A massage is one of the most effective ways to ease muscle soreness. If you would like to enhance your experience with massage oils, you need to follow tips for washing towels and use them to remove excess moisture from your skin before touching other things. 

It’s tough to avoid staining your massage linens, especially when you use oils. Fortunately, you can minimize the appearance of stains and keep your towels smelling fresh with proper care and maintenance. 

These tips can help you keep your massage towels in excellent condition for years to come.

1. Wash Them Within 24 Hours

After you’ve enjoyed some well-deserved relaxation, the faster you can clean your towels, the better. Allowing oil stains to sit for long periods can result in darker stains that are harder to get rid of. Ideally, you should wash them within 24 hours of noticing the stain for best results.

If you must wait to wash them for any reason, place your towels in a black plastic bag and tie it shut. This technique will prevent exposure to light and air, which can cause massage oil to become rancid.

2. Use Powerful Cleaning Agents

Using the right ingredients can enhance the effectiveness of your washer and dryer to make getting rid of stains a breeze. 

Baking soda is extremely absorbent. This property makes it an excellent stain remover, as it can absorb tough grease and oil stains from your towels. 

About half a cup of baking soda per load should work well, but you can adjust the amount for different load sizes. You can also mix baking soda with water and scrub it into the stain using a new toothbrush to help work it into the towel fibers for maximum effectiveness.

You can also make your own effective detergent using household products such as:

• Baking soda
• Castile soap
• Essential oils
• White vinegar 
• Laundry detergent

It may seem counterproductive to fight stains with essential oil, but combining it with other ingredients in a home stain removal recipe ups the power. 

3. Use the Right Machine Settings

If your towels are machine-washable, you must know which machine settings are most effective for removing massage oil stains. A normal wash cycle should do the trick, although you can use a sanitizing cycle every so often for especially deep stains.

Hot water and pretreatment will help lift the oil out of the towel and remove the stain. Cold water, however, will cause the oil to solidify and intensify the stain’s appearance.

You can dry your towels on a regular drying cycle, but it’s important to ensure there are no stains before throwing them in. Hot air will bake the oil into the cloth, which will make getting the stain out even harder. It may be safer to line-dry your towels to avoid accidentally missing a stain.

4. Pretreat the Stains

Your massage reduced inflammation and released tension, but don’t get too comfortable yet. Soak your stained towels in detergent to help eliminate stains by loosening the oil from the fibers before putting them in the wash.

Some household items you can use to pretreat your towels include:

• Hairspray
• Shampoo 
• Dishwashing liquid
• Paint thinner
• Clear sodas and sparkling water

If the towel is especially stained, it might be best to pretreat it with an enzyme-based cleaner. These products use enzymes to break down organic materials, such as oils, which weakens their bonds with the towel fibers and makes the stain easier to wash off.

5. Know When to Let Go

There comes a point in every towel’s life when it is simply too far gone to save. They may become scratchy, develop rips and tears, or hold onto lingering odors that make them unfit for use on your skin.

You can often donate cleaned linens to animal shelters and other local charities — call ahead to ensure they are accepting donations.

Alternatively, you could repurpose your stained massage towels into useful household items, such as:

• Bath poufs
• Reusable mop covers
• Cleaning rags
• Oven mitts
• Emergency clothes for your car

You can then start over with a fresh new towel.

Simplify Post-Massage Cleaning With Myobuddy

Whether you’re an expert masseuse or an at-home practitioner, it’s essential to keep your massage equipment clean. Instead of using messy oils and equipment, you can opt for Myobuddy Pro massagers, which are designed to relieve soreness with vibration, percussion and heat.

With the Myobuddy self-massager line, you can experience a professional massage without the mess. Each Myobuddy comes with two machine-washable cloth bonnets designed for use with lotions and massage oils, so you can quickly clean them between uses. When your bonnet reaches the end of its useful life, you can swap it out for a brand-new one. 

You can contact us online if you’d like to learn more. We’ll help you find the answers you’re looking for.