No matter where you get your from (mine are from John Lewis), they will inevitably become stained and start to grey in colour. My towels had been subjected to mascara marks, fake tan, and blood marks when I've accidentally nipped my ankle while shaving in the shower.

Having been through a normal wash, with the marks still remaining, it was time for a different approach. According to Instagram influencer "Grandma" Babs (@brunchwithbabs), who "always knows best", white towels should be refreshed with and . "Let's whiten and brighten them the natural way," she said on her social media video.

As baking soda and white vinegar are staple cleaning products, I ordered mine online so that I could get white vinegar in a bottle (instead of a spray).

This meant following Grandma Babs instructions were extremely simple to do; on her video, she tells people to load their washing machine and where to put the baking soda and white vinegar.

Using half a cup of baking soda, this goes in the part of the washing machine where the detergent typically goes.

Then half a cup of white vinegar is placed into the automatic fabric softener dispenser.

"If you don't have an automatic fabric softener dispenser, just stop the machine before the rinse cycle and manually add your white vinegar," said Grandma Babs.

The recommendation is to put the washing machine on the "very hottest setting".

On my washing machine, this meant 90C, which also meant a one-hour and 50 minutes hot wash cycle.

Once the hot wash was done, I put on a spin cycle (like I usually do, so that they don't come out of the machine soaking wet).

Then looking at my towels, I was pleased to see that they did indeed look whiter, brighter and cleaner.

In fact, all the stains had been lifted and the towel fibres felt soft to the touch.

While I would have loved to have placed them in a tumble dryer, I simply do not have the space for one.

So just before air-drying them, I gave all the towels a good shake to help loosen up the fibres.

Now I have soft white towels again and it didn't take much effort at all; what a great result.