# How to Get Smell Out of Clothes (Sweat, Musty, Smoke) > Get sweat, musty and smoke smells out of clothes with a vinegar or baking-soda soak, the right temperature, oxygen bleach and enzymes — and clean your machine. **Published :** 2026-06-03 · **Updated :** 2026-06-05 --- **Summary:** 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. Odour is a biology problem, not a fragrance one: bacteria feed on the sweat and skin oils trapped in fabric and release the volatile acids you smell. So the fix is to remove that food and reduce the microbial load — heat, enzymes and oxygen bleach — not to layer scent on top. 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. | 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 or thrift-store stale | Volatile odours in the fibre | Air outside for several hours first | Long vinegar soak, then enzyme wash | Do not use fragrance beads as the main treatment | | 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 acidic odours like sweat - 🪣 - **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. **Recommended product** ## 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 **½ cup baking soda** dissolved in warm water. Vinegar (an acid) neutralises alkaline odours and strips residue; baking soda (a base) neutralises acidic odours like sweat. 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:** soak in equal parts white vinegar and warm water for at least an hour (overnight for heavy smoke), then wash. 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 | Sour sweat and acidic odours | Dissolved pre-soak or small wash booster | 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, dust the inside with baking soda and brush it off after an hour, 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. > 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 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. > 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. > **Warning:** > - 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](/blog/laundry-temperature-guide/index.md), and for keeping wool and silk safe, our guides to [washing a wool sweater](/blog/wash-wool-sweater-without-shrinking/index.md) and [washing silk](/blog/wash-silk-without-ruining-it/index.md).