We buy all our clothes from charity shops, as a matter of principle, to recycle. I enjoy shopping there.
The other day I read somewhere about that old ‘charity shop smell’ - meaning musty or worse. But you washed the clothes and get rid of it.
However, nowadays they’ve got a different trick to make them appear clean and new. They steam everything, adding a fruity, cheerful, and, for me, highly artificial smell, which I hate.
I wash the clothes and they leave this stink on all the other stuff in the washing machine - without losing the smell themselves. I’ve then hung them out in the wind, rain and snow - for weeks! - to no avail.
Only with much more washing and lots of time, it diminishes.
Does everyone else like that smell? Are my husband and I the only ones who hate it? And, more importantly: how best to get rid of it?
I would approach the charity shop to ask them what is used (by way of the cleaning product). Then you can write
directly to the manufacturer and ask them your question....who knows, they may take it on board and adapt their product!
Oh, I always just assumed it was washing powder.
Some people also wash the clothes before donating them, and as we know there are many 'consumers' out there who use all sorts of cr@p products in their washing machines.
I'm sure they use special steam-cleaners, looking like an upright vacuum cleaner with which they hoover the clothes. I've seen them do it lots of times. Those come with special cleaning liquid, which gives the smell. And they do it automatically with everything that comes in, I think. Only very few are excepted.
I don't think one can do anything about it, it's just the simplest way for them. I just wondered whether anyone else hates that particular smell like we do, and whether, say, washing them with or without powder does better.
My Dad volunteered in a Yorkshire charity shop for a number of years. They were/are quite (very) fussy about the clothes they accepted, and it was left to the male volunteers to sort through the incoming bags. Quite often, they would open a bag, and immediately consign it to the fabric recycling skip outside the back door. How some people thought it was acceptable to send stuff that had literally been picked up off a floor and bunged in a bag is a mystery to me! One bag my Dad sorted contained a badly torn jacket with a £5 note in a pocket - and a terry towel nappy - complete with contents! The shop used a donated industrial upright steamer, but never added any chemicals, despite some of the lady volunteers suggesting stuff like Febreeze. The musty smell in the shop appeared to be confined to the old magazines and donated books - they often came from house clearances, and were ingrained with damp or strawberry mould. Yes, the clothes that came in, and were usable, had generally been pre-washed - and as Giles mentions above - some peoples laundry product choices are not to everyone's taste (or smell!)!!
Doesn't seem to make much of a difference to be honest. As much as I love Charity shopping, the smell does seem very apparent almost everywhere I go. Not that I'm complaining, that smell is a sign of a true charity shop. Can't beat it!
As for getting rid of the smell, I find it goes after 1 or 2 washes.