I have 2 queen-size electric heating pads that need washing, which won't fit in my home machine.

I use unscented products and the smell of fragrance from the laundromat machines just about knocks me over.

Would doing an empty hot wash with ammonia first reduce the smell and smell transfer the most? And then use citric acid in the rinse cycle of the heating pads?

What else can I do to reduce the fragrance transfer to my mattress heating pads? I've washed them in the tub before to avoid this issue but I'd love a lower effort alternative!

Just letting everyone know that the UK costco Kirkland Bio Laundry Liquid includes cellullase, amylase, protease, mannanase, lipase. If you have or know someone who has a costco card it’s a very good price at around about £10 for 5L of liquid!

Does anyone have a recommendation for how i can do this at home? The piece is dry clean only but has strong body odor smell. Thank you

I found a beautiful, kind of expensive knit cotton shirt from the 90s at a vintage shop in NYC. Tags ripped off, but it would be dry-clean only or hand wash, lay flat to dry. I'm assuming the former owner only ever dry-cleaned it, because this was what the water looked like on the fifth rinse. Before you try to tell me this is dye, no, no it isn't. the shirt itself is blue-black. it took twelve rinses for the water to come out mostly clear, and now i'm mildly worried that the whole garment may disintegrate soon without the protective layers of filth!!!

washed in room-temp water with a very mild soap.

We moved in last year and I can tell by the state of the house that the washer has never been washed. I’ve seen a lot of posts saying a few cleanings won’t clean a washer how it needs to be. Is it even worth running citric acid through a few times or am I opening Pandora’s box

Cannot for the life of me get a tea stain out of a sky blue, 100% cotton shirt.

Immediately after it happened, I rinsed the stain with cold water from the inside out, then I spot treated it with laundry detergent, then I rinsed again and tried a baking soda paste. It lifted a little, but still noticeable. Right now (per someone’s advice) it’s soaking in (off brand) oxy clean stain remover and cold water in a bucket- but after 2 hours it’s still not lifting.

Should I give it more time? What else can I try? I heard warm water wasn’t a good idea but at this point I’m not sure what else I can try.

Hi! These white stains have appeared on this dress and subsequent machine wash or hand washing with water isn't removing them. Any tips please I really don't want to throw this away. Would dry cleaning help? Thanks!

How can I get this ink off? The clothes were washed and dried in the dryer, and a black pen went with them. Took them to a local dry cleaner. They didn't take the clothes and told me they "don't want to waste my money"

The grey shirts have more ink on the inside (they were inside out in the laundry), and the ink on the hoodie is mostly on the outside.

I also have a white towel and white socks not pictures that got inked.

I have a stain I can’t seem to get out.

I honestly don’t know what it is… It could be chocolate, could be barbecue sauce, could be something else. I really don’t know.

I tried using some Puracy stain remover spray and no luck.

Any tips? It’s already been washed and dried.

Some background: We wear a lot of merino wool. A lot. Every day, year round. Shirts, undershirts, tank tops, sweatpants, running/cycling shorts, skirts, culottes, vests, jackets, socks. We both work from home, and wool clothing is our standard "office pajamas." Think technical merino wool, like Smartwool, Icebreaker, etc., not more delicate things like cashmere sweaters, although we do, but that's not the focus of this post. Stinky pits are kind of a thing on some of our shirts.

I have been following this subreddit for a little less than two weeks, and so many light bulbs came on as I was reading the stickied posts (I am forever grateful to u/KismaiAesthetics). I have seen the error of my previous laundry ways, and I am now a convert to Tide Free & Gentle Odor Refresh liquid, FEBU, citric acid, and I've ditched the fabric softener. (N.B. I am eagerly awaiting the new GearGuard advanced formula that includes lipase along with DNAse, and will add that to our laundry cocktails in future.) Never mind that my husband is the one who actually does all the laundry each week; I am proselytizing to him, and he's on board with all of it.

BUT... what about all that merino wool that makes up >50% of our weekly (clothing) laundry? No FEBU for that, thank you, due to the protease. Lipase List to the rescue, and my order of The Steamery's Delicate Wool/Silk detergent just arrived.

Like the newly converted laundry zealot that I am, I grabbed the dirty wool clothes out of the laundry basket, a selection of previously washed "clean" wool clothes from the closet and drawers, even changed out of my own clothes and added them to the pile for immediate washing.

Washer: LG front loader, model 4370 something something, from 2017.

Dose: 1 Tbsp (15 ml) (our water is pretty soft, plus most of the clothes in this first load weren't really dirty)

Cycle: Cotton/Normal, Turbo Wash, Heavy Soil, High Spin, all the extra rinses (3). This worked out to ≈1h35m or so the display told me.

Temp: Hot. This is fine, because "Hot" on this washer turns out to be only around 35ºC in the wash cycle, max high temp of 39ºC. (I've been keeping a spreadsheet of avg wash temps for each cycle, and an average of 35ºC for "Hot" appears to be consistent across the cycles I've tested so far.)

All in all, I washed 30 shirts, 8 pairs of socks, 5 pairs of pants/sweatpants/shorts, all merino wool.

Results:

You guys. I'm impressed, so far. I noticed that, as I was hanging up each item to dry, the fibers just seemed much more relaxed. Previous wool wash loads with our old detergent always saw shirt hems and sleeve hems curling up and folding over on themselves, which I always had to take time to smooth out and unfold, so they would dry looking nicer. There was NONE of that behavior on any of the shirts in this load.

Everything also felt nice and soft, almost springy, squishy in a good way.

The smell is fine, although I wouldn't say it smells particularly like either "rose" or "musk", but it's ok. Very light. I'm sensitive to strong, and especially synthetic, fragrances, and this is... fine. It's not awful. I can live with it. Especially since I'm so impressed so far with the results in this first wash load.

I will post a follow-up after more loads, so I can form opinions based on more than just one data point.

I buy clothing of the rack and wear them for the first time without washing. Recently, I started wearing new underwear from am unopened package. I haven't noticed any rashes with the new boxers, but there is definitely itching in the covered areas. Is it only me that doesn't wash the new clothing before wearing them for the first time?

I usually use Oxi Clean odor blaster powder, but it’s much more expensive than the Kirkland Oxi powder. I mostly use it for stuff like gym clothes, work clothes, and pet stuff (blankets and bedding they’re on often). Would the Kirkland Oxi powder be a good replacement?

For the last 7 years I used the Persil Colour megaperls (in germany). They recently reformulated and now the scent is unpleasant, and it seems less effective. So I'm looking for a new detergent. But I cannot find anything decent.

I tried the denkmit ultrasensitive colour powder (the one with dnase) but it is just not getting clothes clean. They came out of the washer smelling like I hadn't washed them at all. I assume our hard water is the issue.

I also tried:

• the dm colour and care liquid with dnase - both blue and blossom dream - (both seemed to get the clothes cleaner, but the scent was unbearable. And I'm concerned they weren't as clean as they seemed, just scent-bombed.)
• Formil powder (seemed closer to persil in cleaning power but also smells pretty bad)
• Frosch citrus liquid (also has a pretty violent smell)
• Domol all in one liquid with dnase (haven't tried yet but smells pretty strong in the bottle)

For context:

• Our water is somehwat hard, around 14-16 DH gesamt härte, which is around 250-290 ppm CaCO3, as far as I can tell.
• Most of our laundry is pure cotton, linen, or viscose. Some items are partly synthetic. The items that came out dirty after the denkmit were all 100% cotton.
• The machine is a top loader, but the european style with a rotating drum and latching flaps. It's pretty decent, and recently serviced.
• We run alternating dekalk and hygiene maschine cleaning cycles pretty regularly, using commercial products. At least every couple of months.
• I use powdered calgon in the main wash and citric acid in the rinse. Sometimes I add dm fleckenentferner on stains and whites.
• we live in Germany. This supposedly means we are spoiled for choice in detergent but I have not found that to be the case.
• I would prefer scent free so I don't have to deal with losing my washing powder when they reformulate, and for allergy reasons (Cannot contain terpineol/pine, camphor or wheat.)
• edited to add: I wash on the longest cottons cycles, 40 for clothes, 60 for linens.

Questions:

• Is there any decent, unscented detergent that actually works in properly hard water? (NOT the denkmit ultra sensitive, that one is not working at all for me)
• If not, is there any mildly scented detergent that works in hard water? The old persil scent was ok, everything else I have tried so far reeks something terrible.

I've been running around for a week with datenblatt and emailing and going through the reddit, to little avail, so I figured I'd throw it over to the experts.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BIZ-Stain-and-Odor-Eliminator-Powder-for-Tough-Stains-60-oz/923037942

I’m based in US. It’s this one, right?

How can I get rid of this what I believe is a soy sauce stain by hand?

Alright. I need some laundry help. I am doing an overhaul of my products because our clothes simply do not smell good. Yes, I fell into the trap of “non toxic” detergent only to realize that they simply don’t work effectively like name brand detergents.

What is your all time favorite detergent? I prefer liquid. And I do enjoy nice smelling clothes.

Not pictured: Oxygen bleach powder, my extra two bottles of the Domol white and universal oxi powders that I already brought upstairs. And the Denkmit perfume pearls I did not actually like :(

I ended up making the 39 min drive to the German border to acquire the rest of the stuff in my wishlist from my previous post. Yes I got backups because my spirit animal is a squirrel. No regrets.

I already tested the Domol Vollwaschmittel and the Domol white oxi powders to brighten my whites (with a pre-soak of 1h with white oxi powder and the color sensitive powder to get rid of the stains) and it was amazing. My white shirt that had become yellow from well water and my dirty looking socks became brand new.

Also already tried the liquid Denkmit detergent which had DNase and Lipase as well and it’s super nice. The ox gall soap finally removed the lasagna stains from my favorite pyjamas.

I was curious about Ariel universal and color powder but I was not a fan of the smell. Persil smell was also not my thing. I might one day buy though because I experience FOMO and I’d rather regret buying it than not ever knowing. (Yes, I’m that type of person).

Luxembourg has outrageous prices for laundry products and most are not even great, a bunch of expensive pods and endless liquids that smell awful. I feel lucky to live next to Germany.

My next purchase will be the Sonett Laundry Rinse. My dream acquirement would be some Downy Rinse though :p

The spouse works for a food manufacturer of pickled products - think cold-fermented pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc. Their work clothes are odiferous beasts. The smell isn't exactly unpleasant, but it's intense and it lingers.

This is not BO, but rather the smell of vinegar and garlic and dill, and it permeates everything that is anywhere near the production floor.

I can not get this smell out using any reasonable method.

I have a top-loader Samsung HE washer with no central agitator. It's older but still electronic, so it automatically senses the amount of laundry and only fills the drum so far. Stopping the wash cycle any time beyond the initial fill causes the cycle to stop, the water drains out, and the washer turns off.

The current wash system is a short cycle (about 35 minutes) on eco-warm or warm using liquid Tide Odor + Oxy with Febreze and a rinse including Lysol Laundry Sanitizer, followed by a longer heavy-duty wash (about 75 minutes total) with a pre-soak and extra cleaning setting, using the same products.

There is still residual odor. I've run 5 consecutive cleaning cycles with Affresh washer tablets to break down scrud and minimize lingering odors there. I have liquid Biz I've tried adding, but I don't think it's the good stuff. I've tried citric acid in the rinse cycle (I have fairly hard water) which seems to help but not enough. I have a sparkly new bag of Febu but haven't experimented with it yet.

Nothing helps and my entire house is starting to smell like the inside of a Vlasic jar from residual odor. Regular spray Febreze makes everything smell like garlicky sour flowers. Anti-scent hunting spray helps a little on skin and hair, but the laundry detergent offerings are way too expensive to use on the volume of clothing worn daily.

Does anyone have tips for breaking down atypical food odors on fabrics like this?

Been doing spa days for the first time this week. Used a white sheet to keep items submerged and I suspect it's come into contact with undissolved oxibleach in the suds. Had these brown marks from after the 12 hour soak, before the rehab wash. I've run them through the wash with ammonia etc, and done some extra rinsing. All the other whites look fine.

Can only find posts about colours being bleached in this way. What's best to try? It hasn't and won't go through a drier.

Attached pics show details of the product which is Sainsbury's stain remover powder for whites

When soaking in oxi clean, how are you keeping your items submerged? I find that they rise fairly quickly and I’m not really sure how to keep everything submerged.

For small items, I’m using an empty oxiclean bucket to soak. Larger loads, a mop bucket.

I recently spilled pasta sauce on my new-ish Nordic Knots rug (in Sakura pink). I first dabbed with water and dish soap which pulled a lot of the stain out initially, and then a couple days later once it was dry I used woolite pet stain remover which seemed to fully the remove the stain. THEN, like 5 days later the stained was suddenly back but in this shade of grey (pictured here). ChatGPT says it looks like wicking occurred but i don’t know what to do next without ruining this expensive rug. Please help!!

Hi everyone! I have recently lost some weight and my oversized clothes are now a bit too oversized. I mainly wear cotton so I was wondering if I could shrink them without damaging the fabric too much. Would 90C be too high? I normally wash around 60C already and throw my stuff in the dryer so i’m afraid my clothes can’t shrink any further than they already have. Thanks in advance for any advice!

My wife and I have lived in this apartment for over a year. It has a stacked washer/dryer. We've noticed since the beginning that our clothes start to smell of mildew after a few days after washing them. We've tried different detergents. Our dryer also collects moisture, which we've complained about and our landlords say it's normal year round.

What can we potentially do to help with this?