The transition from warmer weather to the dreaded chill of winter weather can leave you with a lot of work. Winter brings along the tasks of shoveling snow off of your driveway, melting snow off your windshield, and the daunting task of eradicating the smelly, foul odors out of your winter clothing that have gathered an unpleasant aroma from being stored all year long. Typically, we put away our winter clothing at the start of summer to make more room in the wardrobe closet for the summer clothes we excitedly prepare to wear – packaging away snow clothes into bins, closets, and even storage rooms that can leave a drastic impact on the smell of your attire as winter approaches. From big ski jackets, gloves, hats, and snow boots they all can collect a smell that will leave you running to the washing machine upon opening it again once winter hits the area. What can be done to eliminate the smelly odors from your snow clothes, especially for the items that we can’t toss into the washing machine?
Stinky Winter Apparel – Putrid Storing Smells
Winter apparel acquires a lot of wear and tear during its use in the cold months. Moisture from the snow can collect onto the apparel and leave it with a smelly odor from the dirty snow. Clothing like jackets, winter boots, ski pants, sweaters, and gloves are made of thick material that will grab onto and soak the odors into the fabric, embedding the smell deep within the material. Cleaning these items from the odors that are consuming the fabric is a daunting task and often times nearly impossible to eliminate with a normal washing machine cleaning. This leaves you storing smelly clothes that will only get smellier as it sits in the tight, confined space for a long duration of time. What can be done to eliminate these odors from winter clothes and how does the smells worsen in storage?
Why Are Your Winter Clothes Smelly
Opening up the closet or bin with your winter clothes may hit you like a ton of bricks – well the odor will at least! Stored clothing is notorious for emitting a strong mildew odor that can spread throughout the whole article of clothing. That mildew/musty smell is often the result of the conditions that storage presents.
Mildew spores accumulate in dark and damp environments, ideally where moisture is present – which is common on snow clothing. Moisture, if not on the stored clothing, can find its way into the storage either by spills or humidity. Once these conditions are available inside the storage the mildew and mold will start to grow and leave a lasting smell that we quickly need to eradicate upon winters arrival.
If you are someone who is constantly at battle with your winter and snow clothes when winter season hits, learning some tips on how to wash each winter item can help dramatically reduce the time you spend trying to eliminate the foul odors on your winter clothing.
Guide to Washing Winter Clothing
Washing your winter clothing may be a difficult task for those stuck with smelly apparel that has been stored all year long. Below is a fool-proof guide to wash each item in your winter clothes closet – leaving you with fresh and clean snow clothes for the winter season.
Deodorize Apparel – Sweaters & Pants
One of the easier pieces of winter clothing to wash and deodorize is pants and sweaters that were stored away in storage. These articles of clothing are easy to wash because they can be placed in a washing machine to be washed – whereas items such as gloves and boots cannot be placed in the washing machine. Depending on the material of the sweater or pants – you will most likely be able to get these items wet and can use your normal everyday laundry routine on these fabrics. However, laundry detergent is sometimes inept to fully deodorize fabric of mildew and musty odor that is collected on clothing – like winter clothing. Having an additional resource to use on your winter wear like, OdorKlenz Laundry Additive could be the easy solution to expelling the strong mildew and musty odors on your snow clothing.
Removing Odors from Snow Boots
During the winter months, smelly feet issues can be at its worst. Enclosing your feet with socks and shoes can increase heat and therefore lead to sweat being trapped inside your shoe. The bacteria will collect inside your snow boots and make them smell putrid – which can be hard to expel since most boots are not machine washable. If you let the smell and bacteria linger in your boots for months on end, you will most likely be left with an odor that only has one solution – the trash can! Before you let your boots get to the point of no return, try using an odor-solution that will both eradicate the odors and increase the life of your footwear.
OdorKlenz Sport Powder can be key to accomplishing these two goals – the OdorKlenz technology is a patented earth mineral process that is able to take odors and break them down, eliminating them from the source of the odor – like snow boots.
Erase Glove Smells
Last but not least, the ridiculously smelly winter gloves. The material of your gloves can play a key role in the ability to clean and deodorize them completely. If you are able to freely toss the gloves into the washing machine than you have little work to do, but for the gloves that you can’t throw into the washing machine it may require a little more work. However, with OdorKlenz the work will be very minimal! Just like for our boots, we can also use the same Sport Powder from OdorKlenz onto gloves to deodorize them and keep them smelling clean. Simply spray the powder onto the gloves and dust off the residue for complete odor-elimination.
How to Keep Your Stored Clothing Odor-Free
What if you could reduce the odors before they even occur inside your storage winter clothing? There is an optimal solution to ensure that your storage does not leave your clothes smelling bad – this solution is an
odor eliminating pad that can easily be placed into the storage bin, dresser, or closet that will help fight off the odors and leave your clothing odor-free once winter hits. These odor eliminating pads can be cut to size and molded for any tight spaces.