Table linens get used a few times a year, stained at the worst possible moment, and then put away for months with the stains still in them. By the next occasion the marks have set and the creases have become permanent.
It is an easy category to get right and most households do it backwards.
Deal with spills at the table
Not later. Almost every permanent linen stain was fixable for the first ten minutes.
Blot with a napkin, never rub, since rubbing pushes it into the weave and spreads the edge.
Cover what remains with salt. Salt draws liquid up out of the fibers and it works genuinely well on wine, juice, and anything watery. Leave it until you clear the table, then shake it off.
For grease, cover it with bicarbonate of soda instead, which absorbs oil rather than water.
Then get the whole cloth into cold water as soon as the evening allows.
Treating by stain
Wine, cold water and an oxygen bleach soak. Never hot, and never salt left on for days, which sets some dyes.
Candle wax, let it harden, scrape off what lifts with a blunt knife, then place a paper towel over the mark and press with a warm iron so the paper absorbs the wax. Replace the paper and repeat until nothing more transfers.
Grease and butter, dish soap worked in directly, then the warmest wash the fabric allows.
Coffee and tea, cold rinse from the back of the fabric so the stain travels out rather than through, then oxygen bleach.
Anything from a body, cold only. Heat sets protein permanently.
Lipstick, dish soap first since it is largely oil and wax, then oxygen bleach for the colour.
Washing them
Cotton and linen tablecloths take a warm or hot wash and generally want one, because the soils are food, oil, and drink.
Wash them on their own rather than with clothing. They are large, they wrap, and they will trap smaller items inside them.
Do not overload. A tablecloth needs room to move or the middle never sees water.
Skip fabric softener, which coats the fibers and makes linen less absorbent and less crisp.
Oxygen bleach in the wash rather than chlorine bleach, even on whites. Chlorine weakens the fibers and, over repeated use, turns white linen yellow rather than keeping it white.
Drying and pressing
The best result comes from taking linens out of the wash damp and ironing them damp. Linen and cotton press beautifully wet and stubbornly when dry.
If you machine dry, pull them while still slightly damp rather than running them to bone dry, which sets creases hard.
Iron on the reverse for anything with texture or embroidery, so you are not flattening the raised surface.
A little spray starch on cotton gives the crispness people associate with a properly set table, and it also makes the next round of stains easier to remove, since it puts a barrier between the spill and the fiber.
Storing them so they come out right
This is where most of the damage happens.
Never store a cloth with a stain in it. Even an invisible one. Sugar and fruit residue oxidises over months into brown marks that appear from nowhere, and those are far harder to remove than the original spill.
Roll rather than fold. A cloth folded on the same lines for a year develops permanent creases along them, and on linen those creases eventually weaken and split. Roll around a cardboard tube, or refold along different lines each time.
Store them somewhere dry and away from light. Sunlight yellows white cotton over time.
Avoid plastic boxes and dry cleaner bags, which trap moisture. Cotton pillowcases or a fabric bag are better.
And keep them off bare wood, which can transfer acids and stain them.
The Westminster part
The dry climate here works strongly in your favour on this one.
Low humidity along the Front Range means linens stored properly do not develop the musty smell or the mildew spotting that plagues them in humid regions. Storage is genuinely easy here.
The trade is creasing. Dry air sets creases harder and makes linen more brittle, so the roll-rather-than-fold advice matters more here than it would somewhere damp, and pressing damp matters more too, since a bone dry cloth in dry air is difficult to get flat.
Altitude adds a small thing worth knowing. Sun at this elevation is intense, and white linen left in a sunny room will yellow noticeably faster than the same cloth stored in a dark cupboard. Keep them out of the light.
Hard water is the other factor. Mineral deposits leave white cotton looking dull and grey rather than bright, and people usually respond by bleaching, which makes it worse. Half a cup of washing soda in the wash handles the minerals and does more for brightness than bleach does.
The cloth that will not fit
A full length tablecloth for a large table is a genuinely big item, and it needs room to move plus enough water to rinse food soil completely out rather than around.
The machines at our self-service laundry on Harlan Street have the drum size for a banquet cloth to tumble freely, which a domestic machine cannot give it.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Our wash-dry-fold service handles the everyday laundry while you deal with the good linen.
The short version
Blot and cover spills with salt at the table, or bicarbonate of soda for grease, then get the cloth into cold water the same evening. Use cold water and oxygen bleach for wine and anything from a body, dish soap for grease, and the iron-and-paper-towel method for candle wax. Never use chlorine bleach on linen, since it weakens fibers and yellows whites over time. Iron while damp, because linen presses well wet and badly dry. And never store a cloth with a stain in it, even an invisible one, since sugar residue oxidises into brown marks over months.
WaveMAX Westminster is at 8879 Harlan St, easy to reach from Westminster and the surrounding north metro. If a cloth is too big for your machine, call us at 303-993-7153.