Laundering Best Practices: What Every STR Operator Needs to Know About Washing Linens
How to make your STR linens last longer: HostGPO and Standard Textile cover laundry best practices, common headaches, and expert tips in a free on-demand webinar.
Linens are one of the biggest ongoing costs in short-term rental operations, and one of the easiest to mismanage. Most operators know they should wash their sheets and towels between every stay, far fewer know that the way they wash them can cut the linens' lifespan in half or double it.
That is why we at HostGPO teamed up with our partner, with Standard Textile, the linen supplier behind the world’s top hotels, to host a webinar on laundering best practices built specifically for STR operations. This webinar covered everything from how to set up your laundry process to what actually happens chemically when you wash, to the most common mistakes that destroy linens faster than guests ever could.
Watch the full recording below, and if you want to talk through your specific setup, schedule a free linen consultation.
Watch: Laundry Lessons with HostGPO and Standard Textile
About Standard Textile
Standard Textile supplies linens to major hotel brands around the world and has for over 80 years. HostGPO members get access to their full product line at exclusive wholesale pricing, including their BedBOX and BathBOX curated collections that take the guesswork out of linen ordering. You can request free samples to test before you buy.
The quick takeaways
If you take nothing else from the webinar, take these:
- Keep 3 sets of linens per bed so each set gets rest between washes. Cotton is hydrophilic; about 8-10% of its weight is water, and every wash cycle pulls that moisture out. Without rest time between washes, you're running already-stressed fibers straight back through the heat cycle, which makes them brittle and shortens their lifespan.
- Never wash sheets and towels in the same load. Towels shed lint onto sheets, and more importantly, sheets dry faster than towels. Dry them together, and your sheets are getting over-dried and brittle while the towels catch up.
- Do not ask guests to start the laundry before checkout. Your turnover team needs to be the ones stripping the beds so they can catch stains and pretreat them before anything goes in the wash.
- If a stain survives the first wash, do NOT dry it. Drying sets the stain permanently. Treat the stain again and then rewash. If it hasn’t come out after 2-3 washes, it’s not worth trying anymore (say better than this)
- Quick stain hacks: Simple Green works on oil-based stains, including makeup and sunscreen. Hydrogen peroxide for blood!
Want to talk through your linen setup with an expert? Schedule a free linen consultation with Standard Textile.
Webinar Quick Facts Sheet
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Webinar Transcript
Jeff Iloulian: So, Greg, I'm going to hand it over to you. I'm sure there'll be questions in Q&A. I might come on with some Q&A questions throughout, but really excited to have you here.
Greg Eubanks: Well, Jeff, thanks so much. We love being a partner with you. If the team on the webinar has been to the HostGPO conferences, they've likely met Amy. Amy spends almost her entire day — and Christy as well — focusing on making sure we take care of your customers. So thank you for that. We really appreciate it.
So we're going to start with a poll, and we'll have a couple of polls in here. The first thing is, what is the number one thing you're looking for in a textile supplier? You've got about five choices, so feel free to click on the button that you think is most important for your linen supplier.
Okay, looks like about 71% of the people picked long-lasting products, and 29% availability. That's great, because with Standard Textile, you get long-lasting products. You also get great availability because we have your products in stock, and our pricing is world-class for HostGPO. But today, we're also going to focus on industry expertise. We're going to talk with Ken and Ben, who've been in the industry combined over 50 years of hospitality laundry experience.
One of the questions we get asked a lot is: what happens when we get a stain on a linen? How do we remove that? And we're going to focus a lot on that today.
Just a quick overview of Standard Textile. We are a privately held company. We've been in business since 1940. The reason you don't see us in a retail store — whether that's Costco, Sam's Club, or Nordstrom — is because we focus just on hospitality and the healthcare market. So when we talk about our products and how long they last and how to get stains out of them, we're not developing it for grandma's bed at home. We're developing it so you can use that product over and over and over again.
A couple of things that make products you purchase from Standard Textile unique. One — and I know Jeff is very familiar with it — is Centium Core Technology. If any of you have purchased Centima sheets, Comfortwell 12 sheets, Centium Satin sheets, or Vidori sheets, you already get Centium Core Technology whether you know it or not. That's what makes those sheets last so much longer. If you buy towels like Euro Classique or Luxury Stripe, those all have Centium Core Technology. Those products are typically 35 to about 137% stronger than retail products or our competition's products.
The other thing we find is a great benefit to our clients is Room Ready For You, laundered with Tide. Many of your products arrive pre-washed and ready to use right out of the box — when you get the box, you can put it right on the bed. You don't have to wash it the first time. Although that's really convenient, it's also a huge environmental savings because we're laundering your product when it's already wet during the finishing process.
Jeff: And it's special Tide, too — which I think is a question we get all the time. Is this scented Tide? Is it going to cause issues for guests with allergies? This is a very specific partnership you guys have with P&G, right?
Greg: That's right. It's professional Tide, and we use it in significant quantities. It doesn't come in the little Tide jug that you get at the store. It comes in hundreds-of-gallons bins.
One more thing I want to mention before we move on is OneSTEP. On our sheets, if it's a king-size sheet, it's got a green EZ ID on it. If it's a queen, it's blue. If it's full, it's fuchsia. That's great when you have multiple beds in your properties — knowing the size of your products right on the side of each product means you don't take the wrong product to the wrong room. OneSTEP also includes center-lock labels so your housekeepers can make up that room professionally. The label is right in the center of the bottom sheet, so you can go to one side, tuck it in, go to the other side, tuck it in.
The last thing I'm going to introduce is a new program called PureBrite. For those of you buying Centium Satin sheets, you're now starting to receive them with PureBrite. You won't notice any change — your Centium Satin sheets feel exactly like they've felt. But we've done about five years of R&D and come up with a product we can add to our finishing chemistry that allows you to experience about 35% fewer stains. This doesn't cost more. We're not adding a price increase. It's a value-added service, because hotels and the STR market experience stains like blood, pizza, wine, and makeup like no other. Most hoteliers discard about 20% of their linen every year early because it's been stained beyond the ability to get the stain out. Now we've got formulas for sheeting products that allow 35% more of those stains to be reclaimed. At the end of 2026 going into 2027, Centima and Comfortwell sheeting products will start to convert to PureBrite as well. Centium Satin goes first.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Ken and the team. Ken's been with Standard Textile for how many years, Ken?
Ken Kaiser: Working on 41.
Greg: 41. I've only been here 36 years. Ken's been here 41, Ben about 15. They are our team of people that go out to hotels and to customers who need help with their laundries. Ken, I'll turn it over to you.
Ken Kaiser: Thank you, Greg. I've been with Standard Textile coming up on 41 years. Needless to say, I've been to many, many laundries. I like to say I've been to laundries in 48 of the 50 states — that's not something too many people can talk about.
So we did want to take some time and talk about level-setting your laundry. We're going to start with another poll. Just to get an idea — what type of system do you have currently? Are you a rental property with retail equipment on site? A consolidated laundry servicing multiple properties? Or an off-site laundry?
Yeah, the largest percentage of attendees are retail-based, which is what we expected.
When we talk about level-setting your laundry, the interesting thing is that in our experience, laundries on the healthcare side, the hospitality side, and rental properties are significantly different. But one thing I truly believe is that laundry is more of an art than a science. We have recommended washing instructions for all of our products, but it really boils down to the individual property — the equipment you have, your water quality, your load sizes, your chemical supplier. There's a lot of variability.
Laundry is based on four parts regardless of setup: mechanical action, chemical action, time, and temperature. Those four components all work together to do the cleaning. In a retail environment, there's been a lot of development in cold-water washing — the temperature reduction is really being compensated by advances in detergent chemistry.
A thing we always talk to our customers about is having control over your laundry process. It's more than just putting linens in a washing machine and turning it on. When your guest checks out, sorting and inspecting those linens is really key. Do not wash sheets and towels together. When you're stripping beds, look for stains — if there are stains, isolate them and potentially treat them before they go into the wash process.
In my experience, I've seen a lot of rental properties where the instructions say strip all the beds and put everything in the washing machine. We really prefer that your professional team be the ones to strip the bed, because that gives them the opportunity to start that inspection process. They can also ensure the washer isn't overloaded and that the chemistries are put in before starting.
Chemical use is pretty straightforward. On a retail side, it's about using the right detergents. If it's a front-loading washer, make sure you're using the right HE detergent — especially if you're in a property with soft water. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations.
On load levels: it's very common for people to overload washers. They're really designed for good mechanical action, and when you overload, you lose that benefit. For a front-loading washer, load loosely to just about the top — don't pack them in. When the washer is running, if it's turning clockwise, you want to see the linen start dropping around the 10 o'clock position. If it's counterclockwise, around 1 o'clock. That's where you're getting a lot of your cleaning.
Cotton is hydrophilic by nature — 8 to 10% of its weight is actually water. When you over-dry it, you're pulling that moisture out and it becomes brittle pretty quickly. Every retail washer has multiple settings for specific reasons. Don't over-dry. And if you do see staining on products, we've got some tips coming up on how to reclaim that product.
Now let's do one more poll. What chemical does most of the actual cleaning in the wash process?
So it was a pretty interesting 50/50 split — about 57% picked water, 43% detergent. I'm going to give this group a lot of credit, because most people don't pick water, and that is absolutely the right answer. Water is the mechanical action — it's the water sloshing through your fabric that's actually pushing soils out and flushing them off the surface. All the other things absolutely help, but water is the key.
Detergents do two critical things. First, they reduce the surface tension of water — we always say detergent makes water wetter. That allows water to actually penetrate through your products more easily. Second, detergents grab onto soils, cling to them, and then once you start draining, carry that soil down the drain so it doesn't redeposit on your product.
I'll turn it over to Ben to give you some of the common laundry headaches we've seen.
Ben Robers: All right. Today I'll be talking about common laundry headaches.
On whiteness — everybody sees colors differently, and most people think white is white, but there are a lot of variations. With our products, we have a whiteness standard. All of our products get manufactured and read with a spectrophotometer. We have different tolerance levels to ensure consistent whiteness. If you're making a bed, you don't want your pillowcases to be a different shade of white than your top sheet.
On color loss and fading — if you are laundering colored items, you don't want to use chlorine bleach. Peroxide bleach like OxiClean is color safe.
Wrinkling really comes into play during the drying process. If you take all the moisture out, it basically shrinks up and shrivels that cotton, and you're going to have surface wrinkles. If you're drying at too high a temperature, those wrinkles are going to be harder to get out. Think about an iron with a steam press — it's the water saturating those fibers that loosens them up and gives you that nice clean pressed look.
On hand feel: if you take all that moisture out, your fibers are going to become really brittle. Softener can help, but softener also reduces the absorbency of towels. If you don't over-dry and keep that good moisture content, you'll have a towel that lasts a long time and maintains that softness.
Ken: I can add to that — especially on the hotel side, they tend to really want to get this done as quickly as possible and they overdry, and the hand starts to deteriorate quickly. Also, if you overload, those sheets can't open up and twist properly. If you're looking at a front-loader and you see your products just plastered against the glass and not moving, that's what we don't want to see — that'll actually increase wrinkling as well.
Ben: Yeah, so it's really a holistic look — load sizes, temperatures, times, moisture content, all factor into how your product ultimately looks. Don't be afraid to bring stuff out of the dryer when it's a little damp. That's a common thing we tell people. If the hems are slightly damp on your sheets, or the towels are just a little damp, that's okay — that's actually what we want to see. Let the product rest. Give it 24 hours, put it on the bed, it'll dry within a few hours. It actually helps the product.
Ken: Especially in dry climate areas. If you're in Arizona, it's almost impossible to regain moisture from the air. In Savannah, Georgia, it's a lot easier. When you allow your sheets to sit and regain moisture over 24 to 48 hours, they'll actually last much longer.
Ben: It basically allows the cotton to rest and reabsorb that moisture. It's just better overall health for the cotton.
On product size — you don't want a hand towel on one side of the bathroom and another hand towel that's 6 inches different in size. We have standardized sizing and our shrinkage rates are pretty consistent, so that towel is going to look the same size a year from now as the day you bought it. Also, especially with these pillow-top or lofted mattresses, when you're looking at your fitted sheet size, take that into account as well.
Ben: So, poll time. What is the most common and problematic hospitality stain?
Greg: That's an easy one. I bet if we had added blood as a potential stain, that would be high on this list as well.
Ben: Yeah. Makeup and blood. There are two different types of stains, and that's really key when you're stain-treating — you want to evaluate what the stain actually is. Is it an oil-based stain like makeup? Is it a protein-based stain like blood? Those will be treated differently.
Simple Green is a great stain remover for oil-based stains like makeup. It's technically a degreaser, but it takes that oily substance and breaks it loose from the fibers. For blood, really simple: hydrogen peroxide. Put some on, and that blood will start to bubble up and denature. One thing to be cautious of — don't use hot water on blood because that will set it in. Use cooler or lukewarm water, anything up to 98 degrees. Once you get above that, it kind of sets that stain and clings to the cotton.
Greg: And people may not know this, but hydrogen peroxide is basically what's in Clorox 2. Clorox is chlorine-based. Clorox 2 is hydrogen peroxide. So if you end up bleaching with Clorox 2, it will remove blood much easier than regular bleach.
Ben: Correct. And then the 3-strike rule: when you're stripping the beds, if you notice a stain, go ahead and pre-treat it. Get it into laundry as fast as possible. The quicker you treat it and get it laundered, the more successful you're going to be in removing that stain. Take it out of the washer, still notice it's there — retreat it and wash it again. After the second or possibly third time, if it's still not out, there's really not much point in wasting the time, the chemicals, and everything else.
Ken: Yeah, especially on a washcloth — at some point you're spending more money trying to get the stain out than it costs to replace the product. The 3-strike rule is pretty common in the hotel industry. Wash it once, stain doesn't come out, put it through a retreatment process, try an aggressive reclaim cycle. But if after 3 times it's not out, discard it.
Ben: Moving into types of damage. There are really two types: chemical and mechanical.
Chemical damage — you'll see thin spots start to occur from different chemicals, mainly bleach. Bleach basically deteriorates the cotton, and when you wash it, it flushes all those broken cotton fibers away and leaves you with a thin spot. Chlorine and cotton don't really go together too well. Chlorine oxidizes the cotton, and once you put it through the wash cycle, not only does it take the stain out but it takes half the cotton with it.
Mechanical damage typically shows up as a right-angle or linear tear — that single yarn tearing right where it gets caught on something, whether it's a bed frame, stuck under a couch, or similar. We see a lot of this when guests strip linens off the beds because they're just ripping. That's another reason we never recommend that guests take their beds apart.
End-user abuse — we can't control how products are being used, but we can provide alternatives. Makeup cloths in black are a great option. Washcloths get abused quite often. Snags happen a lot from rings and jewelry.
Greg: I'd add — the average hotel replaces 250% of their washcloth inventory every year. So don't feel bad if you've got a washcloth that's stained beyond repair. You're buying a washcloth, not a bath towel. Have plenty available. Bath towels run about 68% replacement per year. Sheeting is about 38%. There's a significant difference. Make sure you're replacing the low-cost items, not the high-cost items.
Ken: Some top tips for longer-lasting linen.
Pre and post-wash: it truly is important to let your linens rest. Cotton loves water — 8 to 10% of its weight is water — so when it goes through the wash-dry process, giving it time to rest and acclimate back to the environment really does prolong the life of that product. And don't ask guests to strip the beds. It can create unintentional damage, and more importantly, it takes away your team's chance to inspect for stains that might need treatment.
On chemicals: follow the manufacturer's instructions on the bottles. Many detergents are similar, but there are differences. Generic brands tend to have more water, so you're using the same volume but likely not getting the same results. Getting a high-quality detergent really helps, especially with a front-loading washer.
On spotting agents: Simple Green, we've had great success with it on oil-based stains. Shout works well too. Sunscreen is a big problem, especially in vacation areas near the beach. There are chemicals in sunscreen that turn yellow when they hit certain fabrics and get set into the cotton — almost impossible to get out once that happens. Use a degreaser or hydrogen peroxide, spot it, and then wash it. Chlorine bleach as a spot treatment is something we don't recommend — it will damage cotton pretty quickly. Clorox 2, which is hydrogen peroxide-based, is really good on bloodstains.
If you see a stain after the first wash, don't dry it. Hit it again with a spotting agent and rewash. But don't spend a lot of money trying to reclaim stained linen after 2 or 3 attempts — if the stain didn't come out, it's really not worth it.
Washing process: don't wash sheets and towels together. Towels shed a lot of lint, which can lead to cross-contamination on the sheets. And when you put them in the dryer together, your sheets are going to dry really quickly while your towels take longer — so you'll wind up over-drying your sheets. Load to about two-thirds capacity. On a front loader, you want to see that good mechanical action — sheets dropping around the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock position depending on the direction of rotation. On a top loader, loosely pack sheets around the outside and keep them off the agitator, because the agitator is what keeps that water moving.
Don't over-dry. Linens should be slightly damp when you take them out. Use the cool-down cycle, or fold immediately — that minimizes wrinkling. If your hems are slightly damp, just let them sit overnight and they'll actually come out with a nice pressed look.
Greg: One thing I want to add: we often find customers don't know what their stain is. They think it's sunscreen, they think it's blood, but they keep getting it over and over and ruining their textiles. If you get a stain you can't identify, send it to us. We have CORE — that stands for Concept, Operations, Results, and Execution — our in-house lab. We can look at the stains under a microscope, test them against different stain release agents, and give you a report back that says, we think it's this, try using this type of degreaser. We're happy to help.
Ken: One funny story I love to tell — I can't name the hotel, but they kept saying their product was turning from white to gray over time and they didn't know why. They thought it was our product. We said it can't be, because sheets and pillowcases and towels and everything are all turning gray. So I went and visited this big, really prestigious hotel and found that all their peristaltic pumps were clogged and they weren't getting any detergent into their product. We called the chemical manufacturer, they came in and cleared it out, and all their sheets whitened back up as soon as a little detergent was introduced. So a lot of times it's mechanical, sometimes it's chemical. Send it in to us — we'll be happy to help you identify what's going on.
Also, we have available downloads at standardtextile.com under Laundry Lessons — overview of detergents, hygienic processing, how to spot stains. Go use it. It's there as a tool for you and your housekeeping team.
Jeff: A question came in: my makeup cloths get ruined a lot from makeup. Any advice?
Greg: The good news is, if you have a targeted makeup cloth — say it's black and there specifically for makeup — you are replacing a product that's less than $2 versus a bath towel that might be $8 or $9. The other way to solve it is to have disposable makeup remover packets in the rooms. A lot of guests will use those, and it actually makes them feel more comfortable — using a disposable product that hasn't been used before, versus a black washcloth that she knows has been used by many others.
Ken: You could also set up a separate wash process for makeup cloths. Try some Simple Green or Dawn dishwashing liquid — those degreasers can really help break down oil-based stains. Wash them at a slightly hotter temperature to help saponify those oils.
Jeff: Any suggestions for pillowcases or sheets damaged by medication like acne medication?
Ben: It's going to be more like a sunscreen situation — you're likely dealing with an oil or bleach-based ingredient. That would actually be a good example of something to send to us. A normal wash process likely isn't going to take that type of stain out.
Greg: In general, if it's on the human body or in the human body, it's typically an oil-based product. We're carbon-based. And all of the products that work well in the human body are oil-based. So degreasers are there to remove oils. Makeup is made from oil, petroleum products — that's why degreasers work on it so well. People just don't know it.
Jeff: Any thoughts on Costco's detergent?
Ken: I haven't personally used it. At the end of the day, if you're using it and getting good results, that's what matters. Tide is expensive for a reason — the research that goes into it makes it work better in cold-water washing and front-load washers. But I won't say that Costco's detergent isn't as good because I just don't have direct experience with it. If it's working and you're meeting the desired results, it's acceptable. As I said, laundry is more of an art than a science — everyone's a little different.
Jeff: One more question that always comes up: thread count. How important is it?
Greg: There is not a weaving machine that has been invented that can make sheets with single-pick yarns — which are the best way to do it — more than 300 threads per square inch. So if you are buying a T400, T500, T600, or T1000, what the manufacturer is doing is taking really small yarns and winding them together — we call those applied yarns — or they're double-picking the construction, putting two, three, or four yarns under instead of one. That's why your T600 sheets don't feel any better than your T300 sheets.
Retail manufacturers know that people will pay more for higher thread counts, even though those products don't last longer and cost more. We don't sell anything above T300. We don't even really talk about thread count. For example, Centium Satin has a microfilament count of over 12,000 per square inch — but that means nothing to a customer. What we say is: it feels like a T300 or better sheet. If you have any doubt, sew two pillowcases together and wash and dry them repeatedly. You will see certain products like Centium Satin last so much longer than a typical all-cotton T300 sheet. We are big proponents of ignoring thread count and using what gives the guest the best experience.
Jeff: I love that. And honestly, hearing it from you guys just really hits on the misconceptions a lot of people have going into the linen process. My experience operating short-term rentals before this, I made all of the mistakes — bought all the thread counts, over-dried my sheets, pretty much everything you could do wrong. Very happy to have had you guys here. I didn't think I would learn about the hydrophilic nature of cotton today, but I did. Thank you, Ken.
If any members listening have questions about their sheets, laundering practices, or which sheets to buy, we have a great team at Standard Textile that can help answer those questions — not just get you samples, but hop on the phone and talk through your specific situation. Whether you're running residential laundry or moving to a commercial facility, we really recommend speaking with these experts.
Greg: We're happy to talk to you anytime. Feel free to call us, ask for customer service, and we'll be happy to help you with anything you need. Amy and Christy are always available.
Jeff: Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody, for joining and for the participation today. Truly one of the most educational webinars we've done. You guys are true experts. Thank you again for your time and for your partnership.
Greg: Thanks for your partnership, Jeff. We love working with you guys. You are a fantastic customer, and we love all of the HostGPO members.
Jeff: Feeling is mutual. Until next time, thanks everybody.
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Laundering Best Practices: What Every STR Operator Needs to Know About Washing Linens
How to make your STR linens last longer: HostGPO and Standard Textile cover laundry best practices, common headaches, and expert tips in a free on-demand webinar.
Linens are one of the biggest ongoing costs in short-term rental operations, and one of the easiest to mismanage. Most operators know they should wash their sheets and towels between every stay, far fewer know that the way they wash them can cut the linens' lifespan in half or double it.
That is why we at HostGPO teamed up with our partner, with Standard Textile, the linen supplier behind the world’s top hotels, to host a webinar on laundering best practices built specifically for STR operations. This webinar covered everything from how to set up your laundry process to what actually happens chemically when you wash, to the most common mistakes that destroy linens faster than guests ever could.
Watch the full recording below, and if you want to talk through your specific setup, schedule a free linen consultation.
Watch: Laundry Lessons with HostGPO and Standard Textile
About Standard Textile
Standard Textile supplies linens to major hotel brands around the world and has for over 80 years. HostGPO members get access to their full product line at exclusive wholesale pricing, including their BedBOX and BathBOX curated collections that take the guesswork out of linen ordering. You can request free samples to test before you buy.
The quick takeaways
If you take nothing else from the webinar, take these:
- Keep 3 sets of linens per bed so each set gets rest between washes. Cotton is hydrophilic; about 8-10% of its weight is water, and every wash cycle pulls that moisture out. Without rest time between washes, you're running already-stressed fibers straight back through the heat cycle, which makes them brittle and shortens their lifespan.
- Never wash sheets and towels in the same load. Towels shed lint onto sheets, and more importantly, sheets dry faster than towels. Dry them together, and your sheets are getting over-dried and brittle while the towels catch up.
- Do not ask guests to start the laundry before checkout. Your turnover team needs to be the ones stripping the beds so they can catch stains and pretreat them before anything goes in the wash.
- If a stain survives the first wash, do NOT dry it. Drying sets the stain permanently. Treat the stain again and then rewash. If it hasn’t come out after 2-3 washes, it’s not worth trying anymore (say better than this)
- Quick stain hacks: Simple Green works on oil-based stains, including makeup and sunscreen. Hydrogen peroxide for blood!
Want to talk through your linen setup with an expert? Schedule a free linen consultation with Standard Textile.
Webinar Quick Facts Sheet
Webinar Transcript
Jeff Iloulian: So, Greg, I'm going to hand it over to you. I'm sure there'll be questions in Q&A. I might come on with some Q&A questions throughout, but really excited to have you here.
Greg Eubanks: Well, Jeff, thanks so much. We love being a partner with you. If the team on the webinar has been to the HostGPO conferences, they've likely met Amy. Amy spends almost her entire day — and Christy as well — focusing on making sure we take care of your customers. So thank you for that. We really appreciate it.
So we're going to start with a poll, and we'll have a couple of polls in here. The first thing is, what is the number one thing you're looking for in a textile supplier? You've got about five choices, so feel free to click on the button that you think is most important for your linen supplier.
Okay, looks like about 71% of the people picked long-lasting products, and 29% availability. That's great, because with Standard Textile, you get long-lasting products. You also get great availability because we have your products in stock, and our pricing is world-class for HostGPO. But today, we're also going to focus on industry expertise. We're going to talk with Ken and Ben, who've been in the industry combined over 50 years of hospitality laundry experience.
One of the questions we get asked a lot is: what happens when we get a stain on a linen? How do we remove that? And we're going to focus a lot on that today.
Just a quick overview of Standard Textile. We are a privately held company. We've been in business since 1940. The reason you don't see us in a retail store — whether that's Costco, Sam's Club, or Nordstrom — is because we focus just on hospitality and the healthcare market. So when we talk about our products and how long they last and how to get stains out of them, we're not developing it for grandma's bed at home. We're developing it so you can use that product over and over and over again.
A couple of things that make products you purchase from Standard Textile unique. One — and I know Jeff is very familiar with it — is Centium Core Technology. If any of you have purchased Centima sheets, Comfortwell 12 sheets, Centium Satin sheets, or Vidori sheets, you already get Centium Core Technology whether you know it or not. That's what makes those sheets last so much longer. If you buy towels like Euro Classique or Luxury Stripe, those all have Centium Core Technology. Those products are typically 35 to about 137% stronger than retail products or our competition's products.
The other thing we find is a great benefit to our clients is Room Ready For You, laundered with Tide. Many of your products arrive pre-washed and ready to use right out of the box — when you get the box, you can put it right on the bed. You don't have to wash it the first time. Although that's really convenient, it's also a huge environmental savings because we're laundering your product when it's already wet during the finishing process.
Jeff: And it's special Tide, too — which I think is a question we get all the time. Is this scented Tide? Is it going to cause issues for guests with allergies? This is a very specific partnership you guys have with P&G, right?
Greg: That's right. It's professional Tide, and we use it in significant quantities. It doesn't come in the little Tide jug that you get at the store. It comes in hundreds-of-gallons bins.
One more thing I want to mention before we move on is OneSTEP. On our sheets, if it's a king-size sheet, it's got a green EZ ID on it. If it's a queen, it's blue. If it's full, it's fuchsia. That's great when you have multiple beds in your properties — knowing the size of your products right on the side of each product means you don't take the wrong product to the wrong room. OneSTEP also includes center-lock labels so your housekeepers can make up that room professionally. The label is right in the center of the bottom sheet, so you can go to one side, tuck it in, go to the other side, tuck it in.
The last thing I'm going to introduce is a new program called PureBrite. For those of you buying Centium Satin sheets, you're now starting to receive them with PureBrite. You won't notice any change — your Centium Satin sheets feel exactly like they've felt. But we've done about five years of R&D and come up with a product we can add to our finishing chemistry that allows you to experience about 35% fewer stains. This doesn't cost more. We're not adding a price increase. It's a value-added service, because hotels and the STR market experience stains like blood, pizza, wine, and makeup like no other. Most hoteliers discard about 20% of their linen every year early because it's been stained beyond the ability to get the stain out. Now we've got formulas for sheeting products that allow 35% more of those stains to be reclaimed. At the end of 2026 going into 2027, Centima and Comfortwell sheeting products will start to convert to PureBrite as well. Centium Satin goes first.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Ken and the team. Ken's been with Standard Textile for how many years, Ken?
Ken Kaiser: Working on 41.
Greg: 41. I've only been here 36 years. Ken's been here 41, Ben about 15. They are our team of people that go out to hotels and to customers who need help with their laundries. Ken, I'll turn it over to you.
Ken Kaiser: Thank you, Greg. I've been with Standard Textile coming up on 41 years. Needless to say, I've been to many, many laundries. I like to say I've been to laundries in 48 of the 50 states — that's not something too many people can talk about.
So we did want to take some time and talk about level-setting your laundry. We're going to start with another poll. Just to get an idea — what type of system do you have currently? Are you a rental property with retail equipment on site? A consolidated laundry servicing multiple properties? Or an off-site laundry?
Yeah, the largest percentage of attendees are retail-based, which is what we expected.
When we talk about level-setting your laundry, the interesting thing is that in our experience, laundries on the healthcare side, the hospitality side, and rental properties are significantly different. But one thing I truly believe is that laundry is more of an art than a science. We have recommended washing instructions for all of our products, but it really boils down to the individual property — the equipment you have, your water quality, your load sizes, your chemical supplier. There's a lot of variability.
Laundry is based on four parts regardless of setup: mechanical action, chemical action, time, and temperature. Those four components all work together to do the cleaning. In a retail environment, there's been a lot of development in cold-water washing — the temperature reduction is really being compensated by advances in detergent chemistry.
A thing we always talk to our customers about is having control over your laundry process. It's more than just putting linens in a washing machine and turning it on. When your guest checks out, sorting and inspecting those linens is really key. Do not wash sheets and towels together. When you're stripping beds, look for stains — if there are stains, isolate them and potentially treat them before they go into the wash process.
In my experience, I've seen a lot of rental properties where the instructions say strip all the beds and put everything in the washing machine. We really prefer that your professional team be the ones to strip the bed, because that gives them the opportunity to start that inspection process. They can also ensure the washer isn't overloaded and that the chemistries are put in before starting.
Chemical use is pretty straightforward. On a retail side, it's about using the right detergents. If it's a front-loading washer, make sure you're using the right HE detergent — especially if you're in a property with soft water. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations.
On load levels: it's very common for people to overload washers. They're really designed for good mechanical action, and when you overload, you lose that benefit. For a front-loading washer, load loosely to just about the top — don't pack them in. When the washer is running, if it's turning clockwise, you want to see the linen start dropping around the 10 o'clock position. If it's counterclockwise, around 1 o'clock. That's where you're getting a lot of your cleaning.
Cotton is hydrophilic by nature — 8 to 10% of its weight is actually water. When you over-dry it, you're pulling that moisture out and it becomes brittle pretty quickly. Every retail washer has multiple settings for specific reasons. Don't over-dry. And if you do see staining on products, we've got some tips coming up on how to reclaim that product.
Now let's do one more poll. What chemical does most of the actual cleaning in the wash process?
So it was a pretty interesting 50/50 split — about 57% picked water, 43% detergent. I'm going to give this group a lot of credit, because most people don't pick water, and that is absolutely the right answer. Water is the mechanical action — it's the water sloshing through your fabric that's actually pushing soils out and flushing them off the surface. All the other things absolutely help, but water is the key.
Detergents do two critical things. First, they reduce the surface tension of water — we always say detergent makes water wetter. That allows water to actually penetrate through your products more easily. Second, detergents grab onto soils, cling to them, and then once you start draining, carry that soil down the drain so it doesn't redeposit on your product.
I'll turn it over to Ben to give you some of the common laundry headaches we've seen.
Ben Robers: All right. Today I'll be talking about common laundry headaches.
On whiteness — everybody sees colors differently, and most people think white is white, but there are a lot of variations. With our products, we have a whiteness standard. All of our products get manufactured and read with a spectrophotometer. We have different tolerance levels to ensure consistent whiteness. If you're making a bed, you don't want your pillowcases to be a different shade of white than your top sheet.
On color loss and fading — if you are laundering colored items, you don't want to use chlorine bleach. Peroxide bleach like OxiClean is color safe.
Wrinkling really comes into play during the drying process. If you take all the moisture out, it basically shrinks up and shrivels that cotton, and you're going to have surface wrinkles. If you're drying at too high a temperature, those wrinkles are going to be harder to get out. Think about an iron with a steam press — it's the water saturating those fibers that loosens them up and gives you that nice clean pressed look.
On hand feel: if you take all that moisture out, your fibers are going to become really brittle. Softener can help, but softener also reduces the absorbency of towels. If you don't over-dry and keep that good moisture content, you'll have a towel that lasts a long time and maintains that softness.
Ken: I can add to that — especially on the hotel side, they tend to really want to get this done as quickly as possible and they overdry, and the hand starts to deteriorate quickly. Also, if you overload, those sheets can't open up and twist properly. If you're looking at a front-loader and you see your products just plastered against the glass and not moving, that's what we don't want to see — that'll actually increase wrinkling as well.
Ben: Yeah, so it's really a holistic look — load sizes, temperatures, times, moisture content, all factor into how your product ultimately looks. Don't be afraid to bring stuff out of the dryer when it's a little damp. That's a common thing we tell people. If the hems are slightly damp on your sheets, or the towels are just a little damp, that's okay — that's actually what we want to see. Let the product rest. Give it 24 hours, put it on the bed, it'll dry within a few hours. It actually helps the product.
Ken: Especially in dry climate areas. If you're in Arizona, it's almost impossible to regain moisture from the air. In Savannah, Georgia, it's a lot easier. When you allow your sheets to sit and regain moisture over 24 to 48 hours, they'll actually last much longer.
Ben: It basically allows the cotton to rest and reabsorb that moisture. It's just better overall health for the cotton.
On product size — you don't want a hand towel on one side of the bathroom and another hand towel that's 6 inches different in size. We have standardized sizing and our shrinkage rates are pretty consistent, so that towel is going to look the same size a year from now as the day you bought it. Also, especially with these pillow-top or lofted mattresses, when you're looking at your fitted sheet size, take that into account as well.
Ben: So, poll time. What is the most common and problematic hospitality stain?
Greg: That's an easy one. I bet if we had added blood as a potential stain, that would be high on this list as well.
Ben: Yeah. Makeup and blood. There are two different types of stains, and that's really key when you're stain-treating — you want to evaluate what the stain actually is. Is it an oil-based stain like makeup? Is it a protein-based stain like blood? Those will be treated differently.
Simple Green is a great stain remover for oil-based stains like makeup. It's technically a degreaser, but it takes that oily substance and breaks it loose from the fibers. For blood, really simple: hydrogen peroxide. Put some on, and that blood will start to bubble up and denature. One thing to be cautious of — don't use hot water on blood because that will set it in. Use cooler or lukewarm water, anything up to 98 degrees. Once you get above that, it kind of sets that stain and clings to the cotton.
Greg: And people may not know this, but hydrogen peroxide is basically what's in Clorox 2. Clorox is chlorine-based. Clorox 2 is hydrogen peroxide. So if you end up bleaching with Clorox 2, it will remove blood much easier than regular bleach.
Ben: Correct. And then the 3-strike rule: when you're stripping the beds, if you notice a stain, go ahead and pre-treat it. Get it into laundry as fast as possible. The quicker you treat it and get it laundered, the more successful you're going to be in removing that stain. Take it out of the washer, still notice it's there — retreat it and wash it again. After the second or possibly third time, if it's still not out, there's really not much point in wasting the time, the chemicals, and everything else.
Ken: Yeah, especially on a washcloth — at some point you're spending more money trying to get the stain out than it costs to replace the product. The 3-strike rule is pretty common in the hotel industry. Wash it once, stain doesn't come out, put it through a retreatment process, try an aggressive reclaim cycle. But if after 3 times it's not out, discard it.
Ben: Moving into types of damage. There are really two types: chemical and mechanical.
Chemical damage — you'll see thin spots start to occur from different chemicals, mainly bleach. Bleach basically deteriorates the cotton, and when you wash it, it flushes all those broken cotton fibers away and leaves you with a thin spot. Chlorine and cotton don't really go together too well. Chlorine oxidizes the cotton, and once you put it through the wash cycle, not only does it take the stain out but it takes half the cotton with it.
Mechanical damage typically shows up as a right-angle or linear tear — that single yarn tearing right where it gets caught on something, whether it's a bed frame, stuck under a couch, or similar. We see a lot of this when guests strip linens off the beds because they're just ripping. That's another reason we never recommend that guests take their beds apart.
End-user abuse — we can't control how products are being used, but we can provide alternatives. Makeup cloths in black are a great option. Washcloths get abused quite often. Snags happen a lot from rings and jewelry.
Greg: I'd add — the average hotel replaces 250% of their washcloth inventory every year. So don't feel bad if you've got a washcloth that's stained beyond repair. You're buying a washcloth, not a bath towel. Have plenty available. Bath towels run about 68% replacement per year. Sheeting is about 38%. There's a significant difference. Make sure you're replacing the low-cost items, not the high-cost items.
Ken: Some top tips for longer-lasting linen.
Pre and post-wash: it truly is important to let your linens rest. Cotton loves water — 8 to 10% of its weight is water — so when it goes through the wash-dry process, giving it time to rest and acclimate back to the environment really does prolong the life of that product. And don't ask guests to strip the beds. It can create unintentional damage, and more importantly, it takes away your team's chance to inspect for stains that might need treatment.
On chemicals: follow the manufacturer's instructions on the bottles. Many detergents are similar, but there are differences. Generic brands tend to have more water, so you're using the same volume but likely not getting the same results. Getting a high-quality detergent really helps, especially with a front-loading washer.
On spotting agents: Simple Green, we've had great success with it on oil-based stains. Shout works well too. Sunscreen is a big problem, especially in vacation areas near the beach. There are chemicals in sunscreen that turn yellow when they hit certain fabrics and get set into the cotton — almost impossible to get out once that happens. Use a degreaser or hydrogen peroxide, spot it, and then wash it. Chlorine bleach as a spot treatment is something we don't recommend — it will damage cotton pretty quickly. Clorox 2, which is hydrogen peroxide-based, is really good on bloodstains.
If you see a stain after the first wash, don't dry it. Hit it again with a spotting agent and rewash. But don't spend a lot of money trying to reclaim stained linen after 2 or 3 attempts — if the stain didn't come out, it's really not worth it.
Washing process: don't wash sheets and towels together. Towels shed a lot of lint, which can lead to cross-contamination on the sheets. And when you put them in the dryer together, your sheets are going to dry really quickly while your towels take longer — so you'll wind up over-drying your sheets. Load to about two-thirds capacity. On a front loader, you want to see that good mechanical action — sheets dropping around the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock position depending on the direction of rotation. On a top loader, loosely pack sheets around the outside and keep them off the agitator, because the agitator is what keeps that water moving.
Don't over-dry. Linens should be slightly damp when you take them out. Use the cool-down cycle, or fold immediately — that minimizes wrinkling. If your hems are slightly damp, just let them sit overnight and they'll actually come out with a nice pressed look.
Greg: One thing I want to add: we often find customers don't know what their stain is. They think it's sunscreen, they think it's blood, but they keep getting it over and over and ruining their textiles. If you get a stain you can't identify, send it to us. We have CORE — that stands for Concept, Operations, Results, and Execution — our in-house lab. We can look at the stains under a microscope, test them against different stain release agents, and give you a report back that says, we think it's this, try using this type of degreaser. We're happy to help.
Ken: One funny story I love to tell — I can't name the hotel, but they kept saying their product was turning from white to gray over time and they didn't know why. They thought it was our product. We said it can't be, because sheets and pillowcases and towels and everything are all turning gray. So I went and visited this big, really prestigious hotel and found that all their peristaltic pumps were clogged and they weren't getting any detergent into their product. We called the chemical manufacturer, they came in and cleared it out, and all their sheets whitened back up as soon as a little detergent was introduced. So a lot of times it's mechanical, sometimes it's chemical. Send it in to us — we'll be happy to help you identify what's going on.
Also, we have available downloads at standardtextile.com under Laundry Lessons — overview of detergents, hygienic processing, how to spot stains. Go use it. It's there as a tool for you and your housekeeping team.
Jeff: A question came in: my makeup cloths get ruined a lot from makeup. Any advice?
Greg: The good news is, if you have a targeted makeup cloth — say it's black and there specifically for makeup — you are replacing a product that's less than $2 versus a bath towel that might be $8 or $9. The other way to solve it is to have disposable makeup remover packets in the rooms. A lot of guests will use those, and it actually makes them feel more comfortable — using a disposable product that hasn't been used before, versus a black washcloth that she knows has been used by many others.
Ken: You could also set up a separate wash process for makeup cloths. Try some Simple Green or Dawn dishwashing liquid — those degreasers can really help break down oil-based stains. Wash them at a slightly hotter temperature to help saponify those oils.
Jeff: Any suggestions for pillowcases or sheets damaged by medication like acne medication?
Ben: It's going to be more like a sunscreen situation — you're likely dealing with an oil or bleach-based ingredient. That would actually be a good example of something to send to us. A normal wash process likely isn't going to take that type of stain out.
Greg: In general, if it's on the human body or in the human body, it's typically an oil-based product. We're carbon-based. And all of the products that work well in the human body are oil-based. So degreasers are there to remove oils. Makeup is made from oil, petroleum products — that's why degreasers work on it so well. People just don't know it.
Jeff: Any thoughts on Costco's detergent?
Ken: I haven't personally used it. At the end of the day, if you're using it and getting good results, that's what matters. Tide is expensive for a reason — the research that goes into it makes it work better in cold-water washing and front-load washers. But I won't say that Costco's detergent isn't as good because I just don't have direct experience with it. If it's working and you're meeting the desired results, it's acceptable. As I said, laundry is more of an art than a science — everyone's a little different.
Jeff: One more question that always comes up: thread count. How important is it?
Greg: There is not a weaving machine that has been invented that can make sheets with single-pick yarns — which are the best way to do it — more than 300 threads per square inch. So if you are buying a T400, T500, T600, or T1000, what the manufacturer is doing is taking really small yarns and winding them together — we call those applied yarns — or they're double-picking the construction, putting two, three, or four yarns under instead of one. That's why your T600 sheets don't feel any better than your T300 sheets.
Retail manufacturers know that people will pay more for higher thread counts, even though those products don't last longer and cost more. We don't sell anything above T300. We don't even really talk about thread count. For example, Centium Satin has a microfilament count of over 12,000 per square inch — but that means nothing to a customer. What we say is: it feels like a T300 or better sheet. If you have any doubt, sew two pillowcases together and wash and dry them repeatedly. You will see certain products like Centium Satin last so much longer than a typical all-cotton T300 sheet. We are big proponents of ignoring thread count and using what gives the guest the best experience.
Jeff: I love that. And honestly, hearing it from you guys just really hits on the misconceptions a lot of people have going into the linen process. My experience operating short-term rentals before this, I made all of the mistakes — bought all the thread counts, over-dried my sheets, pretty much everything you could do wrong. Very happy to have had you guys here. I didn't think I would learn about the hydrophilic nature of cotton today, but I did. Thank you, Ken.
If any members listening have questions about their sheets, laundering practices, or which sheets to buy, we have a great team at Standard Textile that can help answer those questions — not just get you samples, but hop on the phone and talk through your specific situation. Whether you're running residential laundry or moving to a commercial facility, we really recommend speaking with these experts.
Greg: We're happy to talk to you anytime. Feel free to call us, ask for customer service, and we'll be happy to help you with anything you need. Amy and Christy are always available.
Jeff: Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody, for joining and for the participation today. Truly one of the most educational webinars we've done. You guys are true experts. Thank you again for your time and for your partnership.
Greg: Thanks for your partnership, Jeff. We love working with you guys. You are a fantastic customer, and we love all of the HostGPO members.
Jeff: Feeling is mutual. Until next time, thanks everybody.
Related Posts
Laundering Best Practices: What Every STR Operator Needs to Know About Washing Linens
How to make your STR linens last longer: HostGPO and Standard Textile cover laundry best practices, common headaches, and expert tips in a free on-demand webinar.
Linens are one of the biggest ongoing costs in short-term rental operations, and one of the easiest to mismanage. Most operators know they should wash their sheets and towels between every stay, far fewer know that the way they wash them can cut the linens' lifespan in half or double it.
That is why we at HostGPO teamed up with our partner, with Standard Textile, the linen supplier behind the world’s top hotels, to host a webinar on laundering best practices built specifically for STR operations. This webinar covered everything from how to set up your laundry process to what actually happens chemically when you wash, to the most common mistakes that destroy linens faster than guests ever could.
Watch the full recording below, and if you want to talk through your specific setup, schedule a free linen consultation.
Watch: Laundry Lessons with HostGPO and Standard Textile
About Standard Textile
Standard Textile supplies linens to major hotel brands around the world and has for over 80 years. HostGPO members get access to their full product line at exclusive wholesale pricing, including their BedBOX and BathBOX curated collections that take the guesswork out of linen ordering. You can request free samples to test before you buy.
The quick takeaways
If you take nothing else from the webinar, take these:
- Keep 3 sets of linens per bed so each set gets rest between washes. Cotton is hydrophilic; about 8-10% of its weight is water, and every wash cycle pulls that moisture out. Without rest time between washes, you're running already-stressed fibers straight back through the heat cycle, which makes them brittle and shortens their lifespan.
- Never wash sheets and towels in the same load. Towels shed lint onto sheets, and more importantly, sheets dry faster than towels. Dry them together, and your sheets are getting over-dried and brittle while the towels catch up.
- Do not ask guests to start the laundry before checkout. Your turnover team needs to be the ones stripping the beds so they can catch stains and pretreat them before anything goes in the wash.
- If a stain survives the first wash, do NOT dry it. Drying sets the stain permanently. Treat the stain again and then rewash. If it hasn’t come out after 2-3 washes, it’s not worth trying anymore (say better than this)
- Quick stain hacks: Simple Green works on oil-based stains, including makeup and sunscreen. Hydrogen peroxide for blood!
Want to talk through your linen setup with an expert? Schedule a free linen consultation with Standard Textile.
Webinar Quick Facts Sheet
Webinar Transcript
Jeff Iloulian: So, Greg, I'm going to hand it over to you. I'm sure there'll be questions in Q&A. I might come on with some Q&A questions throughout, but really excited to have you here.
Greg Eubanks: Well, Jeff, thanks so much. We love being a partner with you. If the team on the webinar has been to the HostGPO conferences, they've likely met Amy. Amy spends almost her entire day — and Christy as well — focusing on making sure we take care of your customers. So thank you for that. We really appreciate it.
So we're going to start with a poll, and we'll have a couple of polls in here. The first thing is, what is the number one thing you're looking for in a textile supplier? You've got about five choices, so feel free to click on the button that you think is most important for your linen supplier.
Okay, looks like about 71% of the people picked long-lasting products, and 29% availability. That's great, because with Standard Textile, you get long-lasting products. You also get great availability because we have your products in stock, and our pricing is world-class for HostGPO. But today, we're also going to focus on industry expertise. We're going to talk with Ken and Ben, who've been in the industry combined over 50 years of hospitality laundry experience.
One of the questions we get asked a lot is: what happens when we get a stain on a linen? How do we remove that? And we're going to focus a lot on that today.
Just a quick overview of Standard Textile. We are a privately held company. We've been in business since 1940. The reason you don't see us in a retail store — whether that's Costco, Sam's Club, or Nordstrom — is because we focus just on hospitality and the healthcare market. So when we talk about our products and how long they last and how to get stains out of them, we're not developing it for grandma's bed at home. We're developing it so you can use that product over and over and over again.
A couple of things that make products you purchase from Standard Textile unique. One — and I know Jeff is very familiar with it — is Centium Core Technology. If any of you have purchased Centima sheets, Comfortwell 12 sheets, Centium Satin sheets, or Vidori sheets, you already get Centium Core Technology whether you know it or not. That's what makes those sheets last so much longer. If you buy towels like Euro Classique or Luxury Stripe, those all have Centium Core Technology. Those products are typically 35 to about 137% stronger than retail products or our competition's products.
The other thing we find is a great benefit to our clients is Room Ready For You, laundered with Tide. Many of your products arrive pre-washed and ready to use right out of the box — when you get the box, you can put it right on the bed. You don't have to wash it the first time. Although that's really convenient, it's also a huge environmental savings because we're laundering your product when it's already wet during the finishing process.
Jeff: And it's special Tide, too — which I think is a question we get all the time. Is this scented Tide? Is it going to cause issues for guests with allergies? This is a very specific partnership you guys have with P&G, right?
Greg: That's right. It's professional Tide, and we use it in significant quantities. It doesn't come in the little Tide jug that you get at the store. It comes in hundreds-of-gallons bins.
One more thing I want to mention before we move on is OneSTEP. On our sheets, if it's a king-size sheet, it's got a green EZ ID on it. If it's a queen, it's blue. If it's full, it's fuchsia. That's great when you have multiple beds in your properties — knowing the size of your products right on the side of each product means you don't take the wrong product to the wrong room. OneSTEP also includes center-lock labels so your housekeepers can make up that room professionally. The label is right in the center of the bottom sheet, so you can go to one side, tuck it in, go to the other side, tuck it in.
The last thing I'm going to introduce is a new program called PureBrite. For those of you buying Centium Satin sheets, you're now starting to receive them with PureBrite. You won't notice any change — your Centium Satin sheets feel exactly like they've felt. But we've done about five years of R&D and come up with a product we can add to our finishing chemistry that allows you to experience about 35% fewer stains. This doesn't cost more. We're not adding a price increase. It's a value-added service, because hotels and the STR market experience stains like blood, pizza, wine, and makeup like no other. Most hoteliers discard about 20% of their linen every year early because it's been stained beyond the ability to get the stain out. Now we've got formulas for sheeting products that allow 35% more of those stains to be reclaimed. At the end of 2026 going into 2027, Centima and Comfortwell sheeting products will start to convert to PureBrite as well. Centium Satin goes first.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Ken and the team. Ken's been with Standard Textile for how many years, Ken?
Ken Kaiser: Working on 41.
Greg: 41. I've only been here 36 years. Ken's been here 41, Ben about 15. They are our team of people that go out to hotels and to customers who need help with their laundries. Ken, I'll turn it over to you.
Ken Kaiser: Thank you, Greg. I've been with Standard Textile coming up on 41 years. Needless to say, I've been to many, many laundries. I like to say I've been to laundries in 48 of the 50 states — that's not something too many people can talk about.
So we did want to take some time and talk about level-setting your laundry. We're going to start with another poll. Just to get an idea — what type of system do you have currently? Are you a rental property with retail equipment on site? A consolidated laundry servicing multiple properties? Or an off-site laundry?
Yeah, the largest percentage of attendees are retail-based, which is what we expected.
When we talk about level-setting your laundry, the interesting thing is that in our experience, laundries on the healthcare side, the hospitality side, and rental properties are significantly different. But one thing I truly believe is that laundry is more of an art than a science. We have recommended washing instructions for all of our products, but it really boils down to the individual property — the equipment you have, your water quality, your load sizes, your chemical supplier. There's a lot of variability.
Laundry is based on four parts regardless of setup: mechanical action, chemical action, time, and temperature. Those four components all work together to do the cleaning. In a retail environment, there's been a lot of development in cold-water washing — the temperature reduction is really being compensated by advances in detergent chemistry.
A thing we always talk to our customers about is having control over your laundry process. It's more than just putting linens in a washing machine and turning it on. When your guest checks out, sorting and inspecting those linens is really key. Do not wash sheets and towels together. When you're stripping beds, look for stains — if there are stains, isolate them and potentially treat them before they go into the wash process.
In my experience, I've seen a lot of rental properties where the instructions say strip all the beds and put everything in the washing machine. We really prefer that your professional team be the ones to strip the bed, because that gives them the opportunity to start that inspection process. They can also ensure the washer isn't overloaded and that the chemistries are put in before starting.
Chemical use is pretty straightforward. On a retail side, it's about using the right detergents. If it's a front-loading washer, make sure you're using the right HE detergent — especially if you're in a property with soft water. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations.
On load levels: it's very common for people to overload washers. They're really designed for good mechanical action, and when you overload, you lose that benefit. For a front-loading washer, load loosely to just about the top — don't pack them in. When the washer is running, if it's turning clockwise, you want to see the linen start dropping around the 10 o'clock position. If it's counterclockwise, around 1 o'clock. That's where you're getting a lot of your cleaning.
Cotton is hydrophilic by nature — 8 to 10% of its weight is actually water. When you over-dry it, you're pulling that moisture out and it becomes brittle pretty quickly. Every retail washer has multiple settings for specific reasons. Don't over-dry. And if you do see staining on products, we've got some tips coming up on how to reclaim that product.
Now let's do one more poll. What chemical does most of the actual cleaning in the wash process?
So it was a pretty interesting 50/50 split — about 57% picked water, 43% detergent. I'm going to give this group a lot of credit, because most people don't pick water, and that is absolutely the right answer. Water is the mechanical action — it's the water sloshing through your fabric that's actually pushing soils out and flushing them off the surface. All the other things absolutely help, but water is the key.
Detergents do two critical things. First, they reduce the surface tension of water — we always say detergent makes water wetter. That allows water to actually penetrate through your products more easily. Second, detergents grab onto soils, cling to them, and then once you start draining, carry that soil down the drain so it doesn't redeposit on your product.
I'll turn it over to Ben to give you some of the common laundry headaches we've seen.
Ben Robers: All right. Today I'll be talking about common laundry headaches.
On whiteness — everybody sees colors differently, and most people think white is white, but there are a lot of variations. With our products, we have a whiteness standard. All of our products get manufactured and read with a spectrophotometer. We have different tolerance levels to ensure consistent whiteness. If you're making a bed, you don't want your pillowcases to be a different shade of white than your top sheet.
On color loss and fading — if you are laundering colored items, you don't want to use chlorine bleach. Peroxide bleach like OxiClean is color safe.
Wrinkling really comes into play during the drying process. If you take all the moisture out, it basically shrinks up and shrivels that cotton, and you're going to have surface wrinkles. If you're drying at too high a temperature, those wrinkles are going to be harder to get out. Think about an iron with a steam press — it's the water saturating those fibers that loosens them up and gives you that nice clean pressed look.
On hand feel: if you take all that moisture out, your fibers are going to become really brittle. Softener can help, but softener also reduces the absorbency of towels. If you don't over-dry and keep that good moisture content, you'll have a towel that lasts a long time and maintains that softness.
Ken: I can add to that — especially on the hotel side, they tend to really want to get this done as quickly as possible and they overdry, and the hand starts to deteriorate quickly. Also, if you overload, those sheets can't open up and twist properly. If you're looking at a front-loader and you see your products just plastered against the glass and not moving, that's what we don't want to see — that'll actually increase wrinkling as well.
Ben: Yeah, so it's really a holistic look — load sizes, temperatures, times, moisture content, all factor into how your product ultimately looks. Don't be afraid to bring stuff out of the dryer when it's a little damp. That's a common thing we tell people. If the hems are slightly damp on your sheets, or the towels are just a little damp, that's okay — that's actually what we want to see. Let the product rest. Give it 24 hours, put it on the bed, it'll dry within a few hours. It actually helps the product.
Ken: Especially in dry climate areas. If you're in Arizona, it's almost impossible to regain moisture from the air. In Savannah, Georgia, it's a lot easier. When you allow your sheets to sit and regain moisture over 24 to 48 hours, they'll actually last much longer.
Ben: It basically allows the cotton to rest and reabsorb that moisture. It's just better overall health for the cotton.
On product size — you don't want a hand towel on one side of the bathroom and another hand towel that's 6 inches different in size. We have standardized sizing and our shrinkage rates are pretty consistent, so that towel is going to look the same size a year from now as the day you bought it. Also, especially with these pillow-top or lofted mattresses, when you're looking at your fitted sheet size, take that into account as well.
Ben: So, poll time. What is the most common and problematic hospitality stain?
Greg: That's an easy one. I bet if we had added blood as a potential stain, that would be high on this list as well.
Ben: Yeah. Makeup and blood. There are two different types of stains, and that's really key when you're stain-treating — you want to evaluate what the stain actually is. Is it an oil-based stain like makeup? Is it a protein-based stain like blood? Those will be treated differently.
Simple Green is a great stain remover for oil-based stains like makeup. It's technically a degreaser, but it takes that oily substance and breaks it loose from the fibers. For blood, really simple: hydrogen peroxide. Put some on, and that blood will start to bubble up and denature. One thing to be cautious of — don't use hot water on blood because that will set it in. Use cooler or lukewarm water, anything up to 98 degrees. Once you get above that, it kind of sets that stain and clings to the cotton.
Greg: And people may not know this, but hydrogen peroxide is basically what's in Clorox 2. Clorox is chlorine-based. Clorox 2 is hydrogen peroxide. So if you end up bleaching with Clorox 2, it will remove blood much easier than regular bleach.
Ben: Correct. And then the 3-strike rule: when you're stripping the beds, if you notice a stain, go ahead and pre-treat it. Get it into laundry as fast as possible. The quicker you treat it and get it laundered, the more successful you're going to be in removing that stain. Take it out of the washer, still notice it's there — retreat it and wash it again. After the second or possibly third time, if it's still not out, there's really not much point in wasting the time, the chemicals, and everything else.
Ken: Yeah, especially on a washcloth — at some point you're spending more money trying to get the stain out than it costs to replace the product. The 3-strike rule is pretty common in the hotel industry. Wash it once, stain doesn't come out, put it through a retreatment process, try an aggressive reclaim cycle. But if after 3 times it's not out, discard it.
Ben: Moving into types of damage. There are really two types: chemical and mechanical.
Chemical damage — you'll see thin spots start to occur from different chemicals, mainly bleach. Bleach basically deteriorates the cotton, and when you wash it, it flushes all those broken cotton fibers away and leaves you with a thin spot. Chlorine and cotton don't really go together too well. Chlorine oxidizes the cotton, and once you put it through the wash cycle, not only does it take the stain out but it takes half the cotton with it.
Mechanical damage typically shows up as a right-angle or linear tear — that single yarn tearing right where it gets caught on something, whether it's a bed frame, stuck under a couch, or similar. We see a lot of this when guests strip linens off the beds because they're just ripping. That's another reason we never recommend that guests take their beds apart.
End-user abuse — we can't control how products are being used, but we can provide alternatives. Makeup cloths in black are a great option. Washcloths get abused quite often. Snags happen a lot from rings and jewelry.
Greg: I'd add — the average hotel replaces 250% of their washcloth inventory every year. So don't feel bad if you've got a washcloth that's stained beyond repair. You're buying a washcloth, not a bath towel. Have plenty available. Bath towels run about 68% replacement per year. Sheeting is about 38%. There's a significant difference. Make sure you're replacing the low-cost items, not the high-cost items.
Ken: Some top tips for longer-lasting linen.
Pre and post-wash: it truly is important to let your linens rest. Cotton loves water — 8 to 10% of its weight is water — so when it goes through the wash-dry process, giving it time to rest and acclimate back to the environment really does prolong the life of that product. And don't ask guests to strip the beds. It can create unintentional damage, and more importantly, it takes away your team's chance to inspect for stains that might need treatment.
On chemicals: follow the manufacturer's instructions on the bottles. Many detergents are similar, but there are differences. Generic brands tend to have more water, so you're using the same volume but likely not getting the same results. Getting a high-quality detergent really helps, especially with a front-loading washer.
On spotting agents: Simple Green, we've had great success with it on oil-based stains. Shout works well too. Sunscreen is a big problem, especially in vacation areas near the beach. There are chemicals in sunscreen that turn yellow when they hit certain fabrics and get set into the cotton — almost impossible to get out once that happens. Use a degreaser or hydrogen peroxide, spot it, and then wash it. Chlorine bleach as a spot treatment is something we don't recommend — it will damage cotton pretty quickly. Clorox 2, which is hydrogen peroxide-based, is really good on bloodstains.
If you see a stain after the first wash, don't dry it. Hit it again with a spotting agent and rewash. But don't spend a lot of money trying to reclaim stained linen after 2 or 3 attempts — if the stain didn't come out, it's really not worth it.
Washing process: don't wash sheets and towels together. Towels shed a lot of lint, which can lead to cross-contamination on the sheets. And when you put them in the dryer together, your sheets are going to dry really quickly while your towels take longer — so you'll wind up over-drying your sheets. Load to about two-thirds capacity. On a front loader, you want to see that good mechanical action — sheets dropping around the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock position depending on the direction of rotation. On a top loader, loosely pack sheets around the outside and keep them off the agitator, because the agitator is what keeps that water moving.
Don't over-dry. Linens should be slightly damp when you take them out. Use the cool-down cycle, or fold immediately — that minimizes wrinkling. If your hems are slightly damp, just let them sit overnight and they'll actually come out with a nice pressed look.
Greg: One thing I want to add: we often find customers don't know what their stain is. They think it's sunscreen, they think it's blood, but they keep getting it over and over and ruining their textiles. If you get a stain you can't identify, send it to us. We have CORE — that stands for Concept, Operations, Results, and Execution — our in-house lab. We can look at the stains under a microscope, test them against different stain release agents, and give you a report back that says, we think it's this, try using this type of degreaser. We're happy to help.
Ken: One funny story I love to tell — I can't name the hotel, but they kept saying their product was turning from white to gray over time and they didn't know why. They thought it was our product. We said it can't be, because sheets and pillowcases and towels and everything are all turning gray. So I went and visited this big, really prestigious hotel and found that all their peristaltic pumps were clogged and they weren't getting any detergent into their product. We called the chemical manufacturer, they came in and cleared it out, and all their sheets whitened back up as soon as a little detergent was introduced. So a lot of times it's mechanical, sometimes it's chemical. Send it in to us — we'll be happy to help you identify what's going on.
Also, we have available downloads at standardtextile.com under Laundry Lessons — overview of detergents, hygienic processing, how to spot stains. Go use it. It's there as a tool for you and your housekeeping team.
Jeff: A question came in: my makeup cloths get ruined a lot from makeup. Any advice?
Greg: The good news is, if you have a targeted makeup cloth — say it's black and there specifically for makeup — you are replacing a product that's less than $2 versus a bath towel that might be $8 or $9. The other way to solve it is to have disposable makeup remover packets in the rooms. A lot of guests will use those, and it actually makes them feel more comfortable — using a disposable product that hasn't been used before, versus a black washcloth that she knows has been used by many others.
Ken: You could also set up a separate wash process for makeup cloths. Try some Simple Green or Dawn dishwashing liquid — those degreasers can really help break down oil-based stains. Wash them at a slightly hotter temperature to help saponify those oils.
Jeff: Any suggestions for pillowcases or sheets damaged by medication like acne medication?
Ben: It's going to be more like a sunscreen situation — you're likely dealing with an oil or bleach-based ingredient. That would actually be a good example of something to send to us. A normal wash process likely isn't going to take that type of stain out.
Greg: In general, if it's on the human body or in the human body, it's typically an oil-based product. We're carbon-based. And all of the products that work well in the human body are oil-based. So degreasers are there to remove oils. Makeup is made from oil, petroleum products — that's why degreasers work on it so well. People just don't know it.
Jeff: Any thoughts on Costco's detergent?
Ken: I haven't personally used it. At the end of the day, if you're using it and getting good results, that's what matters. Tide is expensive for a reason — the research that goes into it makes it work better in cold-water washing and front-load washers. But I won't say that Costco's detergent isn't as good because I just don't have direct experience with it. If it's working and you're meeting the desired results, it's acceptable. As I said, laundry is more of an art than a science — everyone's a little different.
Jeff: One more question that always comes up: thread count. How important is it?
Greg: There is not a weaving machine that has been invented that can make sheets with single-pick yarns — which are the best way to do it — more than 300 threads per square inch. So if you are buying a T400, T500, T600, or T1000, what the manufacturer is doing is taking really small yarns and winding them together — we call those applied yarns — or they're double-picking the construction, putting two, three, or four yarns under instead of one. That's why your T600 sheets don't feel any better than your T300 sheets.
Retail manufacturers know that people will pay more for higher thread counts, even though those products don't last longer and cost more. We don't sell anything above T300. We don't even really talk about thread count. For example, Centium Satin has a microfilament count of over 12,000 per square inch — but that means nothing to a customer. What we say is: it feels like a T300 or better sheet. If you have any doubt, sew two pillowcases together and wash and dry them repeatedly. You will see certain products like Centium Satin last so much longer than a typical all-cotton T300 sheet. We are big proponents of ignoring thread count and using what gives the guest the best experience.
Jeff: I love that. And honestly, hearing it from you guys just really hits on the misconceptions a lot of people have going into the linen process. My experience operating short-term rentals before this, I made all of the mistakes — bought all the thread counts, over-dried my sheets, pretty much everything you could do wrong. Very happy to have had you guys here. I didn't think I would learn about the hydrophilic nature of cotton today, but I did. Thank you, Ken.
If any members listening have questions about their sheets, laundering practices, or which sheets to buy, we have a great team at Standard Textile that can help answer those questions — not just get you samples, but hop on the phone and talk through your specific situation. Whether you're running residential laundry or moving to a commercial facility, we really recommend speaking with these experts.
Greg: We're happy to talk to you anytime. Feel free to call us, ask for customer service, and we'll be happy to help you with anything you need. Amy and Christy are always available.
Jeff: Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody, for joining and for the participation today. Truly one of the most educational webinars we've done. You guys are true experts. Thank you again for your time and for your partnership.
Greg: Thanks for your partnership, Jeff. We love working with you guys. You are a fantastic customer, and we love all of the HostGPO members.
Jeff: Feeling is mutual. Until next time, thanks everybody.
