Removing Odors from Clothing

Hey P..
Vinegar is cheap and useful. I'd recommend that. If that doesn't work, what I use is Odo-Ban - you can get it at Sams. I have a kid who wets the bed a LOT and the pee smell gets on everything - blankets, sheets, clothes, and any clothes that happen to be in the hamper too. Odo-Ban takes it all out really well. It's about $10 a gallon. I'd try the vinegar firstu but remember the Odo-Ban if it doesn't work (vinegar didn't work for us).

In your washing machine, put white vinegar with a few drops of lavender essential oil into the fabric softener dispenser. It works brilliantly. It also makes stinky towels smell fresh again. And, you clothes will not smell like vinegar or lavender--just fresh!

Try pouring 1 Cup of white vinegar in your rinse water. This will also help to remove any detergent that may be lingering from the wash cycle as well.

Lyn M- I agree that Melaleuca has wonderful products. However, you should also warn people that they contain Tea Tree Oil. Believe it or not there are some people that have developed severe allergic reactions to it. I did. I used to sell it until after the birth of my child. Now anything with Tea Tree oil in it causes me to break out in horrible itchy blisters.

P., I used Melaleuca laundry soap for 5 years and it didn't get odors out of laundry for me.
I recommend the vinegar suggestion! I also bought a great laundry detergent called Charlie's Soap. It's on sale now at www.amazon.com and it takes odors out of clothes like no other laundry detergent!

I second the vinegar answer. That's what works if you leave your clothes in the washer and forget about them. It works for the mildewy smell from sitting in the washer so it would probably work for you too. And if they still smell too much like vinegar just run them through again with regular detergent.

Vinegar works excellent to breakdown smells. If you add 1 cup of vinegar to a large load of laundry, wash in hot water, then wash with laundry detergent (I have a kidlet with super bad eczema so we only use Arm and Hammer laundry detergent) whatever you use, and then dry as normal.

I'd go with about 1/4 cup of baking soda in the in the wash with your detergent and vinegar in the rinse cycle - just put it in your liquid softener dispenser about 1/2 cup for a top loader 1/4 cup for a front loader. And just as an FYI, kids resale shops do not wash the clothing; it is supposed to come to them clean from the consignor. I'm guessing the odor is just a combination of clothing coming from many houses and hanging all together that ends up lingering in the fabric.

You can try adding ammonia to the wash water. Ammonia naturally gets out odors and has no odor when it's dry. I'd prewash in ammonia and water only, then wash again in your detergent.

The firefighters will use vanilla in their wash to cut the smoke smell, I'm not sure how much though.

Vinegar! Also putting them in the HOT sun for a day might help as well.

Wash them with a cup of vinegar first, then run the load again with your regular laundry detergent.

The other suggestions may work; however, I would stay clear of the chemicals listed. There are more than enough toxic ingredients in the laundry detergent already, I am sure you don't want to add more.

I suggest using MelaPower Scent Free laundry detergent. If that alone isn't enough to do it you can add Sol-U-Mel to the the load. Both products are safe, non-toxic and are great.

I'd buy Purex concentrated powder detergent with Renuzit odor neutralizer and hang the clothes in the sun to dry, if at all possible. Use 1/2 to 1 cup chlorine bleach on any items that are unlikely to fade or white vinegar if they may fade. Then if you choose to run them through another cycle of your natural detergent, by all means, do. (Any or all of these means will help). And just FYI, one of the best (and CHEAP) food stain spot-removers is L.A.'s Totally Awesome spray available at most 'dollar' stores for a buck a bottle!