I use bleach to sanitise porcelain toilets and wash basins..and if a stain is stubborn on tea towels or linen pillowcases.
There seems to be two types in the shops..a cheap type and a thicker more expensive kind...what kind are you using..?

Country people here in the past would wash their linen then drape it on hedges to let the sun bleach the item..
as a child my Grandmother did this when she made hand towels from flour bags which were made locally at a linen mill.These flour and animal feed bags were superb..she hemed them and they lasted for years..she would add crochet edges for visitors!!
as they aged they grew softer and hardly had a hole appear.of course linen isnt used nowadays for packaging unless occasionaly for costmetics...an idea for soap?
this area was used for flax growing and a cottage industry existed when folks were weavers at home as well as farming.
An ancestor of mine had a linen mill in St Andrews he also had a farm so he prospered due to hard work.