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First steps for dealing with food smells

Before you wash anything, it’s good to remember some preventative measures that can help you minimize bad food smells from getting into your clothing.

  • Use a cooking apron. This can help smells and stains from reaching your clothing, acting as a barrier between you and the food.
  • Use an exhaust fan. Most modern kitchens have exhaust fans installed, so make use of it to ensure that strong smells are extracted. Failing that, what’s the simplest way regarding how to get food smells out of clothes? Just open a window!
  • Use rubber gloves. When cooking, you may end up accidentally transferring food smells onto your clothes when you touch your jeans or shirt after handling food. Powder-free latex gloves are useful when you’re cooking to prevent this from happening.
  • Sunlight and fresh air. It’s hard to beat nature when it comes to getting out bad odors after cooking. Hang out the smelly items on a clothesline, or at least hang them near a window in your home overnight.
  • Use Persil® ProClean® detergent. Odor Fighter liquid detergent is ideal for tackling food odors – your clothes will smell fresh as a daisy!

Tough stuff: How to get fried food smell out of clothes

If you’ve tried the tips mentioned above, but find that your clothes still smell like food, particularly like fried food, you might need something a bit stronger to tackle the odors. If you’re sure that there are no food stains to pre-treat, then it’s best to simply launder the clothing as you normally would in your washing machine. The ace up your sleeve, however, is to use something that delivers a deep clean and doesn’t just mask the smell, but removes it. Try a liquid laundry detergent like Persil® ProClean® Intense Fresh if you really want to see how to get food smells out of clothes fast and effectively.

  • Wash the item on the highest temperature allowed by the garment’s label instructions.
  • Smell the clothing to see if any food odors are still present. If so, wash the item again. Avoid drying the item until you’re sure that the smells have gone.
  • In the future, try to avoid bad smells getting near your clothing in the first place. If this can’t be helped, however, use a Persil® detergent to finish the task. Keep in mind that Persil® Original Scent Discs™ will also help if you need to wash clothing quickly.

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