Getting rid of sweat smells

Are there any good ways to get the smell of sweat out of furniture?

I noticed today that my recliner is starting to smell like old socks. The problem, aside from making clean clothes smell bad, is that it's only a year old, and won't fit in the washing machine.

I'm pretty sure it's a microfiber surface, which may make a difference in treatment methods.

So is there anything I can do to get the smell out? I don't want to cover the smell up I want it gone.

Fabreeze. I used it to "do laundry" in college.

Wipe with a damp cloth and give it fresh air. Can it be moved outside for a while?

I had some down pillows that I just couldn't wash/dry the mildew smell from them. Left them outside in the sun for a couple days and it worked.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Fabreeze. I used it to "do laundry" in college.

This. I Fabreeze the hell out of the car seats at work.

I have a leather watch band that has gotten the funk. I've tried to clean it but not much luck

OdorXit

Stop going to the gym and turn down the A/C?

I'll third Febreze.

I'll add, a Rug Doctor with the upholstery attachment does wonders as well.

Odoban

Toyman01 wrote: I'll add, a Rug Doctor with the upholstery attachment does wonders as well.

^^ I'll second this, and use the upholstery detergent. I used to line up a whole days work for the rental. Carpet or two, household upholstery, then vehicle carpets and upholstery.

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Odoban

Since I'm Technical Director of R&D at the company that makes it, I agree with your choice! Did you know we sell it in a nice Fresh Linen scent now?

But really... The problem is that synthetic materials are really good at trapping and holding the fatty acids in our sweat that cause "sweat smell." Fragranced sprays are a good, but temporary solution (and some are better than others). Steam cleaning with the correct cleaners is your best bet for truly long term results because it actually extracts the odor chemicals. I could, of course, recommend some cleaners but I don't want to overstep the forum bounds about advertising. PM me if you want specific recommendations.

In reply to ultraclyde:

Does the stuff just leave a replacement smell or actually get rid of the smell?

In my younger days when I cared about such things, I used ozium and a few others to try to cover up the smell of weed and it always made it smell like strange scented weed instead of actually getting rid of the smell as advertised, so I'm a little leery.

I'd love to move it outside, but it's not something I can easily do myself, and I really doubt the super high humidity outside would help. Not like the high humidity inside does either, which also worries me about a rug doctor or steam cleaner. Probably the best thing I could do for drying the chair out is to bring in my dehumidifier and set it up next to the chair.

Looking around online I've seen mention of baking soda and white vinegar. Again, the drying everything out afterwards part is a bit of a challenge, but I'm willing to try it.

Im just really thrown off. We keep furniture for years, I've actually lived on one of our other chairs before, but it's only very recently with this new chair that I'm noticing the smell. And I figure if I, the person who sits in it all the time and lives in the house can smell it, people who come to visit are probably overwhelmed and getting terrible ideas about how I keep my house.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "getting rid of" the odor. Nothing that you spray on a surface and leave is going to remove the odor causing compounds. That's why good cleaning is the first step of odor removal - and cleaning implies some sort of soil removal.

However, certain fragrances actually change how you sense odors - it's called fragrance complexing. As a totally made up example, let's say you can smell bananas and strawberries separately, but if you mix the two smells, you can't smell either one. Sense of smell is still not perfectly understood from a mechanism/biological perspective. The theory is that certain smells sort of act like opposing sine waves and cancel each other out. In that regard, it has removed the "odor" if not the actual chemical. The trick is that certain fragrances work for certain odors, but not all - and everyone senses them differently. We developed our fragrances to create this cancellation effect on the widest range of odors possible, but certain ones still work better on some odors than others.

There's also the question of bacteria. Many of the odors in a home (but probably not on something soft like your chair) are the result of bacterial life process. Bacteria live on surfaces and the chemicals they give off are generally unpleasant to us. In general an odor eliminator that is also an antibacterial is more effective because of this, but not many of them are.

In regards to your chair smelling more than the other furniture, it's probably the result of the particular fabric. Microfiber fabric is made up of very fine diameter synthetic fibers, typically polyester. The smaller diameter fibers provide a lot more surface area to absorb odor chemicals than traditional fabrics. Traditional fabrics also use a wider range of fibers many of which have weaker attraction forces to the short chain fatty acids that smell. It's the same reason that workout clothes that are "wicking fabric" pick up a funk that's very hard to get rid of but a cotton shirt doesn't.

Oxyclean then let it bake in direct sunlight.

In reply to ultraclyde:

PM sent.

I think tonight I'm going to start with the simple, when I go to bed I'll cover it with baking soda and rub it in a bit, and in the morning vacuum it off. I've seen it recommended several places, and already have everything.

I'll be honest, my house smells. Not like dog E36 M3 or garbage, but the carpets are 30 years 4 dogs and 2 children old, it's been smoked in the entire time, none of the windows are sealed very well, the slab sweats in the summer(I suspect), and while I might not smell it specifically, I know there's a mildewy scent here. It's especially noticeable with blankets or clothes that don't get worn very often, all that stuff needs washed before use.

I guess I admitted all that because it's kind of an underlying thing. I'm sure the furniture has the scent too. And it really doesn't matter what we do, nothing fixes it. I vacuum 3 times a week, twice a month I pour baking soda down before hand, I don't use the AC very often, when the kid isn't here there's a dehumidifier running 24/7 in the common areas, and nothing can keep up. That's what worries me the most about a steam clean or a rug doctor. It took weeks for the carpets to dry the last time we shampooed them, and I don't want that happening to my chair. I'm really hoping to fix a big part of that problem when we rebuild in a couple years.

If the weather is still cooperative next week, I'll attempt to get the chair out for some sun time but as mentioned before, that will be tricky.

Baking soda is also efficient at soaking up odors. Sprinkle some on the chair, carpet, whatever and then vacuum it up.

You might want to get a couple more window AC units to dry your house out. Sealing any cracks in the building envelop will help a lot too.

ultraclyde wrote:

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Odoban

Since I'm Technical Director of R&D at the company that makes it, I agree with your choice! Did you know we sell it in a nice Fresh Linen scent now? But really... The problem is that synthetic materials are really good at trapping and holding the fatty acids in our sweat that cause "sweat smell." Fragranced sprays are a good, but temporary solution (and some are better than others). Steam cleaning with the correct cleaners is your best bet for truly long term results because it actually extracts the odor chemicals. I could, of course, recommend some cleaners but I don't want to overstep the forum bounds about advertising. PM me if you want specific recommendations.

You're part of our community, so it's not like you're spamming us. Spill away! So, what will remove this funk?