I’ve been working on a couple of substantial posts about a number of Really Serious Issues which have been weighing heavily on me for some weeks. I promise those posts are forthcoming, but in the meantime, I wanted to share hands down the number one housekeeping tip I know (trust me, I don’t know many, so when I’ve got one to share, it’s usually pretty good).
You know that musty smell that your towels get after you’ve used them for a while? Those of you living in drier climates probably don’t have this problem, but those of us who live where it’s humid run into this constantly. The towels will smell fine when they come out of the dryer, but as soon as you use them, the musty smell comes back. It’s some kind of mildew (blech), and the ONLY way I have ever gotten rid of the smell completely was by using vinegar when I wash them. A couple of cupfuls of white vinegar (which I buy in 2-gallon jugs from Costco) in the compartment where your detergent goes on a hot wash will absolutely get rid of the smell. I thought I was going to have to pitch a whole set of towels because they smelled SO terrible, but this completely cured them. You can follow them up with a detergent wash if you like, but this gets them pretty blasted clean. Economical, environmentally safe, non-toxic, it doesn’t get any better!
Any other housekeeping tips y’all want to share while we’re at it? Although my towels are clean, the rest of my house is a wreck, so have at it!
Edited: For the record, washing towels in vinegar does not yield towels that smell like pickles. They just wind up smelling clean.
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Tags: handy tips
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Thank you so much for this suggestion! I used to use vinegar in the rinse cycle with diapers (when I used baking soda in the prewash rinse – no, I promise you won’t have a volcano science experiment inside your washer, but it uses the same principle to clean them thoroughly) all the time, but didn’t think of using it for towels. I definitely have a few that get what I call “cheese smell” (and for some reason my husband’s towels seem to get it worse).
I’ve heard countless times that vinegar is a super awesome power cleaner that works amazingly anywhere in your house, but I just CANNOT stand the scent of it, so I can’t use it for general cleaning. =(
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No problem! I’m definitely a little wary of mixing baking soda and vinegar in the wash, but I’ll have to give it a try some time.
As for using it as a general cleaner, add a couple of drops of essential oil that you like (lavender? lemon?) and it all but gets rid of the salad smell. :)
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i use vinegar as a fabric softener replacement. it works pretty well, esp if you dry your clothes via the dryer (i noticed that my clothes that i hung to dry didn’t feel as soft). just a half cup in the liquid fabric softener section or if in those fabric softener release balls… works great!
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A few years ago, my dad bought a car that had been previously owned by a smoker, and the windows were covered on the inside with a yellow film that no amount of Windex would get rid of. So he sent in reinforcements in the form of me, armed with a spray bottle of vinegar. And it totally worked — the film was gone!
His car did smell vinegary for a couple of days, but it was summer and a combination of sunlight and heat and driving around with the windows down baked the smell out pretty quickly.
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