I’ve often had to battle a mildew smell in our bath towels, especially when we lived in a humid climate. Here’s an easy and amazing process I discovered to solve the problem forever!
How to Get Musty Mildew Smell Out Of Towels – Clean Smelly Towels
When we lived in Kansas we had really high humidity and with the high humidity we constantly struggled with our towels smelling like mildew.
Of course, if the towels were white it was easy because I could easily bleach them but I could never get the mildew smell in my towels gone from the colored ones. I tried hanging them on the clothesline in the sun and drying then in the dryer. I washed them with vinegar and Clorox 2, but none of it worked to get the mildew smell out of my towels.
Now that we live in Colorado, we don’t have as big a problem with mildew smelling towels but, occasionally, someone will leave a pile of towels on the floor or stuff them in the laundry hamper when they’re wet and I will have the problem again.
I found a solution to the smelly towels problem and it works GREAT! The best part is that it’s a super easy recipe!
How to Get The Mildew Smell Out Of Smelly Towels
2 cups of Borax
2 cups vinegar
I soak the towels overnight in the washing machine in warm water with vinegar and borax. In the morning, run them through the wash cycle. Wash the towels again with borax and detergent and dry as usual.
Using this process, the towels come out great and fresh!! When I first tried this in Kansas, after battling smelling towels for months, a week later I still had no mildew smell.
Prior to using this process, my towels would start stinking after a day or two and I was constantly washing smelly towels!! After discovering this method, we were able to go back to washing towels every week instead of every couple of days.
I’m glad I got that irritating problem solved! I hope you find this super helpful! :-)
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A tip for people who cant really soak is to use oxi clean powder or tides version in addition to your detergent and washing in hot water. I find this works really well for me as i have a front loader which you cant really soak things in. As a side note i do not recommend front loaders!
Me too Kimberly! I’m so sorry I bought a front loader!!!!
I love my front loader
I don’t allow damp towels to go into the laundry basket. They need to be hung up and dried before being put into the laundry basket. No mildew that way.
Great tip…thanks!
My new top loader does not have an agitator in the center….it operates like a front loader. At first I could not soak anything because the “soak” selection only soaks for half an hour, then goes into wash mode. As a safety measure, the machine will automatically drain if you don’t make a selection or the power is cut. If I want to soak something for several hours or overnight, I simply do this: Unplug the machine, open the lid, and fill from a hose between your laundry room sink and your washing machine tub. Swish things around with a big pole or broom stick. When you’re done soaking, just plug it in and select “spin only.” NOTE: If you don’t have a sink nearby, you can choose to fill the machine bucket by bucket from another sink.
Minnesota is very humid in the summer but I never had any trouble there. But now on the KY River, most everything in the house smells moldy.
Do you have any tips for furniture, like for inside drawers and cabinets?
Something like Damprid works but if you don’t want to use something like that then first leave the drawers and closets open every once in awhile to air out. Also you can try somethings like putting activated charcoal in the drawers, rice, I haven’t tried it but some say chalk. Now if it is in a closet or cabinet sometimes leaving a small night light on all the time is enough to absorb. If things are really bad it may pay to buy a dehumidifier to use – you would be shocked how much that will help with the humidity.
When our towels became musty smelling, my mother would put them in a big stockpot on the stove and boil them for 10 minutes. Works great.
We just moved from a rental property where the roof leaked. Everything I have from there stinks NOW!! We didn’t notice it before…. must have gone nose blind…LOL
BUT ANYTHING that you can offer in help would be greatly appreciated!!
We lost pretty much everything in a dumpster, now we’re homeless, staying VERY temporarily with someone. I don’t want to loose what we have left!!!
THANKS
Lol Karen – nose blind huh :):) that is a good one but so true sometimes. The chances are it is mildew you are smelling and the only real way I have found that works and works permanently is to use diluted down bleach on any items you can. So many are afraid of bleach now but I personal am more afraid of mildew and mold and what it can do. Wash what you can in it and wipe the rest down. Now if you can’t use it on something then I would say try using Borax. You can put some in a spray bottle with water and spray it on things like mattresses or other places and use it like you would Febreeze (sp). You can also sprinkle it on things dry and I would even put what I could in an air tight container (like a tote) and sprinkle some in there with the items and let it sit for several days.
One last thing they use to do years and years ago is to lay things out in the sun for a couple of days.
I would not recommend vinegar at all because even though it might seem to help it on some things, does not kill all of the mold spores and mildew which means the smell and everything could quickly come back again.
I put white vinegar in my rinse load and the towels are bright and soft…The vinegar rinses out any trace detergents left from the washing…I dry on normal setting and the clothes do not stink like vinegar,