When we wash our clothes and linens, we expect them to come out of the dryer clean, fluffy and smelling fresh. We don’t want to be sitting somewhere five hours later, sniffing our clean clothes and thinking, “Am I smelling this?” “.
To get rid of lingering odors in our laundry and to avoid any unhealthy side effects when they come into contact with our skin, we need to understand where they come from and what is effective once morest them.
Here are some common laundry odors, along with ways to get rid of them.
Sweat
Your underarm shirt odor might be from anxiety or from a workout, either way the root cause of the odor might be sweat. Although sweat does not give off an odor on its own, the odor is the result of an interaction between bacteria and secretions from your apocrine gland. The type of fabric you wear can actually make things smell smellier. Microbial growth is much greater with much more odors in synthetic t-shirts.
First, unpack
Leaving tangled clothes in a stuffed gym bag or basket can allow bacteria to grow. Take them out, shake them out, and let the air get to them until you’re ready to wash them.
Then the preprocessing
If regular washing isn’t enough to remove the smell, pre-soak your clothes for half an hour in a 1:4 solution of vinegar and water.
Another effective natural method is to pre-wash with half a cup of baking soda in a sink full of water.
Wash and dry according to label instructions.
Foot odor
Bromodosis, the medical name for foot odor, is not caused by sweaty feet. It is caused by bacteria, often from the Brevibacterium family.
The smell is produced when bacteria break down sweat and dead skin cells on your feet. Foot odor can also be caused by a fungal infection. If you improve your foot hygiene without eliminating the odor, you may need to talk to your doctor.
There are two ways to eliminate foot odor:
Treat your feet
Adopt good foot hygiene by:
washing and drying your feet thoroughly every day
wear moisture-wicking socks (even in winter)
Alternate your shoes so you don’t wear the same pair every day.
Antifungal and antiperspirant sprays can help. There is also evidence that juniper essential oil can help with foot odor. Buy juniper oil here.
Soak your socks
The second way to get rid of unpleasant foot odor is to treat your laundry. If foot odor still clings to your socks following they’ve been washed and dried, try soaking the offending socks in a vinegar bath:
Use two cups of white vinegar per liter of water and soak the socks for 30 minutes.
Rinse off the vinegar and wash them as usual.
Ammonia smell in cloth diapers
If you’re one of the growing number of families using cloth diapers, you may notice a buildup of ammonia smell over time, even following washing the diapers. Ammonia can cause a mild chemical burn, this reaction is more common when babies wear cloth diapers.
To get rid of ammonia buildup, some diaper manufacturers recommend stripping diapers. It simply means that you remove any residue that might trap odors or reduce the absorbency of the diaper.
To strip layers:
Place them in your washing machine and add half a packet of laundry additive
Rinse several times until there is no more “foam”.
You can also use the bathtub for this process.
