You wash your clothes, dry them out but the next thing when you collect them, they do not smell good. Either you could still smell some stinky sweat smell or there is a typical unpleasant smell that comes with clothes that did not dry under the hot sun.
It may help if you use liquid detergents that are advertised to remove odor or bacteria from your clothes. But these liquid detergents are strong and are a little expensive.
Often times I find myself only free to wash my clothes at night. I tend to wash my clothes daily and I prefer to handwash them even though we have the washing machine. In the past, my clothes would smell either musty or upright stinky (especially if I sweat a lot).
Here is what I do that I find is relatively inexpensive and remove odors from my clothes:
I could not afford the expensive liquid detergent like Haiter that could remove odors from clothes. Furthermore, extensive use of such liquid detergent would shorten the lifespan of your clothes because the chemical compound is strong. And if the liquid detergent is not wash off properly, it may cause skin irritation or allergies.
Here is what I do which may be useful if you handwash your clothes:
1. First I will put a little soap powder or liquid soap to rinse off
By nature I sweat a lot and I do often do cleaning. Before I soak my clothes, I would rinse off the sweat twice. The first round I add a little Dettol body liquid soap. Then with clear water before I soak. A lady taught me that before washing very sweaty clothings, to just rinse off the sweat with water ….she herself would rinse off with water twice.
2. I soak my clothes with soap powder and I rub a little Dettol body liquid soap on areas with a lot of sweat such as the armpits and back of clothes. I also put a little in the soapy water as well.
3. Clothes are soaked usually 2 hours or more before I wash them. If you wash your clothes immediately without soaking, your clothes would likely still smell unless you wash them using strong liquid detergent. I rinse them off with 3 rounds of water. It takes time to be able to gauge the right amount of soap powder to use – it is easier to figure out if you soak your clothes compared to washing in a washing machine.
4. After washing, I used to spin dry my clothes for about 2 minutes before hanging them out. But nowadays I just hang the wet clothings and let them drip dry on their own. I find that my clothes does not smell bad even though I wash them at night.
What made the difference:
- 2 rounds of rinsing in water (first round I usually use bath liquid soap like Lux, then wash again in plain water) before soaking for at least 2 hours.
- Using anti bacteria bath liquid soap like from the Dettol brand that is more inexpensive when soaking clothes
I have been using the 2 simple methods for more than 6 months now. It is how I am able to manage to keep the smell out of clothes even though I did my washing at night. I was able to also lower my cost without the need of using expensive liquid detergent. There are some suggestion of using vinegar but I think it is a little corrosive if it is not washed clean and also may damage the fabric.
Do give this method a try. Hopefully it works for you.