What might be causing orange stains on my towels?

Question

Light blue towels, go in washing machine (which is around 12 months old) separately to everything else so I can wash them a bit hotter (towels get battered in my house!). Suddenly, a number of the handtowels (6 months old or less) have these bright orange blobs on them! It looks awful and unsightly, considering they're hand towels! I wouldn't want to dry my hands on them if they weren't my own because the stains look pretty nasty! I don't understand. I've tried Ace bleach and Vanish but the stains aren't coming out...

Any ideas?

Answer 1

could it be rust stains?

Answer 2

use that special powder for sane,it is may helpful

Answer 3

Are you using oxy clean?  I used it on my purple towels and they came out with big spots all over them.

Answer 4

I had the same situation happen in my house. Turns out it was my teenage son using a peroxide based acne facial cleanser and it was actually a bleach spot. Since yours are hand towels, could this be the case? If so, nothing you can do for them, it's permanant. However, I would run out and get some white hand towels just for this person, or get rid of the facial wash.

Answer 5

Have you been on holiday with them and maybe flown with Easyjet

Answer 6

Its from your dryer, I think it might be the heat.

Answer 7

Did you wash something prior to their load with chlorine bleach?  Sometimes if the bleach doesn't all rinse out from the previous load it can get on the next load items.  If this is the case, you won't get the stains out.  Next time save any bleaching for the last load.

Answer 8

carrots,sand.??

Answer 9

Could it be rust from your washing machine drum?  I remember the same thing happening to my parents' towels once - they were light blue and ended up with pink stains on them.  I was a teenager at the time, and they blamed me thinking it was makeup, but it turned out to be a problem with the dye when they took them back to the shop.

Answer 10

if you have kids ask them they might know :-) they might of been doing something then wiped there hands on. cos when i was little i used to use my mum towels all the time if i split something that i wasnt meant to be touching

Answer 11

Sounds like it's rust from your washing machine, I had the same problem with white jeans.

I tried all the usual stain removers and nothing worked.

The only thing that finally worked was lemon juice and salt.

Squeeze a lemon over the stain, soaking it, then rub salt into it.

Leave outside in the sun to dry or leave overnight then wash as normal.

Hope this helps.

Answer 12

I get the same orange stain and I found out that it is from the facial soap and shampoo that we used. I changed our facial soap and shampoo and we never have the orange stain since then.