How to Get Fabric Softener and Other Fragrances Out of Clothes

If you’re trying to remove fragranced laundry products or perfume residue from clothing this article is going to go over all the methods you can use. These methods can also be used to remove new chemical residues on clothing such as “sizing” chemicals.

Some clothes are easier to deodorize than others. It depends on the fabric type and which type of detergent, fabric softener, or dryer sheets were used. If the clothing is 100% cotton or linen, then it’s easier to remove fragrance. Synthetic fabrics are more difficult to mitigate. It also depends on your level of sensitivity and sense of smell – the extremely sensitive may not be able to remove a high amount of fragrance (especially from synthetic clothing) thoroughly enough.

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How far you have to go depends very much on the person and how heavily scented the item is. For most people this is the formula I would use:

Start with a few days of airing in the sun, then pre-soak in baking soda, wash in Charlie’s Laundry Soap with added washing soda, do a rinse, soak in vinegar, then finish with an extra rinse.

You can repeat the process if this didn’t work the first time. If that still doesn’t get the scent out enough for your standards consider other methods on this list next.

I would next freeze the item, after that, I would consider a soak in alcohol or ammonia, and then consider a soak in milk as described below.

Highly sensitive folks should not put the item in their own washing machine or dryer until the scent is just about gone (wash by hand instead).

The following methods have been vetted by the chemically sensitive for removing fragranced products from clothing:

1. Sun – Use the power of the sun and hang clothes outside for prolonged periods of time to help remove chemical odors. Be sure to hang the clothes inside out.
2. Charlie’s Laundry Powder – I don’t know why this works better than other laundry detergents but it does. Sensitive folks recommend Charlie’s Laundry Powder as your laundry soap.
3. Baking soda and vinegar – Soak the clothes in baking soda and water overnight followed by a soak in straight vinegar the next day. Then wash with laundry soap. (Some people do this the opposite way, soak in vinegar first then wash with baking soda added to the wash). One person soaks clothes for more than a week in straight vinegar (or almost straight vinegar). Changing it out several times and washing the items in between.
4. Washing Soda – Soak the clothes in washing soda or add washing soda to your wash. If you do a soak with a lot of washing soda, be sure to rinse with vinegar to remove that slimy feeling.
5. Alcohol: you can spray straight vodka on your clothing and let it evaporate the smell off, soak the clothes in straight vodka (or isopropyl) before washing with soap.
6. Zeolite – zeolite powder absorbs odors and it can be added to the wash. This can be more effective than washing soda and baking soda. OdorKlenz powder works similarly. Chemically sensitive folks have recommended both, but the types of odors they work on are limited.
7. Freeze the clothes. This works for many people though I don’t know the mechanism! You can leave them outside in freezing weather or put them in the freezer for a few days.
8. Ammonia can pull out many fragrances and chemical residues. Of course the ammonia itself is not non-toxic so this method can’t be done by a sensitive person. But once the ammonia is washed out there should not be any residue.
9. Zorbx – Zorbx unscented is a natural product made of undisclosed “salts” and it can help remove fragrance from textiles. A chemically sensitive person recommends it.
10. Milk – I’ve tried this one myself. Milk is really good at removing some chemicals. Soak your clothes in the milk but don’t leave it to soak for more than overnight or you could get a sour smell in your clothes. While some people use whole milk, others use powdered milk. This is actually quite a well-liked strategy since it seems to work for most fragrance. Though it can re-size your clothing.
11. TSP – To strip both fragrance and new clothing chemical residues out of clothing, you can wash items in TSP (followed by a vinegar and water rinse and then a plain water rinse). This can strip the colors from clothes and it’s not the most environmentally friendly option but if you have stubborn fragrance chemicals you might need to use this.

Note: If you’re extremely sensitive and struggling a lot with the chemical residues (including light fragrance cross-contamination, sizing chemicals, formaldehyde, chemicals from the dyes, etc) that come on new clothing here are some more thorough protocols.

Please let me know in the comments what worked for you.