How To Remove Cigarette Smell From Clothes

Night out with friends and now you smell of cigarette smoke? Or the in-between-smoke breaks with your colleagues? Whether you are smoker or not, there’s nothing more unappealing than the waft of cigarette smoke when you’re meeting someone new. Right?

So, whether it is a regular occurrence or a one-off occasion, you should know how to remove cigarette smoke smell from your clothes.

If you want to be judged on your personality and not personal habits, follow our deodorizing hacks. 

This method works particularly well if the clothes have been exposed to the smoke recently and for a short while. Hang the clothes on a clothesline, railing rack or a back of the chair. Any dry place would do well but a sunny, slightly breezy day is usually the best.

If the weather isn’t cooperating, hang them somewhere inside maybe a room filled with lots of plants to help absorb the odours and switch on the fan to create air movement.

If you are thinking of how much time should you give for airing, it completely depends of how saturated your are clothes with smoke and how sensitive you are to the odour. It may take from a few hours to a couple of days too.

If the above method does not work, you can try this one out. Take a bucket filled with warm water, add one cup of baking soda in it, twirl the water till it completely dissolves and toss your clothes in the bucket and let them soak overnight.

Next up is washing, put the clothes in the machine, along with your regular unscented detergent and add one cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle. Stop the rinse cycle and let the clothes soak for at least an hour before completing cycle.

If the vinegar smell gets on to you, run the cycle again but this time only with water.

Hang the freshly washed linens in sunlight; the UV rays will end up removing all the leftover odour, if there is any. Or, you could dry the clothes in the dryer but make sure you have a low temperature setting since high temperature will actually cause the odour molecules to bind with the fibre.

Another Method that worked really well for us is the Baking Soda method. Take a large ziplock bag, place your smoke saturated clothes inside it and add 1-2 tablespoons of baking soda inside the bag and lock the bag. Shake the bag well so that it’s evenly distributed. Store the bag with your clothes for a couple of days before you finally put it for a wash.

If the care label on your clothes mentions dry-clean only you could follow the airing method. In case the airing method isn’t good enough for you, we’d recommend you to opt for a professional cleaner.
You could try the Launderette App - it has multiple Top Rated Laundries and Dry-cleaners onboard providing services at extremely affordable rates.

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