After being washed many times and used for a long time, all linen will have a limited life span. It can become stained or damaged. Some hotel linen might have yellow rust spots and black oil stains due to poor management and poor operation. These linen should be removed from service and replaced with new linen. It will negatively impact the quality of your hotel and ultimately lead to poor reviews and low occupancy rates.
So what actually causes the damage of your hotel linen?
We have summarised the below four reasons that contributed to your diminishing linen:
Improper washing method
The physical process of cleaning and washing linen can damage the linen in time. The beating action caused by domestic washing machines or commercial dry-cleaning machine damages and breaks fibres of the linen during strong spinning cycles.
Using too much bleach
Although white linens are commonly used in hotel, but you should avoid using bleach as much as possible. Commercial laundry services will also advise you that bleaching can only be done if the stain is too difficult to remove using detergent alone. Even stains made from protein such as blood and sweat will not need bleaching in most cases unless the stain has been dried for several days. Bleaching linen too often can deteriorate its life span. Of course, bleaching is compulsory to make linen stays white, hence you have to control the amount of bleach liquid used.
High temperature
Some people may think high temperature will be able to sanitise the dirty linens. However, the temperature, regardless the washing machine or dryer, could cause linen to shrinks up to 10% after several washes.
Unpleasant linen storage environment
The main concerns that can damage linen products during storage include environment with excessive moisture, pests and sunlight as linen prefer a cool, dark, and well-ventilated area way from sunlight. Also, using plastic or carton boxes to store linen is a big mistake because it is prone to make linen to becoming yellowish in time.
Because of how costly it can be to replace them; it is a good idea to keep your existing linens in top condition for as long as possible. Carefully managing how hotel linens are washed and stored is a key part of ensuring a longer useful life.