Thursday, September 22, 2011

Vintage Fabric Question

Pictures are coming, but does anyone know how to get the smell of old people out of vintage fabric?  You know, that musty smell in everyone's grandmother's house.  My mom and I just bought LOADS of fabric at an estate sale today and even after washing, it still smells funky.

Any suggestions????


Thanks!

5 comments:

  1. Vinegar - soak the fabric in vinegar and then rewash - I would also HIGHLY recommend an all natural laundry detergent (like a castile soap/borax/washing soda combo) as the commercial ones that most people use are not really very good at getting rid of smells. But definitely try the vinegar soak.

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  2. I bought some fabric off of eBay that smelled like that recently. What I did was spray them down good with fabreeze then tie them up in a bag for a day. When I opened it up it still smelled so I had wrote them off as muslin fabrics. I let them air dry in the second bathroom for a couple of days and when i checked on them they only smelled like fabreeze.

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  3. Jennifer has the right idea. You also could add some lavender fabric softener to the wash.

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  4. I heard that spraying with vodka helped to get musty smells out of vintage clothing. 1 part vodka, 2 parts water in a spray bottle and there you have it!

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  5. If vinegar can get sweaty football player smell out of my son's football gear then it probably would get rid of musty, old folks smell in fabric.
    I do like the vodka idea though...

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