Question from Robin Hart
I just bought 100% white organic cotton sheets that were made in India, and they smell horrible. I have washed them 4 times and they are still to strong to tolerate. I have MCS they are now soaking in baking soda and organic apple cider vinegar and water solution. If that does not get rid of the smell, what else can I do. We have no clothes line and live in an HOA that does allow me to hang anything outside my home, like on the railing etc. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Debra’s Answer
Call Daliya at nontoxic.com 1 800 968 9355. She has a number of products that can help remove odors.
Just a couple of days ago I was reading some success stories about Pure Body zeolite drops, which are designed to be taken internally to remove toxic chemicals from your body. But this person used them to remove fragrance from clothing. “I used 14 drops in the washing machine to wash some used clothes I purchased at Goodwill that had fragrance on them from fragranced laundry detergent and the Pure Body took most of the fragrance smell out!” Makes sense to me since they absorb air pollutants too.
This woman also used Pure Body zeolite drops to remove fragrance from her hands. “I accidentally got hit with a fragranced hand soap one day…I usually use rubbing alcohol to get fragrances off my hands after someone has shaken my hand or if I didn’t know that a hand soap had fragrance in it, but with this particular one, the rubbing alcohol didn’t make much a difference…so, I put a few drops of Pure Body into a cup of water and then used that to scrub my hands and rinse off and it took most of the fragrance off my hands right away! Just needed to scrub more into between fingers to get the rest.”
I use lemon concentrate in a bottle to remove odors. It works better than vinegar. I rinse my hands with it when I have stubborn smells on my hands. I have not tried it in the washer yet but I bet it works good.
Robin,
I bought some organic sheets three years ago, and could not tolerate the smell. I tried powdered milk, vinegar, baking soda….everything I could find that had been recommended to remove the smell. Several washings with these various things didn’t make a difference. I finally bought several lemons, cut them in half and threw them in the washing machine with my sheets. This did the trick for me. Caution, though, as the lemon peels can discolor the fabric (I suspect they may color them, as is done with oranges). So you can either try cutting off the outside of the peel or just use the juice.
Zeolite powder is cheaper than these internal drops. 20 lbs will last you a few years for this type of clothing treatment. Mystical is better however if its cotton.