Why your laundry smells bad after washing and what you can do to prevent it
It’s a situation many of us are all too familiar with: you take your laundry out of the washing machine and it already has a musty smell mixed in with the scent of the detergent. You may have also experienced this phenomenon with supposedly clean laundry that has just come out of your wardrobe. Discover what could be causing your laundry to smell after it’s been washed and find out what you can do to combat the unpleasant odour.
30 August 2024 • 4 min reading time
The picture shows wet clothes in a washing machine drum with visible drops of water on the inside.
There are various reasons why your laundry might smell bad after it’s been washed. To help you get to the bottom of the musty odour, we reveal the three most common triggers for smelly laundry.
Quickly switching on the washing machine before work, coming home exhausted in the evening and forgetting all about the load of laundry you put on – until the next day. This mishap is probably one of the most common reasons why laundry smells bad after washing.
Even if your clothes appear clean after the wash cycle, bacteria, germs and even mould can form in a very short time in the warm, damp environment of the machine’s drum – especially if it is left closed for several hours. Drying your laundry straight away without washing it again runs the risk of ending up with smelly clothes.
Smelly laundry can also be caused by it not drying properly; either because it has dried too slowly due to too high humidity, for example, or because it is not fully dry before putting it in your wardrobe.
Here, too, the moisture causes bacteria to form, which then becomes noticeable through an unpleasant smell. You often don’t even notice this until you’ve taken the laundry out of the cupboard or put it on.
Over-loading your washing machine, washing at temperatures that are too low or using the wrong dosage of detergent can be reasons why your laundry isn’t coming out of the washing machine clean in the first place. The germs in your dirty garments can then spread even faster, resulting in all your laundry starting to smell.
There are a few steps you can follow if you want to get back to enjoying clean, fragrant laundry after washing. Most importantly, smelly laundry should always be washed again, as the bacteria and mould spores can cause skin irritation or allergies.
It is also extremely unpleasant for you and others to have to put up with the strong odour of stinky laundry. Here’s what you should do to clean musty laundry hygienically and prevent it from smelling in the future.
Before you put your smelly laundry back in the washing machine, you should clean the latter thoroughly. It’s best to use a special hygienic cleaner for washing machines, which you should use according to the instructions on the packaging.
After cleaning the washing machine, you should also empty its lint filter and clean its rubber seals with a vinegar-based cleaning product.
Doing this prevents bacteria and mould from spreading directly in the drum and embedding itself in your laundry. In future, also make sure to open the detergent compartment and the door after each wash cycle so that any remaining liquid in the drum can evaporate.
Unpleasant smells can be stubborn to remove from clothes. Delicate materials in particular, such as silk or wool, should never be washed at too high a temperature. Therefore, in order to kill any germs and bacteria in such fragile garments, it’s best to pre-treat your laundry.
Simply soak your musty clothes for a few hours in a mixture of water and vinegar or water and baking soda; both household remedies have a disinfectant and odour-neutralising effect. Then it’s time to pop them in the washing machine.
In addition to choosing the right detergent, you should also make sure you use the correct dosage. This depends on the degree of soiling and the water hardness in your region. Every detergent has dosage instructions on the packaging that you should follow, and for good reason: too little detergent can result in your laundry not getting a proper wash, while too much detergent can leave residue on your laundry that could later become smelly.
Another step to prevent your laundry from smelling bad after it’s been washed is to fill the washing machine with the right amount of clothes. It’s better to put in too little than too much – especially if you want to wash smelly clothes again.
For normal cotton clothing, you should never fill your washing machine to more than 80% full – for delicate textiles, only half full is recommended in some cases. The reason for this is that if your washing machine’s drum is too full, your clothes can’t be effectively cleaned all over. What’s more, the detergent cannot be washed out properly, which can lead to an unpleasant odour.
Another very important step to prevent smelly laundry is letting it dry after it has been washed. This should be done as quickly as possible, which is why many people swear by a tumble dryer, especially in the rainy, cold months.
If you hang your clothes on a line, ensure the humidity is as low as possible, or ideally hang them outside in the sun. You should also make sure that there is enough space between the garments on the washing line; if they are too close to each other or overlap, the laundry cannot dry or will only dry very slowly.
And lastly, don’t forget to check that your laundry is completely dry before you take it off the line; this will prevent bacteria from spreading inside your wardrobe.
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