Asked on Oct 27, 2013
How do I get rancid oil stink out of cloth.
by Judy
+75
My roommate has very oily skin. His body oils soak into the fabric of his shirts, sheets & pillow cases, turn rancid & the stench is terrible. I've tried washing in very hot water, with baking soda, bleach or pine sol. His clothes smell fine when they come out of the dryer but after being folded & stacked for a few days the smell returns, Ideas anyone or does anyone have recommendations for laundry detergents for odors?
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REALLLLLYYY LATE comment, but...
One time I had a roommate like this. She would take a bath and she wasn't clean after the bath she would just leave the ring and it was disgusting! Her clothes always stunk her sheets always stunk and we went to the laundromat together and combined loads. Because she wasn't very clean she let me be in charge of the laundry though. I washed everything in the hottest imaginable water and double the soap! But you're right, later, a couple of days maybe, stinky stinky! I'm so glad for this thread because I've learned a lot. Thank you.
by the way, did you find anything else that worked or did something specifically work that you tried from these comments in this thread?
Talk to him about his nutrition - that's the root cause of the oily skin. He probably has fatty liver disease from eating junk food ( too greasy, spicy, etc) and smoking (if he smokes). In the mean time keep his clothes and linen in the attic or garage.
Wisk worked. Alas, nevermore, replaced with Persil 2 in 1 which does not work. Simple Green didn't work. Trying vinegar and Tide in wash today since vinegar is supposed to help clothes be colorfast. Tide Ultra 2in1 didn't work and I thought it lightened my colors as well. Anyone found a good detergent yet???
Salt water. I use a spray bottle and dissolve salt in water, spray on smelly areas, ex underarms. It’s the only thing I’ve found that actually Removes the smell. Salt kills the bacteria that cause the smell.
Finally found something that works!
⅓c Simple Green
½c Persil
No fabric softener, use a dryer sheet
Warm water
This worked for me, even on clothes that have sat before washing. We cover our pillow cases with a hand towel then wash the hand towels in a batch.
Like the salt idea, I'll have to give it a try on tshirts.
On another forum, I found a reference to STTP (sodium tripolyphosphate) that was recommended for the weird stains that modern soft soaps (bath gels, etc) leave in white towels. I got some on amazon and began using it for this very problem. Even though my husband bathes and changes his clothes every morning, he’s now generating that smell—age, I think. STTP is supposed to be the best surfactant for clay based stains. I take the pillow cases and soak them for a bit in a tablespoon of the stuff and ultra hot water. Then I throw them into our front loader with detergent and a bit more STTP. It’s not a substance I use all the time, as it’s not recommended in some communities due to environmental consequences (some municipalities have inadequate facilities to remove the phosphate). So, proceed with caution. But it was the ONLY thing that seemed to work and I’ve tried Dawn, Borax, Fels Naptha, Washing Soda, Simple Green, vinegar and every combination therein.
i'm dealing with this issue too. I found this - it is repetitive of everything said, but it does list measurements How to Clean Those Stinky, Oily Sheets!
The long term solution is to treat the cause rather than the symptom. Although perspiring is naturally healthy, body odor isn't, and it is usually due to eating foods that are not good for us. Each person's diet requirements are unique, so you'll have to experiment a bit to discover what foods are causing the B.O., and you'll probably also find that you (or your husband) also feels a lot healthier.
My Tilley hat has a very persistent Rancid smell, similar to cooking oil gone bad. I have tried all of the above and it works for a few days then the rancid returns full force just with the hat sitting there. I really love this hat and don't want to get rid of it. My next plan is Baking Soda - My plan is to put the hat in a large ziplock bag and load it up with the baking soda and let it sit for a week. I shall return with the results in 3 to 4 weeks.
I read these postings some months ago, and now that my incredible husband figured it out...... and just before i threw away drawer loads of my fav clothing,(and His) Here it is: Dish Soap!!!!! he put dish soap in the laundry..... we tried everything for months, borax, laundry detergent, baking soda etc etc.....i hate toxic laundry soap with the masking agents, so was at my wits end and smelling like funky ducks everywhere we went....we were talking about it, and he said you know dish soap, cuts grease, maybe it would work.....? and it DOES! and not talking dawn or those toxic dish soaps, just simple fragrance free Planet does it......he puts in a laundry detergent cap size and we still do use some baking soda as a brightner.....i also do an extra rinse as the Planet still does have Sodium Laureth Solfate.....but Hallelujah, it friggin works great! i just washed all my favorite pjs that i couldn't wear cause the smell would keep me awake.....he had already done all his clothes a couple weeks ago.....my t-shirts etc etc....its like santa came early.....best of luck.....report back please.....
My husband has the same problem though we don’t have the problem with sheets. He always takes a shower in the mornings and before he goes to bed. I would recommend taking at least two showers a days and if possible scrub your body with one of those rough sponges to remove all the grease. Also, soak yourself in the bathtub at least twice a week to remove all the grease and death skin. Thank you for all your suggestions. I will definitely try the dishwasher soap.
CHARLIE’S SOAP! I see this is quite old but I came across this because I was trying for a week to get a horrible smell from rancid lotion out of sheets and clothing. I soaked a shirt in dish soap and it did nothing and maybe made it worse. Borax, Tide, vinegar.... did them all. Have any of you tried Charlie’s Soap? It’s on Amazon, at Sprouts, maybe Whole Foods, and in some Target stores. I think it did the trick once and for all for the terrible oil / lotion stench I was dealing with! Also, the window on my front loader is now clear so it cleaned the machine a bit as well. Read the reviews on Amazon, a lot of people use this for cleaning cloth diapers.
The thing to understand about this all is what actually makes oils become "rancid". This is not from bacterial action, for the most part.
Oils go "rancid" simply from oxidation.
We are all familiar with various cooking fats becoming rancid. And we know that some fats become rancid sooner than others. Alton Brown discusses this in one episode of his "good eats" show where he discusses the chemistry behind this.
But for this discussion, the key thing to understand is why cloth gets that rancid smell. And why does it appear some time after washing. Or appears after drying.
The answer is simply that there is residual oil or grease in the cloth. And that oil is oxidizing, thus becoming rancid.
When you wash a load of laundry, the soap emulsifies the oil and grease. Then the machine drains, and then a rinse cycle happens. But only some of the oil and grease actually leaves the laundry. This comes down to some dilution. As the soap is drained and rinsed away, the remaining oils are distributed evenly throughout the load of laundry.
So while we may have gotten rid of 90 percent of the oil, the remaining 10 percent is now distributed evenly throughout the load. And the cloth has a huge surface area (on a microscopic level) which allows all of those grease molecules to have great exposure to air. So oxidation happens rather quickly and efficiently to all of that oil that is throughout the cloth.
That explains why the laundry might smell fine immediately after washing, but then get rancid within a few days. Or get rancid as we dry it. It's exposed to air (and this oxygen) and the rancidification happens rather fast.
So the only way to prevent the laundry from going rancid is to remove as much of the oil as possible. Just emulsifying it and spreading it around isn't good enough.
So this means we need a more thorough washing and rinsing regime.
As someone recommended, dry cleaning (using industrial solvent) is one way.
But at home, we simply need to do a better job of washing and rinsing in a way that emulsifies and then gets rid of the oils. ALL of the oils.
This means hot water, not overloading the washer (a half size load max). Good detergent and plenty of it. Using automatic dishwasher soap along with regular laundry soap.
And running the load several times. Each washing reduces the oil level. But any one washing only gets out, perhaps 90 percent.
This is like mopping a floor. You're really only dissolving the crud and smearing it around. That's why you have to do it repeatedly with clean water each time to incrementally reduce the concentration of the "dirt".
I wash oily napkins and the like three times, in hot water, with detergent and automatic dishwasher soap, with no more than a half-size load in the machine, and low water, and then once with full water for that half-load. The idea is to get good reduction of the oil concentration that's left in the laundry.
We like to imagine that a load of laundry gets clean with one washing. But particularly for oils, the rinse cycles don't do much because the soap is gone, and the oils are just re-deposited into the load. Only what drains away at the end of the soap cycle really leaves the machine. The rinse cycle is only to rinse away soap residue. It can't rinse away any oil.
Ideally, the machine would have a "grease setting" that uses soap cycles repeatedly with a spin cycle between them. Water-only rinses are mostly useless until you've removed all of the oils. Again, the rinse doesn't remove oils.
You have to do this by "hand" to get the effect with a typical washing machine. The rinses don't hurt, but they're just a waste. So it's OK to walk away from the machine and just wash the load repeatedly. You'll just waste some water and the energy to heat all but the last of your rinse water.
In short, a normal wash cycle is leaving some oil behind, spread evenly throughout your load, where it is ready to oxidize very soon after you're done. And that rancid smell is simply the residual oil and grease oxidizing to the smelly rancid state. You have to remove the oil and grease better. Not just spread it around.
It's a pain, but that's the fact. This isn't a matter of deodorizing. It's a matter of actually getting the grease out more thoroughly. Oxidized oil and grease stinks. It's not harmful or a sign of bacteria. etc. It's just that oxidized oils have a very strong smell.
On the topic of Body Oil Removal, the previous posting is one of the most sensible I've read.
Oxidized body oil apparently produces a compound called nonenal. Aging also causes an increase in fatty lipids on the skin.
At 63, I now wash my hair and change my brand-new pillow cases daily. In order to prevent the contamination of the entire load, I smell-test every item of laundry, removing those that have the odor of nonenal. I now wash my pillow cases separately.
On contaminated items, I have tried Borax and vinegar without much success. I also washed them with Dawn, after soaking in a product called OxiAll. This may have helped somewhat, but not sure yet. Still working on it.