I tried the £1.60 trick to save your white towels - it's now a wash-day staple

bathroom shelves with storage for towels and laundry

(Image credit: Future PLC)

published 8 February 2023

Using white towels at home comes with all sorts of risks, with make-up, hair dye and other marks more likely to show up.

One product from cleaning brand Ecover is currently a little bit of a viral sensation thanks to its ability to banish any stains on your white towels and keep them looking as good as new.

In my role as Ecommerce Editor for appliances and cleaning, I of course love trying out the best cleaning products, and have white bath towels at home (to the horror of the rest of the Ideal Home team).

That meant trying out Ecover's Laundry Bleach was a no-brainer for me, especially thanks to the bargain price (£1.60 at Amazon). At a time when we're all trying to cut the cost of laundry, I hoped the fans of this product online were right about this one.

Here's how I got on with trying to transform my towels back to their former on-the-shelf colour.

storage baskets on wall on bathroom wall

Ecover Laundry Bleach

So what is the magic buy that cleaning enthusiasts have been raving about? It's Ecover's Laundry Bleach, a vegan-friendly product from the beloved eco brand that contains no chlorine or optical brighteners.

Even better, it's fragrance-free and uses an oxygen-based bleaching agent, so you don't need to fret about the kind of chemicals you're chucking in alongside your precious whites.

Though I love all things cleaning-related, I am guilty of taking a quick way out when it comes to throwing a wash load on. That meant that when faced with the option of pre-soaking my stained towels in warm water with bleach or simply adding it to the washing machine drawer, I just chose the latter.

Image of Ecover laundry bleach being used as cleaning hack

I popped two teaspoons in the drawer following pack instructions and set off the machine on a 40-degree wash. Cleverly, my machine, the Haier I-Pro Series 5 has a setting that detects the weight of your wash and tells you how long you should wash for, so I went with that as normal.

I was genuinely impressed with how white my towels were when they emerged from the wash, so much so that I've ditched my usual laundry routine to fit this product in.

Gone were the array of stains from before (some of which, like tea, I'd purposefully spilt on there to actually test this out) and the overall shade of white was much improved.

One of the things that impressed me most about this product is the savvy price - this bleach is much cheaper per 100 grams than my usual clothes whitening alternative Vanish , and just one teaspoon goes a seriously long way.

I'm sold on this product switch as part of my laundry routine. Will you be trying this one out on your white towels?

Molly is Ideal Home’s Kitchen Appliances Editor and an all-around baking and cooking enthusiast. She joined the team in September 2022 as an Ecommerce Editor after working across Real Homes, Homes & Gardens and Livingetc. She's been reviewing products for 4 years and now specialises in weighing up kitchen essentials' pros and cons, from air fryers to bean-to-cup coffee machines.

She's always been a keen reader, so after graduating from the University of Exeter in 2020 she was thrilled to find a way to write as a full-time job. Nowadays, she spends her days at home or the Ideal Home test facility trying out new kitchen innovations to see if they’re worth a space on your worktop. Her most beloved and hard-working appliance is her Sage coffee machine though she also takes the title of Ideal Home’s in-house air fryer expert after writing about them religiously over the past few years.

When she's not thinking or writing about kitchen appliances, she loves getting around London exploring new places, going for a dip at the Ladies’ Pond and consuming every bit of pop culture she can get her hands on.