How to Eliminate Smoke Smell

We recently had a customer that had experienced a house fire and wanted their clothes cleaned at Bluestone Laundromat. If you have ever lived through a house fire, you know that getting the smell of smoke out of items can be difficult. And while a house fire is a unique set of circumstances, people regularly ask how to get the smell of smoke out of clothing from everything ranging from cigarettes, to camp fires, to chemical fires.

Smoke smell on clothing is the result of a chemical reaction. A normal wash process may not completely work, depending on the source of the smoke. You need to disrupt the chemical interaction occurring between your clothing fibers and the smoke particles. Washing in standard laundry detergent alone may not resolve the problem.

For less monumental situations than a house fire, you can try the following approaches to eliminate the smell of smoke when doing laundry. These are processes that can be tried individually or in combination. The amount of effort will likely be related to the source of the smoke. A camp fire produces less complicated smoke than a house fire, which includes smoke from melted plastics, metals, and other complicated materials.

Here are the things you can try:

• Wash the clothes in cold water with laundry detergent and vinegar.

• Soak the clothes prior to washing in a solution of baking soda and water for several hours.

• Place the clothes outside in the fresh air prior to washing.

• Vacuum your clothing (this sounds odd but it attempts to draw the smoke particles from your clothing).

• Use a specialized odor-eliminating laundry detergent.

• Soak in OxiClean before washing.

• Spray with Febreze before prior to washing, as the product is reported to trap odor causing molecules.

• If the smell persists, it may be necessary to repeat the process several times or try a different method.

Also, keep in mind that if you are the victim of a house fire or puff back, which is the result of a furnace malfunction, your insurance company may pay for you to have your items cleaned professionally by a dry cleaner or wash-dry-fold service. Always ask your insurance company exactly what is covered in this scenario, as the coverage can differ from insurer to insurer. Also, ask the company doing the wash if there is any type of warranty if the smell persists after they complete the work in the event that items still smell. Sometimes the hint of smell is still mild after the washing is complete. This can happen because of more extensive exposure to the smoke.