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Protocol
Method steps
- Find the source first Smell the empty washer drum, gasket and detergent drawer. If the machine smells musty, it is re-soiling every load — clean it (see below) before you blame the clothes.
- Pre-soak with an acid OR a base Soak 30 minutes in 1 part white vinegar to 4 parts cool water, or soak in baking soda and water (Whirlpool's recipe for tough food odours: 1 cup in 4 cups of hot water for around four hours, where the care label allows hot water). Use one or the other, never both at once — acid and base neutralise each other. Turn garments inside out so the soak reaches the underarms and collar.
- Pick the wash temperature by fabric Cottons and towels: 60 °C (140 °F). Synthetics: warm, about 40 °C (104 °F). Wool and silk: cold, on a wool/delicate cycle. Real microbial reduction needs roughly 50–60 °C (122–140 °F) or an oxygen-bleach booster.
- Wash with enzyme detergent plus oxygen bleach Dose the enzyme detergent to the load size and add a scoop of oxygen bleach (it needs warm or hot water to activate). Add an extra rinse to clear residue, which itself traps smell.
- Dry promptly and fully Line-dry in the sun where you can, or tumble-dry only once the smell is gone. Dryer heat can make remaining odour harder to remove, and mould risk rises if damp fabric isn't dried within 24–48 hours.
- Clean the machine if the smell returns Run a hot tub-clean cycle with oxygen bleach or a machine cleaner, wipe the front-load gasket and the detergent drawer, and leave the door ajar between washes so the drum dries.
To get smell out of clothes, pre-soak the smelly zone with vinegar or baking soda, rinse, then wash as warm as the label allows with enzyme detergent and oxygen bleach. If odour returns after one wear or smells musty from the drum, clean the washer before repeating laundry treatments.
Clothes smell because bacteria living in the fabric feed on sweat, dead skin and sebum — your skin’s natural oil — and give off volatile acids as they go. That is why a shirt can smell clean out of the wash and sour again within an hour of wearing it: the wash left some bacteria behind. It also explains why your gym kit is the worst offender. Polyester and other synthetics are hydrophobic (water-repelling), so they hold more sebum — and the bacteria that feed on it — than cotton, and the smell can regenerate faster. Removing it means clearing the oils and reducing the microbes behind the odour — which is exactly what the routine below is built to do.
Quick diagnostic: match the smell to the cause
Do this before adding another product. Most failed odour treatments fail because they treat every smell as “musty laundry” when the cause is different.
Care tag first: Read the care tag before any odour method, and consider testing a small, hidden area (Whirlpool).
- Sweat or body oil
- Do: Wash with an odour-fighting detergent with enzymes.
- Stronger: Hot water or a Sanitize cycle may help, only if the care tag allows it.
- Whirlpool
- Musty or damp
- Wet clothes that take too long to dry may develop a musty smell.
- Do: Don’t leave it sitting wet; dry it thoroughly before folding.
- Window: EPA: dry damp materials within 24–48 hours to limit mould growth.
- Whirlpool; US EPA
- Smoke
- Do: Wash, smell it, and wash again until the smoke odour is gone.
- Don’t: Machine-dry it while it still smells of smoke; that may set the odour.
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
- The washer itself smells
- Residue buildup and a mildewy smell inside the washer can transfer odours to clothes.
- Do: Clean the washer and dryer routinely to help keep them smelling fresh.
- Whirlpool
- Never together
- Chlorine bleach with vinegar or ammonia: the gases can injure lungs (CDC).
- Vinegar with baking soda: the acid and base cancel each other out (Tide).
| Symptom | Most likely source | First test | Best first fix | Stop rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sour towel / mildew | Damp fabric or washer biofilm | Smell the empty drum and gasket | Clean the washer, then vinegar soak | If the washer smells, treat the machine before the clothes |
| Armpit/body odour | Skin oil plus bacteria in underarms | Turn the shirt inside out and smell the seam | Enzyme or baking-soda paste on the zone | Do not tumble-dry until the smell is gone |
| Gym “permastink” | Polyester holding sebum | Check if cotton shirts in the same load smell fine | Lipase enzyme soak, warm wash, no softener | If it survives two enzyme/oxygen cycles, call it fibre-set |
| Smoke | Volatile odours in the fibre | Air outside for several hours first | Wash, smell it, and wash again until the odour is gone | Do not machine-dry while it still smells of smoke |
| Chemical/perfume | Detergent, softener or storage residue | Rub fabric when damp and check for suds or perfume | Fragrance-free detergent plus extra rinse | Repeat rinsing until suds stop appearing |
For polyester gym kit that keeps the underarm smell after normal washing, a dedicated sport laundry detergent↗ is a better second step than adding scent beads or more fabric softener.
What you’ll need
Most of this is already in the kitchen. The two workhorses are an enzyme detergent (the enzymes break skin oils into rinsable fragments) and oxygen bleach (it releases hydrogen peroxide in water to oxidise odour compounds and microbes, while avoiding chlorine bleach).
Enzyme / 'biological' detergent — look for lipase, which targets the body oils that hold stale smell
Oxygen bleach — sodium percarbonate, plain or blended like OxiClean; chlorine-free, but still care-label dependent
White distilled vinegar (5% acetic acid) — not cleaning vinegar or apple-cider vinegar
Baking soda — a mild base for a soak; its odour benefit is untested by Consumer Reports
A basin or bucket for soaking
For anything that has soaked up smell over time, oxygen bleach is the product worth keeping in the cupboard. The honest downside: it works slowly (a soak, not a quick wipe), it works best in warm, label-safe water, and it is not the route for wool or silk unless a care label explicitly permits bleach.
How to get the smell out, step by step
1. Find the source first
Before you treat a single garment, open the empty washer and smell the drum, the rubber door gasket and the detergent drawer. If the machine itself smells musty, it is re-soiling every load — no amount of detergent on the clothes will fix that. Clean the machine first (step 6), then wash.
2. Pre-soak with an acid OR a base
Pick one: soak for 30 minutes in 1 part white vinegar to 4 parts cool water, or in baking soda and water — Whirlpool’s recipe for tough food odours is 1 cup in 4 cups of hot water for around four hours, where the care label allows hot water. Vinegar (an acid) neutralises alkaline odours and strips residue. Baking soda (a base) is the less proven option: Consumer Reports’ laundry expert notes claims that it helps with odours but says Consumer Reports has not tested them. Do not use them together in the same step — as Tide’s own laundry guide notes, the acid and base simply neutralise each other and you lose both effects. Turn garments inside out so the soak reaches the underarms and collar where smell concentrates.
3. Pick the wash temperature by fabric
Temperature is the lever most guides leave vague. Laundry-hygiene research points to stronger microbial reduction around 50–60 °C (122–140 °F); a cold 30 °C wash can leave more odour-causing residue behind.
- Cottons, towels, bedding: 60 °C (140 °F).
- Synthetics and activewear: warm, about 40 °C (104 °F) — they cannot take 60 °C.
- Wool and silk: cold, on a wool or delicate cycle. Never hot.
When you cannot use heat, let oxygen bleach or a laundry sanitiser do the microbial work at a lower temperature instead.
4. Wash with enzyme detergent plus oxygen bleach
Dose the enzyme detergent to the load size — more is not better; excess residue itself traps smell. Add a scoop of oxygen bleach when the care label allows it and run an extra rinse. The enzymes digest the skin oils; the oxygen bleach helps oxidise what is left and reduce the microbes.
5. Dry promptly and fully
Line-dry in the sun where you can — daylight helps freshen fabric — or tumble-dry only once the smell is gone. Dryer heat can make remaining odour harder to remove. And do not leave the wash sitting damp: the EPA notes that mould risk rises if damp materials aren’t dried within 24–48 hours, which is the musty, wet-towel smell starting over.
6. Clean the machine if the smell returns
If clean clothes keep coming out musty, the machine is the source. Run a hot tub-clean (maintenance) cycle with oxygen bleach or a dedicated machine cleaner. On a front-loader, wipe inside the folds of the rubber door gasket and pull out the detergent drawer to rinse it. Then leave the door ajar between washes so the drum dries instead of breeding bacteria. Once a month keeps it from coming back.
By odour type
- Musty / mildew: this is mould on damp fabric. Soak 30 minutes in 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water, then wash hot with oxygen bleach. Check the machine and dry fully — mildew is usually a moisture problem.
- Stored or thrifted clothes: air them outside first, then run the vinegar soak and a hot enzyme wash; oxygen bleach lifts the stale, closed-up smell.
- Sweat / body odour: turn inside out, pre-soak with baking soda or an enzyme detergent, and wash as warm as the fabric allows, as soon as you can after wearing.
- Workout / activewear (permastink): the hardest case — see the FAQ. Lipase enzyme soak, no fabric softener, warm wash; accept that some elastane-heavy odour may be fibre-set.
- Smoke / cigarette: one wash may not remove smoke odour. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension says to smell the items after each wash and wash again until the odour is gone, and not to machine-dry them while they still smell of smoke, which may set the odour. Air-dry outdoors.
Which odour remover should you use?
Do not stack every pantry product in one bucket. Pick the remover that matches the problem, rinse, then move to the next step only if the smell remains.
| Product | Best for | Use it how | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| White vinegar | Musty, stale, smoke and alkaline smells | Diluted pre-soak, then rinse before detergent | Mixing with bleach or baking soda in the same step |
| Baking soda | A smell that survives a detergent wash (Texas A&M) | Soak in baking soda and water, then wash again | Treating it as a detergent replacement |
| Enzyme detergent | Body oils, underarms, collars, activewear | Direct pre-treat or full wash | Wool/silk if the label forbids enzymes |
| Oxygen bleach | Musty cotton, towels, bedding, set-in odour | Warm soak or booster, label permitting | Wool, silk, leather, or chlorine mixing |
| Extra rinse | Detergent or softener residue | Add after the main wash | Adding more scent to residue |
The sequence matters more than the shopping list. A vinegar soak can loosen residue; an enzyme wash removes skin oils; oxygen bleach knocks down microbes and stale compounds; an extra rinse clears what the wash lifted. Using all of them at once mostly wastes product and increases the chance of residue.
When not to soak
Skip long soaking when the fabric is the weak point. Wool, silk, leather trim, rayon, dark unstable dyes and dry-clean-only labels do not belong in a hot bucket of booster. For those, spot-test a hidden seam, keep water cool, and use airing, steaming or a professional clean before you escalate. Also avoid soaking anything with metal trims that can rust or glued decorations that can soften. Odour removal is still a fabric-care decision: the strongest treatment is only useful if the garment survives it.
Deodorise clothes you can’t wash
For dry-clean-only or delicate items, you can reduce surface odour without a wash: air the garment in sunlight, hang it in a steamy bathroom or steam it, sprinkle baking soda on the dry fabric and shake or vacuum it off after several hours (not on wool, cashmere or silk: Tide says baking soda’s high pH can damage those protein fibres), or mist lightly with a 1-to-4 vinegar–water solution and let it dry. Be honest about the limit — this freshens, but only a wash (or the dry cleaner) clears the bacterial source.
Masking is not removing
Scent beads, fabric softener and dryer sheets perfume the smell — they do not reduce the microbial source. Use them last, for a finish, not instead of a label-safe enzyme wash. If a garment smells fresh from the cupboard but sour an hour into wearing, the source was masked, not removed.
Hard water hides here
Hard water blunts detergent, so less of it reaches the soil and more residue stays behind — a quiet cause of lingering odour. If your water is hard, add an extra rinse or a water softener to the wash.
Myth: hot water 'sets' odour into synthetics
Not on sturdy, label-safe fabrics. Around 50–60 °C (122–140 °F), heat supports stronger microbial reduction. What heat genuinely sets is protein stains (blood, egg, sweat marks), and it damages wool, silk and elastane — which is the real reason to keep those fabrics cool, not a reason to wash a smelly cotton shirt cold.
- Never mix chlorine bleach with vinegar, ammonia or any other cleaner. The CDC warns that combining bleach with vinegar or ammonia — or applying heat to a bleach mixture — releases chlorine and chloramine gases that can cause severe lung damage. Use one product at a time and rinse between products.
- For odour, reach for label-safe oxygen bleach (chlorine-free), not chlorine bleach. In a poisoning emergency, follow local poison-control or emergency-service guidance.
- Do not combine vinegar and baking soda in the same step — the acid and base neutralise each other and you lose both effects. Use one, rinse, then the other if needed.
If it still smells
Work up the ladder: repeat the enzyme pre-soak; then an overnight oxygen-bleach soak; then a full “laundry strip” (a long hot soak in oxygen bleach and a little detergent to pull out built-up residue). If a synthetic garment still smells after all that, the odour may be effectively fibre-set; more harsh cycles may do more damage than good. That is the trade-off of stretchy, sweat-wicking fabrics.
For the temperatures behind these steps, see our laundry temperature guide, and for keeping wool and silk safe, our guides to washing a wool sweater and washing silk.