Getting Sour Milk Smell Out of Laundry

Hi T.,
I have had problems with smelly towels so now I add baking soda to the wash. That is all it takes to neutralize the odor and it doesn't leave any other smells.
Sincerely,
L.

I add 1/2 a cup to a full cup of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda to the washer (depending on load size) to get my laundry to smell fresher. I buy it in bulk at Costco.

Try Borax. Also, look out for the fabric softeners - they tend to have nasty chemicals in them which are not good for baby or the water supply or any of us.

enzyme-based cleaners like Nature's miracle (can find in pet stores) or Kids'n'pets (used to find it at Target but haven't seen it lately) are good for getting out smelly stuff. Keep it on hand for when you start potty training, too :-)

Hi T.,

I am an independent business owner and I carry the SA8 laundry care system. There is nothing like it, especially the Pre-Wash spot treatment. You can have these products shipped to your home and they have a 180-day money back guarantee. These are ECO-friendly products. My web address is somethingspecial.mychoices.biz. If you need to talk to me just click on the button on my site and it will call me directly.

Take care and have an awesome day!

This trick works for any soured laundry odor: Start filling the washer with water and add some PineSol. It must be the disinfectant PINE kind, too. Then launder the towels or whatever is sour. Use warm water if possible but rinse in cold. Then launder again as usual in reg detergent and dry.

Adding about 1/4 cup of plain old vinegar to the washing machine works for us on just about every odor possible. You are supposed to add it during the rinse cycle but since I can never remember to do that, I always add it when I start the laundry and everything smells just fine.

I use vinegar instead of fabric softener... 2 capfuls. Put it in the softener slot or one of those dispenser balls that pop open in the spin/rinse cycle. For me it's worked wonders to combat smells from cloth diapers to breastmilk spitup on everything (Thank God the reflux is over now!). My sister thought I was nuts (she's addicted to her fabric softener) but she gave it a try on her horses' (she has 6!) leg wraps and has abandoned her perfumy Downey for the ElCheapo gallon bottle of vinegar!

I have always been a big fan of the spray dreft - my daughter had reflux and was constantly vomiting (we're talking 8-10 clothing changes a day!). I'd squirt on the spray dreft and leave it on top of the washer until the end of the day (by then it was usually a full load between the clothes that got hit, the burp clothes, blankets), I'd throw them all in and everything came out nicely and nothing smelled at all (no spit up stains either). My daughter just turned 5 and I still use the dreft for mud/dirt/blood stains (my son is 10 and VERY active)...it works great. Good luck

try a tiny bit of bleach or bleach for colors added to your detergent. worked for me.

I use the ecosense line from Melaleuca. The detergent gets out all odors of my clothes. If you want to try it contact me and I will tell you how to get it.

S. M

I have always been a fan of Clorox Bleach - the regular kind for whites, the safe-for-colors kind for everything else. For things that are badly stained, or have been sitting in the laundry hamper for a few days, you also might want to pre-soak the laundry with some laundry detergent and warm water in a bucket or your laundry sink. Maybe add an extra rinse cycle as well if your little guy has sensitive skin. That usually does the trick for me! (My girls are 3 and 6 and get into some amazing messes... just when you master getting the baby stains out of everything, then you hit potty training, and then preschool!! Get ready, sister!)

Dear T.,
As soon as your son is done dribbling on a shirt, take it off of him and rinse it out right away with water and vinegar. If you don't have enough other laundry to throw in with it, lay it out to dry somewhere or hang it in the shower. Adding vinegar to the load of laundry helps with all kinds of odors, including mildew.
Hope it helps!

Hi T.,

What works for me is to put a little vinegar right in the washer. About 1/4 cup to a full cup. It depends on the size of your load. The vinegar will also help keep your colors from fading. I use vinegar for cleaning lots of other things too. Like my floors. Don't worry; the "salad" smell dissipates rather quickly too.

N. :o)

Baking soda isn't just for baking and refrigerators, it's for laundry too. Get the smell out of almost anything. You can use it in the washer OR the dryer. If you pull something out of the wash that still 'smells' throw the load into the dryer with a sfterner sheet and the sprinkle baking soda in, too. Works miracles.

Try hanging them in the sun to dry - works great for stains too.

Try Bac-Out which can be found at any health food store.

I used good old fashioned Borax - it says right on the box it's good for baby clothes. Also, adding a scoop of Arm & Hammer baking soda to the wash works great too - Costco has it in a big bags with laundry instructions on the back.
AND I've always been a huge fan of Wisk detergent for getting stuff clean.
My son drooled buckets from 2 months to 30 months, and i always put 2 bibs on him, a plastic lined one on the bottom to keep his shirt dry.

Natural things I have had work are soaking in a vinegar rinse after the wash for an hour, then rinsing in clear water and also, sunning can really freshen fabric (and it lightens or eliminates stains too).

The fabric softener may be coating the milk particles and keeping them on the shirt, so you may want to try to super-wash the fabric to 'strip' off the softener so that you can get at the odor.

Last resort for me that works every time, but is icky/toxic, is OdoBan from Sam's Club.

I don't know about your detergent, I use a fabulous liquid from the local co-op which smells like lemongrass and doesn't require any fabric softener at all. I will share with you some concerns about Downy and other fabric softener sheets though. They leave a residue on clothes which may leave them vulnerable to the sour milk, I don't really know. The real issue with them is the chemicals: they are shown to cause lung cancer when the dryer is vented where you can breathe it in. Which means wherever it's vented it will spew cancer-causing substances. Most people love their dryer sheets, but I've found it very easy to get along with out them and in fact much prefer the smell of lavender or even nothing to the artificial scent on sheets. Good luck.

If you have a cloths line hang them out in the sun. it's amazing what the sun can do.

I don't know about sour milk smell, but OxyClean has worked with smelly work out clothes for us.

I second the Natures Made... I'm using that in laundry that gets peed on (potty training...)

SOAK the clothing first, either in detergent or 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water. Or you can just put vinegar in with your washload. Really helps with odors. And no, the clothes don't smell like vinegar!

rub in some baking soda and then rinse with cold water. then when you do the wash, add a half-cup of vinegar to the rinse water. (don't worry, your baby won't smell like vinegar.)