It happens to many of us despite our best intentions.
You take a load of clothes out of the machine, put them in the basket, then get distracted before putting the clothes in the dryer, and hours later realize that it almost needs to be washed again because of the smell.
But now professional organizer and cleaning expert Anita Birges has revealed her surprising trick for fixing smelly laundry that you didn’t put in the dryer in a viral video.
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And the secret is vodka.
“You know how it is when your laundry doesn’t get to the dryer on time and it takes on this sweet, weird smell and then sometimes someone puts it back in your closet. I can’t stand it,” Anita began her video.
To counteract this, according to Anita, all you need to do is “fill a spray bottle with vodka, give your laundry a quick mist and let it dry on the back of a chair or in the sun, and you’re done.”
Anita’s video was viewed more than 58,000 times and people in the comments were surprised by her unusual hack.
“How did you find out? My mind is going in so many different directions right now,” one said.
“One spray for clothes, one spray for me,” noted another.
“Wow. I’ll do that next time too,” said a third.
“Genius hack,” added another.
The reason vodka is so good for clothes is because the alcohol in the spirit acts as a natural odor neutralizer, dissolving and neutralizing unpleasant odors.
When the vodka mixture is sprayed onto clothing, it can penetrate the fabric and eliminate odor-causing bacteria, leaving clothes smelling fresh and clean.
Anita often shares unusual but effective cleaning tips on her Instagram and TikTok pages.
She recently revealed how to remove mold from water bottles using an unusual pantry item.
Using rice, dishwashing liquid and water, she thoroughly removed the black mold that was growing inside the bottles.
“How often do you check the inside of your stainless steel water bottles? You would be surprised and shocked at how much mold can build up inside,” she said in her TikTok video.
“Look, it’s really pretty gross. But how do you get in there? It’s such an unpleasant place, especially if you don’t have a bottle brush. I have the ultimate cleaning trick for you.”
She began by pouring half a cup of uncooked rice into the water bottle and then added a small amount of dish soap.
The founder of Mise en Place then filled the bottle with half a cup of water.
“Put the lid on and shake, shake, shake… It’s that simple and easy,” she said.
She then emptied the bottle, using a sieve to catch the rice.
“Rinse thoroughly. Sparkling clean water bottle. No mold,” added Anita, showing the camera the clean bottle.
