Get Potent Bleach Smells Out Of Clothing With A Handy Household Staple

Adding bleach to your laundry is a convenient and inexpensive way to deal with accidental stains, to whiten whites, and to disinfect dirty clothing. But adding too much bleach to the wash can leave behind a strong antiseptic smell on your clothes. Alternatively, using hard water to clean your clothes or improperly rinsing the chemical will also make your laundry emanate a potent odor. Luckily, you can use vinegar to get strong bleach smells out of clothing. However, this household staple should only be included after all of the bleach residue has been removed from both the washer and your clothes. This is because combining vinegar and bleach would create chlorine gas, which is extremely dangerous. 

While the smell of bleach may go away after a few days, you can use a clothing spray or your preferred fragrance to get rid of the smell at once. But using these isn't a long-term solution, as they'll only mask the smell and not eliminate it entirely. Vinegar is an excellent natural deodorizer, as it's acidic in nature. Using this handy household staple to get rid of the lingering smell on your clothes works because its acetic acid molecules will neutralize the alkaline odor of bleach. However, it must be used properly to ensure your safety.

To prevent the smell of bleach from irritating your nostrils or permeating other pieces of clothing, it's best to eliminate it as soon as possible. So put your washed laundry back in the washing machine and run it back through a rinse cycle (without adding anything). This is a crucial step, as it will help wash out any of the bleach that's still in your appliance or on your clothes. Once you take your clothes back out, the bleach should be removed from your clothes and washer. If the smell is still strong, you may need to run the laundry through another rinse cycle.

Once you've washed away the excess bleach, grab a bottle of distilled white vinegar. Of all the kinds of vinegar, distilled white is ideal for cleaning. Its lack of tannins makes it a great fit for laundry since it won't discolor your fabrics. Add ½ cup of vinegar to the machine's fabric softener drawer compartment. If your machine doesn't have this dispenser, bring it to a stop before the rinse cycle to add the vinegar straight into the drum. Once added, let it sit for 10 minutes before rinsing your clothing as normal. If you're worried about the vinegar smell, rest assured: It will fade over time and could dissipate completely after your clothes run through the dryer.

While vinegar can be used to remove bleach smells from clothes, you should always avoid mixing bleach and vinegar while cleaning. This is because combining them creates chlorine gas, and breathing this in can have severe negative effects on your health. For instance, it can cause blurry vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties, vomiting, coughing, fluid in the lungs, and in extreme cases, death. Even a small amount of this toxic gas can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat.

Because of this, it's extremely important to ensure that both your washer and clothes are free of bleach before adding vinegar into the mix. Removing it from your clothes is especially crucial because the gases could stay in the fabrics, causing you to breathe them in all day and become ill. If necessary, you may need to put your bleached clothes through several rinse cycles in order to ensure they're free of this cleaner. Then, vinegar can be used to remove any lingering odors after the clothes have been rinsed thoroughly. Further, if you often find that your clothes smell like bleach, you need to get to the root of the problem. Ensure you're not using too much bleach and that you're rinsing your clothes thoroughly.