Maybe you buy new clothes or thrift clothes, or you go for an outing where you are spritzed with a perfume you don’t like the scent, or you need to get rid of this perfume smell on your clothes by every means possible.
It’s hard, we know, and we have been there at some point, but how can you get this done (removing a perfume smell on your clothes) without tampering with the cloth or damaging it? While some suggest that sprinkling vodka on the fragrance area might do the magic, others say otherwise.
Whatever the case, Luxeperf and its teams also have some other methods you can use to remove perfume smell from clothes, such as using activated charcoal, among others. Without any further ado, let’s get to the point.
Why Does Perfume Stick to Clothes for Long?
Before we can show you methods on how you can remove perfume smell from your clothes, it is important you first understand the reasons why perfume scents tend to stick on clothes for a long time, even after multiple washings.
One of the main reasons perfumes stick to clothes is because they are made of fragrance oils and fixatives, which tend to last longer on fabric fibers, especially in natural materials like cotton and wool.
The tiny pores in the fibers used to make your clothes further accelerate this issue. The pore allows the oil from the perfume to be absorbed and trapped within the fabric. In addition to that, the heat and moisture from your body can also push the oil even deeper into the fabric.
Well, unlike the alcohol in perfumes that evaporates quickly, the fragrance oils tend to linger for a much longer time on clothes. And because they are lipophilic, they don’t wash out easily even after several washings, making the scents remain on your clothes.
Methods to Remove Perfume Smell from Clothes
Now that you know why perfume smells don’t wash off from clothes easily, how can you remove them? There are two methods, the washing and the drying methods, but first, we will start with the washing part.
As a perfume brand that has spent years in the perfume business, here are some proven methods that can help you remove perfume smells from your clothes through washing:
1: The Washing Method: Using Water
Mostly, we prefer using the washing method for various reasons, such as if the smell of the fragrance is strong, this method is better than the drying method. So, to remove a fragrance smell from your clothing washing, the following steps are important:
Step 1: Get Clean Water and Pre-Soak the Clothes With Baking Soda
The first step in removing a perfume smell from your clothes is to get clean water and pre-soak the clothes with baking soda. Baking soda is a powerful odour/smell neutralizer that removes smells, especially from fiber materials.
The easiest way to get this done is to add at least one cup of baking soda to your regular detergents in a bucket of water and leave it all through the night to get soaked.
However, if in situations you need the cloth urgently, you can pre-soak it for at least an hour or 30 minutes before moving to the next step.
Step 2: Wash the Clothes Using a Distilled White Vinegar
After the clothes are soaked with the baking soda, wash them out using your hands or washing machine with the water and put them into another clean water with a cup of distilled white vinegar.
In the new water, use distilled white vinegar and wash it to the extent that you do not smell the fragrance on the cloth. Better working is to use your hand, but if you can’t, washing machines can also help you out with the process, which brings us to the next step.
Step 3: Rinse and Hang the Cloth Outside for Fresh Air
So after washing the clothes using clean water and distilled white vinegar, you should rinse them with clean water at least three times to make sure there isn’t any white vinegar left on the cloth.
Rinsing it with clean water will dilute the vinegar from the cloth. After that process, you hang the fabric outside in the fresh air directly under sunlight.
But before all this can be done, make sure you check if there’s still a fragrance smell on the cloth. If there is no more smell, you are good to continue with the process.
2. The Drying Method: Without Water
Unlike the washing method, this method does not require you to use water to remove the smell, but how can you achieve that?
We tried a few methods, but we aren’t sure it will work for you because every smell isn’t the same; some are stronger than others.
Step 1: Use Baking Soda to Absorb the Perfume Smell From the Clothes
Aside from pre-soaking your clothes using clean water with baking soda, you can also use it to absorb the smell by just sprinkling it on the area where the perfume is.
After you sprinkle a couple of baking soda on the area, then you dust it out after at least 15 minutes or more to make sure that this smell is gone totally. Then remove the clothes and dry them outside in the fresh air.
Step 2: Using Activated Charcoal or Any Other Smell Absorber You Can Find
Aside from using it medically to treat poisoning that occurs by mouth, activated charcoal can also serve as a means of absorbing a perfume smell from your clothes.
You can do this by adding some piece of activated charcoal in a closed box, putting the clothes inside, and allowing it to stay for at least 1 hour or more, depending on how strong the perfume smells.
Step 3: Drying Out the Clothes in Fresh Air
This method does not usually work on all perfumes, as we said earlier, but you can try it out, especially if it’s on a breezy day. The breeze will carry the scent from the clothes after at least 1 hour or more.
You can even hang your clothes outside directly in the sunlight, as the UV rays can further help naturalize the perfume smell on the fabric. You can let it stay for a few hours till you can’t smell any odor on your clothes.
However, in situations where you have done everything possible to keep the smell from your clothes too strong, the best thing you can do is wash it using the following method we outline above with water.
Final Thoughts
In summary, whatever method you try using in this article will work as long as the smell isn’t a strong one. Suppose the scent is strong. In that case, all you have to do is continue repeating the methods we outlined until you eventually end up not smelling anything from your clothes. That way, you have finally removed the perfume smell from your clothes.