If you’ve invested in high-quality towels so your guests can have the best experience at your Airbnb, it can be quite frustrating when you find your nice Turkish towels stained with makeup. These stains, if not treated ASAP, can leave a lasting mark.
Use these helpful and proven tips we’ve put together to remove and prevent makeup from ruining your Airbnb towels.
How To Remove Makeup Stains From White Towels
Even if you provide makeup remover wipes, cloths, or special towels for removing makeup, you may still come across mascara or foundation residue on your hand or bath towels. Though it might seem that the damage has already been done, you shouldn’t give up on your white towels just yet.
Here are a few actions you can take to remove those pesky stains:
- Treat the stains as soon as possible.
- Use a stain removal product like OxiClean immediately and let it soak for 1-6 hours before running the towels through a warm wash cycle with detergent.
- Another powerful solution is mixing 1 cup baking soda, 2 quarts hot water, and 1/4 cup liquid laundry detergent and soaking the towels overnight. Make sure to then wash the towel in the hottest setting and add oxygen bleach or OxiClean to the wash.
- If the stain is still present after the first washing cycle, don’t dry the towels but repeat the soaking (maybe even let them soak overnight).
- For mascara stains, try dabbing them with liquid dish detergent, and do some vigorous rubbing followed by a warm water rinse.
- For foundation stains, spray shaving foam (not gel), on both sides of the towel, rub the stain, and rinse under warm water. Repeat the process as many times as needed until the stain disappears.
You can apply the same stain-removal actions to remove makeup stains from your white bedding and linens as well.
How To Prevent Makeup Stains on Towels
Prevention is always the best remedy, so taking a few steps to ensure minimal damage to your towels is definitely worth the trouble.
Sometimes guests just need a little nudge in the right direction to stop reaching for your white towels to remove their makeup. To stop guests from staining your towels, we offer these solutions:
Have Separate Makeup Removal Towels – Providing dark towels that are specially designed for makeup removal can keep your guests away from your white hand towels.
Supply Makeup Remover Wipes – You can also provide your guests with makeup remover wipes. Individually packed makeup remover wipes are best for Airbnb.
Put Up a Sign – Set up a friendly reminder for your guests in the bathroom not to use white towels for makeup. You’ll find a variety of options on Etsy, such as this ‘Help us keep our towels white and bright’ sign.
What Is the Best Towel Color for Makeup Removal?
We suggest getting black towels for makeup removal since they will do the best job of hiding stains. This Little Black Towel from Megan Graham Beauty is gentle on the face and durable, and you can use bleach on it to tackle any stains that manage to power through. The embroidered ‘makeup’ text will make it crystal clear to guests what the towels are for.
These towels are also much cheaper than hand or bath towels, so even if you need to replace them, it won’t be as costly as buying new full-sized towels.
Final Thoughts
If you add black makeup towels or makeup remover wipes and put up a nice little sign, there’s a very slim chance that guests will keep using the white towels for makeup removal. Even if this clever prevention method fails, you can always use the above-mentioned tips to remove those makeup stains for good!
