A hotel’s reputation relies on clean linens. Overnight guests expect to sleep in clean sheets and dry off with crisp towels. So what detergent do hotels use to make this happen? The answer is complicated.
Hotels process a lot of laundry on an average day. Often, they use industrial machines that rely on a very specific type of detergent that dumps into the machine at the proper point in the wash cycle. Since these products are made for commercial markets, they’re hard to find in an average grocery store.
Oftentimes, the best move for those who run short-term rentals is to use a professional laundering or rental service like Alsco Uniforms. This type of service makes it easy to provide renters with the crisp, clean, fresh linens they expect. Here’s what you need to know.
How Does Detergent Work?
Hotels can choose from dozens of commercial laundry detergents. They may have slightly different attributes, but they all use similar principles to get linens clean.
The Royal Society of Chemistry explains that laundry detergents contain surfactants (like alkyl sulfate) that surround oil and grease on fabrics. Once the contaminants are surrounded, they lift away from the fabric and wash down the drain.
Some laundry detergents also contain ingredients that release hydrogen peroxide during the wash cycle, bleaching out unwanted stains and odors. Advanced detergents may contain added elements that allow hydrogen peroxide to work at lower temperatures, so a hot-water wash isn’t required.
Laundry detergent you use at home may contain many of these same elements. However, commercial detergents are designed for commercial washers. They rarely work in the washers found in the average family home.
Understand the Role of Washing Machines
The standard hotel processes a staggering amount of laundry. As one analyst explains, the average hotel room produces 15 pounds of laundry in one day. That means a hotel with 100 rooms must clean about 1,500 pounds of laundry every day. While a home washer could buckle under the pressure, a commercial or industrial washer will not.
As a manufacturer points out, industrial washers are so large and powerful that they can take on multiple loads in one wash cycle. They also include special features like steam injection to ensure that the wash gets clean. They need detergent, of course, but their speed and added features are largely responsible for the cleanliness of the products they wash.
Industrial washers require a lot of space, since they’re big enough to take on multiple loads of laundry at once. They also need special intake plumbing to supply them with water and advanced draining to remove all of the wastewater they generate. These aren’t the types of machines the average homeowner can install, even if that person is running a rental Airbnb property and wants clean linens.
What Detergent Do Hotels Use?
The average hotel uses a very technical laundry detergent that combines several ingredients that are pushed into the wash at a regulated point in the cycle. These products are not appropriate for home washing machines, and they may not get your loads as clean as you’d like as a result. However, there are workarounds.
For personal laundry at home, you can choose a laundry detergent that has multiple stain-fighting ingredients, including those that activate at cool temperatures. Skip products with a strong scent and opt for those that promise ultimate cleaning power.
If all of your wash items are white, consider adding bleach. If you’ve never used bleach before, consult your machine’s manual and determine if you should add it to a special drawer or drum in the machine before you get started.
If the finished product doesn’t seem quite right, call your favorite hotel and ask what type of laundry detergent they use. Look up the product and search for information about its scent. You may find a home-based product that’s so similar that your guests will be fooled.
But if you run a rental property, it’s often best to leave the laundering to the professionals. You’ll get better results, frequently for a lower price than it will cost you to do it on your own.
Why Does Cleanliness Matter?
Cleanliness is one of the top secrets to luxurious bed linens. Consumers are offended when they pay for a room rental that is packed with less than stellar sheets and towels.
A study conducted in 2023 highlights why clean linens are critical to a hotel or rental’s success. In this study, 327 hotel guests were asked about their visit, including their cleanliness expectations. They found a close connection between how clean the rooms were and how much the clients expected cleanliness. About 19% of the variation in satisfaction scores could be tied to linen quality alone.
Cleanliness is so important that it’s smart to do periodic spot checks of rentable rooms. If the sheets, towels, blankets, and other linens have stains, smell bad, or otherwise just don’t seem clean, it’s time to revise your policies and procedures. It’s worth the investment to ensure that your rental’s linens look, feel, and smell great.
Keep Your Guest Laundry Clean & Fresh
Big hotels and small Airbnb rentals need clean linens. Customers expect freshness, and they’ll penalize a company’s reputation when it’s missing. Alsco Uniforms can help.
We offer linen rentals, so you always have sheets, towels, and other linens clean and ready to go. If linens are torn, stained, or otherwise in disrepair, we take them out of rotation, ensuring your linens always look pristine.
If you don’t want to rent linens, we also offer laundering services that can both save time and reduce your costs. We work with companies both large and small, and we’d love to add you to our client list. Contact us to find out more about how we can simplify your processes for you.
References
The Science Behind the Suds. (February 2024). Royal Society of Chemistry.
Efficiency and Technology Key to Laundry. (May 2018). Hotel Business.
What Is the Difference Between Commercial and Industrial Washers? Yamamoto North America.
Innovations Are Wringing Savings from Laundry Departments. (March 2020). Hotelier.
Using Bleach in Laundry. American Cleaning Institute.
Linen Quality and Guest Satisfaction in Star-Rated Hotels in Upper East Region of Ghana. (May 2023). Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.
“To Clean or Not to Clean?” Reducing Daily Routine Hotel Room Cleaning by Letting Tourists Answer This Question for Themselves. (September 2019). Journal of Travel Research.