Do Your Clothes Smell Like Mildew?

So, your clothes smell like mildew? Don’t worry. No judging here. My house smells good, so I can’t smell you anyway. 😉

And besides my house smelling good, I was in your shoes a few years ago. All my clothes smelled like mildew but I finally found the answer. I finally got that mildew smell out of my clothes for good!!

This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.

But, it started with getting the mildew smell out of the washing machine, so if you haven’t read that post yet, go and read it first. It will tell you how to prevent this from happening again, then you can come back and we’ll get your clothes all sorted out, too.

Done? Alright. Proceed.

Here’s the deal. Last year, we had a house that was full of mold. I’m talking 1100 times the amount of mold that was outside. We were living in a petri dish. The heartbreaker here is that we spent 6 months and our life savings renovating this moldy house only to move in and get sick. And we stayed sick until we moved out.  And then I started learning everything I could about mold. I’m no expert, but I could at least listen in fluent “mold” language. 😉

We had a mold expert come to our house. He was actually a chemist who had specialized in the mold industry. And he was our mold remediator. We paid him to come to our house and wipe down every. single. thing. we owned. It was intense. He used a proprietary blend of oils and natural stuff to kill the mold and then manually removed it by wiping.

Click here for a tour moldy house (after it wasn’t moldy anymore):

So, I asked about the soft stuff that couldn’t be wiped. What about my curtains? And clothes? And???

“Oh yeah. Just use baking soda on your clothes and linens.”

Come again?

“Baking soda will take care of any mold in your clothes in the washing machine. Just plain ole’ baking soda.”

Okay, so I’m paraphrasing here, but that’s basically what he said. So, I did that.

Thankfully, my clothes didn’t stink from the type of mold that was in our house even before I washed them. I was careful to wash everything as I unpacked it (LOL, I carried everything to the washer like it was a full dirty diaper. :D)

But after all that mold remediating had long been over, I did something bad.

I forgot my clothes in the washer. For 2 days! If you have an HE or front-load washing machine, you know your clothes can start to smell like mildew literally within just hours (especially if you haven’t gotten the mildew smell out of your washing machine).

Omg. I about croaked when I remembered the clothes in that washing machine. And yes. They smelled like mildew. Bummer. A whole load of my favorite leggings (ever had mildewy leggings? Not good.) potentially ruined.

And then I remembered that baking soda trick.

Lo and behold, it worked on my mildewy clothes, too!! 

After just one load of using baking soda, my leggings are back in business! I’ve even tried this on our stinky towels. It works with them, too!

To Remove Mildew Smell From Clothes

So, here’s what you do to get the mildew smell out of your clothes according to my chemist mold remediating buddy.

• Add detergent to the washer like normal (see this post for type of detergent).
• Add ½ a cup of baking soda to the drum of your washing machine. (I keep a bag like this in the laundry room for easy scooping.)
• Add your clothes.
• Wash like normal.

It’s too easy. Seriously. And if you’ve used my other totally easy trick to prevent that mildew smell in the first place, you’ll only need to use these steps for your first few rounds after cleaning your washing machine (to strip out all the mildew & chemicals) or when you forget a load in the washer for a few days (yikes. I hope it isn’t your favorite leggings!).

Or when your towels don’t quite dry out and start to stink.

These two posts are seriously the last two posts you’ll need to read about getting that mildew smell out of your clothes or washing machine.

Prevent it first. Then get your clothes clean. Then repeat as necessary.

So simple, right? I know.

We over-complicate things sometimes when life could be so simple.

Help a mama out and pin this to your cleaning board. You know there’s another mom out there somewhere searching for a way to get her clothes clean and keep them from smelling like mildew again. Your pin could be the one that saves her from stinky mildew leggings for life. And just like that, you could change a life.

If you’re like me, you started off loving your front loading washing machine only to find out that your clothes and washing machine started smelling like mildew! Yuck.

So, don’t throw out that expensive washing machine yet. There is hope!

I struggled with this for a while before figuring out the secret, and I only get that stinky smell when I forget a load in the washer for a few days (oops! Yikes. ) Thankfully, if that happens, I know a quick and easy way to remove the mildew smell from clothes (and you’ll want to do that once you get your washing machine under control). 🙂

This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.

My struggle was at its worst when my brother-in-law was staying with us for a while. I couldn’t figure it out? He worked out a ton and washed his tiny loads of workout clothes almost daily with his special workout clothes detergent. You would think that the extra sudsing and rinsing of his daily washes would have actually helped the mildew smell to be washed and rinsed away. But nope.

That Mildew Smell In Our Clothes Was Unbearable

We sniffed every article of clothing before putting it on to decide if it was too stinky to wear. Within an hour of our humid Georgia heat, we would all be smelling like we just ran a marathon in some sweatpants that were left in a camping suitcase. I’m totally not kidding. It was awful. Totally embarrassing. And really frustrating.

Even our dresser drawers started smelling like these stinky clothes.

I got desperate. I turned to Google and Pinterest. I looked high and low. Searched through piles and piles of posts that said use vinegar, clean your washing machine (um, that gasket is totally gross!), put your clothes in the sun, rub your belly and tap your head. Seriously.

Some people swear by the vinegar. I’ve seen tips for baking soda. And I even tried washing that gross washing machine. I tried it all. More than once. And we kept stinking.

See, the problem was that the mildew smell would go away for a week or two and then be back with a vengeance in just a few short weeks.

The Answer Is Just Too Easy and Simple. Really.

So I continued on my search. I finally found, buried very deeply in a forum, a suggestion to use powder detergent instead of liquid detergent. It seemed too good to be true!! Hear those angels singing? And see that light shining through the clouds? This is the moment that will change your life. Seriously.

See, mold and mildew are bound to happen whenever there is water and dark (= washing machine). (I’ve recently been through a mold-tastrophe (that I happened to turn into an almost free Disney vacation), so I’ve learned a lot about it.) And if you give the mold something to munch on (like some of those delicious chemicals found in liquid detergent), it starts to grow up and make babies. No one wants their washing machine mildew making babies in there, amiright?!

Thankfully, powder detergent isn’t as delicious to the mildew, so it grows much more slowly (if at all). Whwew!

So, all you need to do is remove the mildew scooby snacks to prevent the mildew smell from being in your washing machine in the first place. Remove the source. Don’t treat the symptom.

Am I saying you shouldn’t ever clean your washing machine? No. I am saying that cleaning your washing machine might help, but there is a chance that it will only help for a little while. Switching out your detergent will remove the food source for the mildew so that you don’t need to clean out that nasty washing machine quite as often (unless that’s just what you like to do with your free time. Then by all means…party on!).

Keep Your Clothes From Smelling Like Mildew

So, to keep your clothes from smelling like mildew, all you need to do is switch to a powder detergent. I’ve noticed there aren’t that many choices for powder detergent for HE or front load washing machines.

I do think it’s still important to get detergent that is specifically made for high efficiency (or HE) machines, though. So be sure your detergent is the right kind. So far, I’ve found Gain and Tide locally in an HE powder detergent.

Natural Laundry Detergent to Prevent Mildew

Also, if you want to keep it natural, you can make your own, but I really wouldn’t recommend it. I believe that’s when all my trouble started (just before my brother-in-law moved in), and the extra soap from his daily washing those tiny loads must have escalated the problem.

There are some natural powder laundry detergents out on the market (), but I haven’t tried them yet. I’m hoping to give them a try as soon as my Tide runs out, if I can last that long. I’m dying to try this detergent with awesome reviews on Amazon. 🙂 If you use a natural detergent with an HE machine, I’d love to hear what you think about it!

Remove The Mildew Smell From Your Clothes

So, if you’re looking for a play-by-play for how to erase that awful mildew smell from your life, here’s what I would do if I were you.

• Donate that liquid detergent to a friend in need.
• Pick up a box of powder detergent marked “HE.”
• Start washing with the powder detergent.
• Add a couple of cups of vinegar for good measure to strip your clothes of the chemicals that have been in that liquid detergent. You’ll only need to do this for the first wash or two for each load. It’s cheap and it can’t hurt, right?
• Wash all your clothes using this trick to remove the mildew smell from your clothes.
• Do the happy dance because you’ll be smelling back to normal in no time.

There you have it! You’ve dealt with the root of the problem (liquid detergent), cleaned up the mess you made (using this trick), and now your clothes are going to smell like, well, clothes from now on.

And just like that, your life is changed!

Don’t skip the step of actually killing & removing the mildew that is already taking up shop in your clothes using this trick.

Help a mama out and pin this to your cleaning board. You never know, another mama might be sitting in her stinky pjs right now needing to read this post, too, and how awesome would it be if she finally found the real answer because of your pin?!

Yes. You can have make your house smell good and keep it clean without lots of harsh air freshening chemicals.

How To Have A Great Smelling House

I love having a clean, delicious smelling home, and I’m guessing you do, too. But, after buying a ton of cleaning supplies to get my home smelling clean and fresh, it was still always dirty and usually smelled like a construction site (I still don’t know why???).

Add in the fact that I don’t use air fresheners or candles because I am not sure about the safety of the perfumes they use, and that just means my home was always smelling stinky and pretty much dirty.

This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.

So, I finally got fed up and decided that it was my house and I was going to make sure it stayed clean and awesome smelling. I hunted down the very best cleaning supplies that are on the natural side and that actually work (as good or better than the stinky ones) to make your house smell good all the time.

Now my home is almost always clean and fresh smelling. I have to admit, I have really surprised myself here because I’m notorious for having an organized but not-so-clean home.

And, I’m not going to lie, having a home that smells amazing kinda makes me feel like a princess.

Here are my absolute favorite cleaning supplies that will keep your home clean and make your house smell good (or actually, amazing).

Robot vacuum

If your floors are dirty, your whole house will be dirty. Really. Dirty floors cause dust and fuzz bunnies. They get your socks and furniture dirty. Dirty floors make your house smell like…well, dirt. (You did want me to tell you straight, right?)

If I had to keep only one cleaning supply in my whole house it would be my ILife robot vacuum (we named him Jimmy).

I would give up cleaners, and sponges, wipes, and bleach. Everything to have a robot vacuum.

It’s made an enormous difference in my home. And at a $150 price tag with tons of bells and whistles (like auto-stair sensing, scheduler and a remote), I truly believe any busy mama can afford a robotic vacuum. It might take a few months of saving, but it. is. worth. it. Get one.

Method floor cleaner and microfiber cleaning mop

Do you remember the old-school Jergens lotion smell? Almond. So sweet, subtle, and comforting. I love the sweet simplicity of the scent of almond. Well, Method has created a floor cleaner that can make my entire home smell like sweet almond. *sniff* Aaahhhhhh… When life gets stressful, I grab my mop and Method floor cleaner and get to work. When I’m finished, I feel accomplished and comforted. 😀

And this stuff will make my house smell good all the time for at least a few days. I adore it. Once you’re convinced of its awesome powers, you’ll want to spring for the big bottle to save some money keep the magic alive all the time.

J.R. Watkins All Purpose Cleaner Lemon Scent

This stuff smells so yum. Sort of like like Froot Loops or Trix. The lemon scent isn’t too overpowering but is just right. It cleans just as good as all the other chemical cleaners out there that I’ve tried and one of these bottles lasts me a few months of everyday use in the kitchen. It even cleans finished wood (like the dining table and furniture around the house). I think that last bit makes it worth the extra few cents I spend for the bottle.

Plus, it’s 99.98% natural. Natural and my house smells good! Can’t beat that!

Save some extra money by buying a few at a time for under $4 a bottle.

**UPDATE** I used to snag a bottle of this from local stores, but I saw a lot of Watkins being clearanced out a few months ago and the general cleaners have been replaced with things like hand and dish soap. Total bummer. Looks like I’ll be buying my next bottle in bulk from Amazon before they disappear forever. Yikes.

Scrubbie Bubbles

This is the most harsh chemical I use (except for a smidge of bleach and a little Awesome), but the honest truth is that our tile bathroom grows mold like crazy. I have found this stuff to do the job right the first time, and that’s important for a busy work at home mama. Plus it leaves the bathroom smelling fresh and clean with a hint of sweet.

The blue can is worth the few cents extra. It sprays bigger & better, and I’m convinced it actually cleans better, too.

Toothbrushes

Our dentist always gives us old school toothbrushes, but we have a Philips Sonicare. I’m going to be honest, I’m never going back to a regular toothbrush for the rest of my life. My Sonicare makes my teeth feel like they just left the dentist’s office, and I love that.

So, all those toothbrushes our dentist hands out get to go straight to my cleaning supply closet. I use them to clean the sink drains (especially the kitchen sink drains) and the mold in the tile shower. We also have grooves in our dining table, so I dust out the crumbs every now and then with a toothbrush, too.

Dish Soap

I absolutely adore doing dishes with this soap (as much as any girl like me could adore doing dishes). Omg. It makes the whole kitchen smell like a gorgeous perfume and not in a weird way. I usually hate the scent of soaps, but this dish soap is glorious. I have a huge bottle of other dish soap from Costco in the closet, but I’m pretty sure when this soap runs out, I’m going to buy more of this. I’ll use the other stuff for washing the car or something. Ha! This stuff is where it’s at!

**UPDATE** I have officially started stockpiling this stuff from Amazon because I can’t find it in any of my local grocery stores. Fingers crossed they haven’t discontinued it!!!

Hand Soap

What if I told you there was a gorgeous smelling hand soap (smells like the best smelling spring blooms of super sweet osmanthus) that was made with 70% organic ingredients and no harsh chemicals? You’d go buy it, right? Well, you can probably find this winner at your local grocery store (Kroger chain). It’s made by the grocery store brand and will probably be labeled differently, depending on if you are in a Kroger area or a Fred Meyer area, etc.

**UPDATE** I saw this hand soap on sale last week and picked up a bottle for a hotel stay (my best tip for hotel traveling: bring your own handsoap!), and oh my! It does smell amazing. It isn’t natural or organic, but I do think I will be buying more of this. This link is for 3 packs of 4 (so 12 total). Not a bad deal for amazing smelling hands and sinks, amiright?

Awesome

Oh yeah. I have this. It’s the good stuff from the dollar store. It’s only a dollar and will clean the green off the grass. It is definitely not natural. Not at all. It is strong and will do wonders on everything from vintage travel trailers (you wouldn’t believe the shine on our door frame!) to black streaks on gutters, to getting set in ink stains out of clothes. It definitely lives up to the hype. And it’s name. 😉

How To Make Your House Smell Good (& Clean!) All the Time

I think if I had this list of things to clean my home with plus a few magic erasers and some toilet bowl cleaner (who wants to talk about that???), I could keep the whole house spic and span forever.

If you liked this post, you might like this post about why you’ll never buy Mr. Clean magic erasers again.

I’m always looking for a great way to keep my house smelling great. Do you know any tricks that don’t involve questionable chemicals like candles or air fresheners? I’d love to hear!

If you want to remember what to buy to make your house smell good, go ahead and pin this now. 🙂

I love using magic erasers! I have found so many uses for them around my home. Whenever I find a huge list of uses for magic erasers, I usually try to stop and read it because I almost always learn a new use for these handy little puppies!

Here are some of my favorite lists of uses for magic erasers! You never know what you’ll learn from one of these!

This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.

But first a disclaimer about magic erasers. Magic erasers are super abrasive, so always (did you get that, always) check the surface you are going to clean before going all cowboy on it. Mkay?

Pin this now so you don’t get lost in the giant list below! You’ll want to be able to find this puppy later!

Click on any link below to read the full explanation.

60 Uses for Magic Erasers

Clean shower doors

Clean a whiteboard

Leave in toilet bowl to remove a ring

Inside coffee/tea cups to remove rings

Clean white grout

Remove hair dye from bathroom sink

Clean a keyboard

Remove permanent marker

Clean a microfiber couch

Clean stubborn bathtub stains

Remove rust from pipes or surfaces

Clean your refrigerator (inside, outside, and even the seal)

Clean the inside and outside of your dishwasher

Car interior scuffs and scratches (test first)

Glass stove tops

Scuff marks on floors, shoes or walls

Furniture (especially outdoor furniture)

Clean spots off of glass (windows or drinking glasses)

Clean rubber shoes

Shine tarnished silver

Remove nail polish stains (test surface first)

Remove stickers

Kids’ wall art in all mediums

Clean your grill

Remove stains from plastic storage containers

Remove dried paint

Remove soap scum from tubs and showers

Clean the inside of a cooler

Clean a microwave

Clean mirrors (might prevent fogging)

Clean baked-on food from your favorite pans

Clean the oven hood

Remove algae from a pool liner

Remove bugs from a windshield (stay away from the paint, though!)

Remove ink from your hands (I wish I would have seen this one a few days ago!!)

Remove stains from concrete

Remove stains and odor from carpet

Clean toys

Clean railing

Clean vinyl siding on house

Remove paint from door knobs/hinges

Remove soot

Clean oven racks

Clean outdoor decor (like pots, bird baths, & bird feeders)

Clean cookware

Clean car tires

Shine faucets & bath fixtures

Clean hairspray buildup from bathroom

Polish jewelry

Clean window screens and tracks

Clean a bicycle

Clean outdoor toys

Remove paint and marker from hands

Buff scuffs on cars (at your own risk!!)

Clean stains from leather

Remove product buildup from hair tools

Clean cloudy headlights

Clean hubcaps

Clean cell phone case

Clean cookie sheets

If you enjoyed this giant list of tips, you definitely want to check out this post about why you will never buy Mr. Clean Magic Erasers again!

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Have you always wanted a Roomba vacuum? Me too! I couldn’t really afford a $900 Roomba, so I started looking for Roomba alternatives. And let me tell you, I found one! I couldn’t be happier with my decision to look beyond Roomba for a rotobic vacuum cleaner.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not gifted with the cleaning bug. Not only am I not very good at remembering to clean, but I’m not actually very good at it, either. My sweet family happens to love me anyway, and I’m so thankful they can overlook my lack of mad cleaning skills.

We also happen to have pets and hardwood floors. Allergies aren’t really a problem for us, but fur tumbleweeds are. It drives us crazy to see a ball of fur floating around in the floors. Don’t get me wrong, I adore our hardwood floors and how much cleaner we feel compared to when we had carpet. But! Now, instead of the dirt getting stuck in the carpet, it just floats around on top of the floor.

And the days that I do make an effort to clean our floors, I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took me hours to sweep and mop our floors. And even then, they would be dirty in just a few hours because I inevitably missed a few spots and the dirt would scoot around again. *sigh*

Enter my lifesaver.

My Roomba Alternative

I really wanted to hire a cleaning lady, but since she wasn’t in the budget, I thought floors are clean would be a great idea instead to at least help me tackle the floor situation. Which would also help me win the dirty sock war, dirty couch & ottoman war, dust bunny war, and even the kitchen & dining room crumb war. Can I get an amen here?

I mean really, there are so so many different areas of our house that our floors impact. From laundry to furniture, how clean your floors are will have an impact on how much other stuff you have to clean.

So, enter my birthday (around Thanksgiving). I really wanted floors are clean but decided it was too expensive. Plus, would it even work that good? Would I even use it? So, I put off thinking about it until Christmas when I had more money.

Christmas came around and I landed on another present to pick out (We pick our own presents at Christmas. Works awesome!), so I just left my robot vacuum saved in my Amazon shopping cart for later.

Why I bought a robot vacuum

We had a slight shift in thinking in January about our home and how we manage our time. We’re both beginning to get very busy with little time left in the day for extra chores and efforts. As we take on more work (and get even more tired!!), we especially want our home to take care of us as a sanctuary, not the other way around. We want to enter our home and immediately feel at rest and peaceful. Does your home feel that way?

Mine definitely didn’t. I was so embarrassed of my project dining table, and our Ikea couches were more trouble than they were comfortable. The floors were dirty and there were toys everywhere. My kitchen has its own set of problems. And the decor looked like a middle schooler picked it out.

So, we made a decision to change all that. We updated our furniture (totally not hard or expensive with Craigslist and Facebook groups around). We bought some new art for our walls (of course 50% off at Hobby Lobby). And we got a vacuum to keep it cleaner.

And can I tell you, I don’t feel like I’m drowning in housework anymore! The floors are clean, the furniture stays clean, and my stress level stays low most days. It’s a dream.

Do you want to know the best part??? The floors are clean, was only $150. Yep. 150 bucks is all it took to really help me chill on the housework overload. That’s about a month’s worth of a cleaning lady. And I’m pretty sure my robot vacuum is going to last a lot longer than a month.

In case you might want to get floors are clean, here’s what I’ve been impressed with so far:

• It has a ton of great reviews on Amazon with helpful tips.
• It has a HEPA filter (not necessary, but great for allergies or a family that came from a moldy house)
• It has a remote (you can drive this thing around your house if you want)
• It has a timer that will turn it on at the same time every day. Mine is set to come on around 9:45am.
• It automatically senses stairs. You don’t need to put up any extra sensor blocker beam things. It just knows.
• It has a mop cloth on it if you want. Optional but cool.
• It goes home on its own. He gets lost sometimes, but I just use the remote to steer him to get him back to the room. I’m a little impatient sometimes.
• It’s actually keeping my house cleaner. You wouldn’t believe the dirt I’ve pulled out of this thing in just a few days!

So, there you have it. I know there a lot of work at home moms on a tight budget, but this is absolutely a necessity for my sanity these days.

I mean, really? How many hours of your work is it worth to never need to vacuum again? Pretty sure it’s worth more than I paid!

If you’re like me and not quite ready to bite the bullet yet, go ahead and pin this image so you don’t forget where you found that cheap robot vacuum. <3

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