How to Remove The Smell Of Sweat from Clothes without Washing? Try These 3 Hacks

It doesn’t matter how often you shower or how much deodorant you use: after just 15 minutes outdoors, you’re sweating like crazy. To remove the smell of sweat from clothes is a tough task. Luckily, there are some super hacks you can use to refresh your clothes without washing them.

What Is the Most Effective Way to Remove the Smell of Sweat from Clothes?

A quick walk in the sun or a 15-minute workout and your clothes smell like sweat. Sometimes even a low-temperature wash cannot remove the odor and running the washing machine every day is neither sustainable nor economical. Even on vacation you want to save yourself the washing. Luckily, there are ways to get rid of the smell of sweat.

How to Kill Sweat Bacteria Effectively?

But first: the sweat has no smell. The smell is appears when the bacteria living on the skin decompose the sweat and release certain waste gases. Antiperspirants therefore always contain an antibacterial component that is supposed to prevent the bacteria from decomposing the sweat.

Similarly, if you want to remove the smell of sweat from clothes, you should kill the bacteria. When washing at 80F/30C degrees, however, the bacteria are not killed, that is why often the smell of sweat remains even after washing. Only a temperature above 160F/60C degrees proves to be effective against bacteria. However, the washing machine uses a lot of electricity for this – so this option is not exactly effective in everyday life.

Another method would be to add a disinfectant to the detergent but this could cause allergies. You can also prepare a vodka solution and spray it on clothes – but this only helps against small stains and odors in specific areas

Luckily, there’s a third option — the right temperature can kill sweat bacteria. You have two alternatives: the temperature should be either higher than 160F/60C or below 32F/0C.

Place Clothes in the Freezer

The easiest way to get rid of the smell of sweat is to put your clothes in the freezer. However, there are a few things to consider.

The sweat bacteria can tolerate sub-zero temperatures for a short time, so you need to leave the clothes in the freezer for a longer period of time, preferably overnight. However, 1 to 2 hours is usually sufficient. Then air the clothes for an hour.

The trick works best if you freeze the clothes as soon as possible after taking them off. Don’t give the bacteria a chance to multiply. A mistake would be to throw the clothes in the laundry basket – after a few hours a musty smell develops.

Steam against Musty Smell

Another option is to kill the bacteria with high temperatures. The advantage of this method is that it works super fast. You can proceed as follows:

Steam the clothes with a steam cleaner. A nice bonus: The steamers also remove wrinkles.

You can also steam iron the clothes. This method is also very effective as far as clothing allows.

You can put delicate textiles that can in the dryer and start a 30-minute drying program.

If you are on holiday and your hotel room does not have a refrigerator with a freezer compartment, neither a steamer nor a clothes hanger, then the option of hanging your clothes in the sun is the best one. The best time is midday and afternoon. Turn delicate fabrics inside out to prevent fading.