How to Wash and Whiten Yellowed Pillows

After leaving your home empty or bringing stuff out of storage, you may find that pillowcases and the pillow's sewn on pillow case look yellow.


She is using a top loading washing machine which is more common in the USA and Asia. In the UK we tend to have front opening machines, and being short of space, we stack the dryer on top.

I am now much more careful about washing pillows and under pillow cases regularly and before I leave the country for a week or more. If you have two homes or put things into storage, you want them to come out clean and usable by yourself or visitors.

Especially if you have matching pillowcases, matching each other or matching the sheet. I had tried just soaking in diluted bleach and that didn't work. (Although pale bleach worked on removing mould from curtains. You might need two or three soaks and lots of scrubbing small stains or edges. Thick coloured bleach which goes down toilets is coloured so adults and children don't accidentally drink it thinking it is water, but has the disadvantage that the dye will colour carpet and clothes it drips on and even the grouting in shower rooms and bathrooms.)

This lady seems to use a mix of products.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.