In many parts of the world, spring cleaning is now a staple activity signalling the beginning of a new season – for homeowners and holiday rental owners.
As well as ensuring your holiday homes are in perfect condition for the summer season, it’s also a great way to ensure you’re prepared for an unexpected audit or inspection.
Ensure that your linen is at its best at all times to minimize the possibility of complaints and make a big difference to the feel and appearance of your property.
Our friends over at Vision Linens give us the inside track on how you can spring-clean your linen stock…
So, Your Bedding Has Been Washed, Dried and Is Neatly Stored. But What Next?
It’s important to give your linens the room they need to breathe. Over-packing shelves and cupboards with bed linen and towels can stop air circulation which is necessary for them to smell fresh and crisp. When filling shelves, try lining them with scented paper or adding dryer sheets between the linen to ensure they smell as sweet as when they first washed.
It’s also equally important to ensure you have a good stock rotation. When putting away freshly washed or new linen, put them at the back or bottom of the pile. This way, linens that have been stored for the longest time will be used first – leaving less time for stale smells to appear.
How Do You Know If Your Linen Stock Is in Need of an Upgrade or Refresh?
The lifespan of a textile product varies greatly. It all depends on how often it’s laundered, the detergent used and how it’s treated by the end user.
It also depends on the type of fabric that is used, too. For example, 100% cotton fabrics usually give 200 wash-and-use cycles before they come to the end of their useful life. The majority of textile products last around 70-120 cycles with careful washing, bleaching and care.
But, How Do You Care for and Wash Different Fabric Types?
Here at Vision, we want you to get the most out of your textile products, which is why we’ve compiled a few helpful care instructions on various types of textile products.
Towelling
New towels should always be given a hot wash with detergent before use. This is to prevent the threads from pulling and snagging in future use.
You can use fabric conditioner to improve the towel’s aroma, freshness, and softness. However, it also lubricates the fibres, which over time can reduce absorbency and cause fibre loss.
Where possible, don’t over-dry towels and towelling products in the tumble dryer as this can lead to them becoming dull and grey.
Polyester Table Linen
Polyester is fast becoming the firm favourite for table linen due to its easy-care qualities. It’s easy and quick to wash and dries in no time at all and is relatively wrinkle and stain-resistant. But there are a few things to watch out for…
When washing, don’t mix fabric types. Washing or drying cotton or polycotton blends with 100% polyester can cause cotton lint to attach to the surface of the polyester fabric which, in turn, can lead to bobbling or pilling.
When washing white polyester, be sure to avoid any other coloured table linen in the wash. Chemicals and dyes from the manufacturing process can cross-contaminate and stain the white table linen. Additionally, optical brightening agents (OBAs) are only recommended for use on white goods. They work to make the fabric appear whiter and brighter.
100% Cotton
Cotton is a fantastic bedding material due to its natural breathability. It’s also more resistant to heat damage and so white cotton bedding, for example, can be washed at higher temperatures (up to 90C) to remove any stubborn or heavy staining.
New cotton items should undergo an initial wash to remove any loose fibres and residual chemicals from the manufacturing process. It’s best to wash coloured cotton items with a detergent without optical brightening agents so that they don’t discolour. 100% cotton items should be ironed when the item is still slightly damp.
This is essential to complete the drying process, it will remove creasing and improve the overall aesthetic of the item.
By following a few simple wash and care instructions, you can ensure that your holiday let linens will last. In the meantime, if you’re considering new linen – for any requirement – be sure to browse through Vision’s vast online collections of luxury, performance and specialist bed, bath and table linen. And don’t forget if you’re a Menai Holidays owner you can get up to 20% off!
