How to Get Fragrance Smell Out from Clothing
How to remove fragrance from clothes: Learn an effective method to eliminate perfume smells from clothing and enjoy fresh, clean baby items and other clothes again.
Equipment
- large bucket/pail
- clothes line outdoors
Materials
- baking soda
- white wine vinegar
- sodium carbonate peroxide powder
- fragrance-free laundry detergent.
Instructions
- Load all the clothes you are removing fragrance from into a large pail or bucket. Sit the pail in your shower/tub, and fill with hot water.
- Add a generous pour of white vinegar and a sprinkling of baking soda. The mixture will begin to foam.
- Using the end of a broomstick or other long stick (to prevent burning your hands in the hot water) stir the mixture thoroughly.
- Allow to sit until the water has fully cooled. Make sure that your bathroom is well ventilated, you will be able to smell the first bits of fragrance evaporating from the clothing & into the air.
- Once fully cooled off, drain the water and squeeze as much water from the clothing as possible. If you still smell a very strong fragrance smell, you can repeat all the steps up to this point one more time.
- Carry the pail to your laundry room, and transfer clothing to your washing machine. Add the fragrance-free laundry detergent, as well as more white wine vinegar, baking soda and about 1 cup of sodium carbonate peroxide powder.
- Wash on the highest temperature that the clothing can handle.
- Once the washing cycle is done, smell the clothing. If the smell is still very strong, you can run the washer one more time.
- Take all the clothes out of the washer and hang outside to dry in the fresh air. If you only smell a little fragrance after completing all the steps, allowing the clothing to dry in the sun will probably do the trick.
- If more fragrance still remains, hang you clothing on the clothes line, and leave it there. Let it get rained on, and let the sun work it's magic afterwards. For pieces that smelled of fragrance very strongly, I left them to outside even for several weeks.
- Smell the clothing regularly. Once you feel that the smell has diminished at least a little bit, take them down and repeat all of the above steps from the beginning.
Notes
Tips
- Sometimes removing fragrance is easier, and sometimes it's more difficult. This depends partly on what type of laundry liquid the previous owner used, how many times the clothing was washed in it but also on the specific materials used in the clothes themselves.
- Some pieces are very easy, and one cycle of the above method is sufficient. Some others are more difficult and require you to repeat the process several times.
- If you still register a small amount of fragrance after going through all the steps above, you can either: 1. Throw in the hat and get rid of that particular piece. 2. Begin using it and continue to wash frequently. This usually does the trick.
- Another helpful tip is to use Borax powder. This is not as common in Europe, but very easy to find in the US. Just add 1 cup of borax to the wash cycle.