Laundry Stripping 101: How to Deep Clean Your Towels, Linens, and Everyday Laundry

What Is Laundry Stripping?

Laundry stripping is a deep soak that pulls out all the buildup your washer can’t. Over time, things like detergent residue, hard water minerals, body oils, and fabric softeners start to pile up in your fabrics. Even if your laundry looks clean, that gunk is still there, especially in towels, bedding, or anything you wash often.

It’s the reason your towels stop absorbing, or why things smell off even right out of the wash. That buildup can also irritate sensitive skin, trap odors, and even make clothes feel stiff or worn before their time. Most of the time, you don’t even realize it’s happening until the signs become too obvious to ignore.

Stripping goes deeper than your regular cycle. It uses hot water and the right ingredients to break everything down and release it. As the fabrics soak, the water starts to change color, cloudy, brown, sometimes even murky gray. That’s all the hidden buildup finally letting go. It’s gross, yes, but also kind of satisfying. Once it’s done, fabrics feel softer, smell cleaner, and just work better.

Laundry stripping isn’t something you need to do every week, but when you do it at the right time, it can make a huge difference in how your laundry feels, smells, and holds up over time.

Why Modern Washing Machines Can’t Fully Clean Laundry

Modern washing machines are built to save water and energy, which is great for the planet, but not always great for actually getting clothes clean. A few key things get in the way:

• Low water levels. High-efficiency washers use less water by design, which often means your laundry isn’t fully submerged. If the fabrics aren’t soaked all the way through, soap and grime don’t rinse out properly, and residue gets left behind.
• Short cycles. Many machines use quick washes to save time, but they just don’t agitate long enough to break down oils, dirt, or buildup. The surface might look clean, but the deeper gunk stays put.
• Hard water. If your water is high in minerals like calcium and magnesium, it binds to detergent and clings to fabric. Over time, this leaves towels stiff, sheets dull, and whites looking dingy, even when they just came out of the wash.
• Too much detergent. More soap doesn’t mean more clean. In fact, using too much (especially in a low-water wash) makes it harder to rinse everything out. That extra detergent ends up stuck in your clothes, making buildup worse.
• Fabric softeners. These don’t actually clean, they coat your fabrics in a chemical layer to make them feel soft. But that coating locks in dirt and oils, and it kills absorbency, especially in towels and bedding.

Why I Strip My Laundry (and How I Do It with Thieves)

I don’t strip every load. But when towels still smell musty after washing, sheets feel stiff, or my kids’ clothes just don’t feel clean, no matter how often I wash them, I know it’s time to go deeper.

That usually means there’s buildup in the fabric: detergent residue, body oils, minerals from hard water, and fabric softeners that cling to the fibers instead of rinsing away. Over time, that buildup makes fabrics feel rough, trap odors, and lose their ability to absorb. It can also leave behind residues that are hard on sensitive skin.

That’s where stripping comes in. But instead of using the traditional borax-based method, I stick with the products I already trust in our home. Thieves Laundry Detergent is plant-based, ultra-concentrated, and free from dyes, optical brighteners, and synthetic fragrance. It uses natural enzymes to break down buildup and essential oils like lemon, clove, and eucalyptus to leave behind a fresh, clean scent.

Thieves Kitchen & Bath Scrub combines powerful mineral-based ingredients, like washing soda, baking soda, and citric acid, with sodium percarbonate, a natural oxygen brightener that helps lift stains and residue while leaving fabrics visibly refreshed.

I strip laundry because I care about what stays in contact with our skin every day. Using products I trust allows me to clean deeply without relying on harsh chemicals.

My Laundry Stripping Recipe

This method works beautifully on towels, sheets, everyday clothes, anything that feels like it needs a true reset. It helps break down the buildup that regular washing leaves behind. Plan on a 4 to 6 hour soak plus a rinse cycle, so start it on a morning or afternoon when you’ll be home.

Why I Chose Thieves, and Why I Stopped Being Okay with the Alternatives

One of the biggest reasons I switched to Thieves for our laundry was because I finally looked at what was actually in the products we had always used. Conventional detergents, fabric softeners, and dryer sheets are packed with synthetic fragrances, preservatives, surfactants, and optical brighteners, many of which have been linked to skin irritation, hormone disruption, asthma, and long-term environmental harm. And yet, these products are marketed as safe, even gentle.

What I didn’t realize for a long time is that these ingredients don’t just wash away. They cling to fabrics, get absorbed through the skin, hang in the air, and rinse into our water supply. That meant my kids were sleeping in, wearing, and drying off with things that were constantly releasing ingredients I would never choose knowingly.

Once I saw it clearly, I couldn’t unsee it. I wasn’t okay with “normal” anymore, especially not when there were safer, better options that actually worked. I didn’t want to keep masking odors with artificial fragrance or coating clothes with softeners that made them feel clean without actually being clean.

That’s why I started using Thieves. I don’t just use these products because they’re natural, I use them because they reflect the kind of home I want to create. One that’s low-tox, mindful, and built around products that support our health instead of compromising it.

If you’re curious about the exact Thieves products I use throughout our home, from laundry to cleaners to oils, you can explore my full collection right here.