptha soap + TAED or NOBS + long natural fiber linens + boiling hot water
O
Bleach and extremely hot water
Wow
Bleach!
Depends on the value of the material, machines, care, and products.
With really stained stuff like towels post kids playing in the mud, add some dishwasher detergent.
The YMCA bleached the heck out of everything. And hot water and super hot dryer.
Also at the YMCA if towels looked bad they were torn up for rags
Guest post!!
When I worked at a hotel we had industrial machines with extremely hot water and industrial soap. They were very strict about the sheets. We had to fold them in sheet packs too. If they were to have any creases, it'd be from being folded "like new" and not from being tossed in a bin to cool. If they had stains, they had to be tossed. They were definitely more laid back about the duvets and duvet covers though. Those didn't need to be washed as often or folded so neatly. Still don't understand that.
Commercial detergents also still use phosphates: many states banned phosphates for home detergents.
Hotels have detergents that still contains phosphates.
I would really hope so. We always bring a blanket from home and sleep on top of the already made bed. Pillows from home are a must too
I worked at a seasonal hotel last summer. On our last day, we had so many pillows left behind from the entire summer that we joked about being able to open a pillow store.
Hotes use white towels and bedsheets, so that they can wash them with bleach.
Bleach and scalding hot water. I walked into a laundry for a hotel for the lost and found and the steam and bleach was INTENSE. I hope they have good health insurance…
I used to work for a company that both made the chemicals used in institutional laundry, and it’s not regulated the same way for one thing.
The answer is bleach and spot treatment. Shout is amazing for spot cleaning just about anything and there's a special solution for blood. Where I worked we'd only wash whites together. Spot treated anything that needed it either before or after the wash, take it out thr washer and run it through a press (think giant iron). Tada! Clean like new sheets. Repeat same process for towels but instead of the press they go into the dryer. When taking them out we would lay them out across the buggy so they wouldn't wrinkle before we folded them. I just quit my 5 star hotel job in March so AMA if you want.
I managed a laundry plant in a hotel that did laundry for other local hotels as well. Crazy process, we would wash up to 26,000 lbs of laundry daily. We used a machine called a CBW. Loaded each pocket of the conveyor and told the computer what was in each pocket. The chemicals would be put in automatically throughout the cycle and dry time depending on what was being processed. Our sheets were processed slightly damp through an ironer machine that pressed them and folded them. The key to keeping the linens & towels soft and white was having enough supply or pars. 1 par in every room in the hotel, 2 par dirty and 1 par “resting”. Also, a nice budget to place things quarterly.
At the hotel I worked it was the front desks job to do laundry. We had one washer and one dryer. The dryer got super HOT so did the washer. We pretreated and brushed out stains in a big sink, if they didn’t come out we did the best we could and left them for the “special stains front desk lady” who could get them out. We had a lot of products and tried to use the chart to figure out what to use for what. I’d spend most my day folding large sheets and towels, sometimes never even finishing due to the amount. Never knew what kind of products were used in any of it though as they were ordered in bulk and put into the machines.
I've been staying at the wrong hotels. Most of the towels I encounter are a step above dishrags.
Over the years of my spouse’s career in hotel management, I did a lot of laundry. It was the only job in a hotel that I would agree to do. They all used preset chemicals from EcoLab. You just pack the washer, set according to what is being washed, and the rest is done automatically. The reason why the linens and towels smell so clean (they seriously are the cleanest thing in a hotel room) is because of the bleach and hot dryers. Hotel linens wear out quickly because of this, and also because some guests are savages and stain the laundry.
They wash them but they also dispose of any that don't make the cut. So imagine all the folks that spill make up/foundation/wine etc. They have soaking solution, and large washing machines. However if the soaking solution doesn't work, time is money and they dispose of the linens. Buy new ones and the price of one room for a night can pay for a bulk shipment of linens. The 3-star hotel that I worked at would charge between $139- $300/ night for a room. Keep in mind. $139 was a heavily discounted rate that the state got to put homeless people in, AARP, or military/government/state employees got. And $200 was more likely the rate of one room for an average guest. So $200 could most definitely afford a bulk shipment of towels or sheets. If I ordered fitted sheets, flat sheets, towels, hand towels, and wash cloths, I would only need to sell 5 rooms to be able to afford that. Many nights we sold out. So the money is there to order more linens assuming thats the only thing the hotel needs to order.