The Baking Soda Hack For An Odor-Free, Fresh-Smelling Closet

Your closet has one of the most important jobs in the house. As the principal clothing storage facility, it has been bestowed the responsibility of ensuring that your shirts and pants stay clean, fresh, and neatly put away. This should prevent any unwanted odors from pouring in from the outside and seeping into the fabrics. Sometimes, however, no matter how hard you try, your closet can end up smelling damp, stale, and just downright gross. Air fresheners don't seem to work properly because they only layer on top of the stench. To stop this from happening, you can use one of the best natural odor eliminators for a fresh-smelling home — baking soda.

If your closet smells sour, you should check all your items carefully. Your feet spend all day in those socks and sneakers, so of course your shoes would carry around stenches that would make a skunk nervous. Keeping smelly shoes in your closet would guarantee that the entire space would take on the odor, including your clothes. Other times, if your bedroom air is typically humid, the moisture can foster mildew growth in your closet over time and cause your clothes to become stale. The sweat from recently worn shoes in the closet would also add to this. Baking soda can help get rid of these unwanted odors because of its natural absorbent qualities. Once you get rid of the smell, then you can focus on curbing the habits that allowed it to carry on.

There are a couple of ways you can go about implementing your baking soda strategy to get rid of that nasty smell in your closet. The most straightforward method is just leaving some of the powdery substance in a small saucer out in the open inside your closet. The direct contact with the air will eventually draw out the stench and absorb it.

You can also pair the baking soda with another effective, natural household staple deodorizer such as activated charcoal. These two substances together boost each other's efficacy and will clear the air in a hurry. Add some charcoal to the dish and place it on a shelf or empty rack inside your closet. If you don't want to risk the baking soda spilling all over your clothes or carpet, you can place it and the charcoal inside a poultice bag, tie it up, and hang it on one of the dowels. Make several poultices to counteract the stench quicker.

To prevent bad smells from your closet, make sure your shoes get a healthy dose of sunlight before they go back into your closet after you wear them. A full day of sunlight should dry up any lingering moisture from sweaty feet. Also, if you don't already have a dehumidifier, you may want to invest in one, even if just for your closet.