Help keep my dishrags from smelling!

June 5, 2015 11:21 AM

Help me find out why my dishrags keep smelling so awful and make it stop!

I am about to buy a brand-new pack of dishrags for the third time in a year, because they keep getting so smelly that I can't stand them. I use them for wiping counters and tables only, swap them out every day or two, try to keep them dry in between use (they do get used frequently, as I have two messy babies), and wash them in hot water with bleach. They smell okay out of the dryer but the moment they get wet they smell rank and moldy, and leave that smell on anything they touch. This is a problem specific to my kitchen dishrags - bath and hand towels and general purpose towels (I got a zillion from Costco years ago) don't seem to develop this odor, even when I am not as careful about letting them dry thoroughly as I am with the dishrags.

What else can I do to prevent that horrible smell from getting into my dishrags, and is there anything I can do to strip the smell out of the ones I already have? (Not interested in switching to paper towels, just to head that off. And I'd use the all-purpose towels for the same uses, but they are too big for me to saturate and squeeze out easily.)

posted by peanut_mcgillicuty to Home & Garden (29 answers total)

This is an easy one.

Wash the dishrag in soapy water and squeeze out enough water that it's not dripping but is still very damp. Then scrunch it up into a ball and microwave it for two minutes. The microwave will steam-clean the cloth, deodorising it in the process.

Also, drape the cloth over somewhere to dry between uses.
posted by pipeski at 11:26 AM on June 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

This happens with my washcloths after a while. I'm not sure what gets in there that survives hot water and bleach (!). I boil my kitchen sponges with baking soda periodically and that freshens them up pretty well. Maybe give that a shot? Boiling laundry used to be the norm so maybe they were onto something. I'll be reading this question with interest.
posted by Beti at 11:26 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Try this stuff - I'm guessing your rag-stank is similar to my polypro-clothes-stank that this detergent basically fixed. We now use it for everything.
posted by H. Roark at 11:26 AM on June 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Would you be willing to use sponges instead of dishrags? Then you could pop them in the microwave after each use to kill germs, and you wouldn't have to do so much laundry. I don't know what's up with the dishrags, but I can vouch that my sponges don't smell at all with this treatment.
posted by three_red_balloons at 11:26 AM on June 5, 2015

Best answer: Laying them outside in the sunshine is also an alternative.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:35 AM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Towels of mine seem to get that funky-when-wet thing when there's buildup on them. I put them in a hot wash with 0.5-1 cup of vinegar and a little soap and let them soak in there until I remember to continue the cycle, which is usually 2-12 hours. I dry them without dryer sheets. This resets everything pretty well. When our life is super organized and I can regularly do towel-only washes with no dryer sheets, that extends the time between funkification, as does some exposure to the sun.
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:40 AM on June 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

So, my parents are big dishrag people. Personally I hate touching the gross, wet things so don't use them myself (clorox wipes all the way, baby), but grew up with them. My parents use ones on rotations that last for years and I've never noticed them to have a stank smell, so I'm going to guess that their method for dishrag maintenance is pretty effective.

1. The rags get thoroughly rinsed out (including squishing a bit of dish soap around in them) under hot water after every use.

2. Between uses the rag gets lain out on the divider in the kitchen sink.

3. A dishrag never gets used longer than about 48 hours max. After that it gets hung on a hook in the laundry room to thoroughly dry out until it's time for a craptowel load.

4. Craptowel loads get run on the hottest water setting with bleach. My dad runs them on the soak cycle and actually interrupts the wash process so they get an extra 30 minutes or so of soak time.

5. That hottest water setting? He runs the kitchen sink until the tap water is hot before even starting the washer. No use filling half the washer tub with lukewarm water waiting for the hot water to start flowing.

6. Craptowel loads get dried completely in the dryer.


I don't know if it's one of these things or the sum total of all of these things, but like I said, they use the same dishrags for years (there are a few they're using now that they were using even when I lived at home back over 10 years ago--they're pretty threadbare but otherwise fine) and none of them smell bad.
posted by phunniemee at 11:50 AM on June 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Try washing them with a 1/2 ammonia 1/2 detergent mix. Ammonia gets out odors that bleach won't, for some reason. Just make absolutely sure that your detergent doesn't have bleach in it, and that the dishrags and washer are free of bleach residue (a good rinse will take care of it) because ammonia + bleach = noxious fumes.
posted by ananci at 11:51 AM on June 5, 2015

Does your dish soap get into the rags, by chance? I had this exact problem when I tried a new brand of dish soap (I think it was Costco's, weirdly), which I use to scrub down counters and then wipe up the suds with the dishrags, and suddenly my dishrags got COMPLETELY RANK, even following a thorough rinsing/wringing/drying, when they never had before. I went back to my usual stuff and the problem disappeared.
posted by anderjen at 11:52 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Soak them in Oxyclean, the enzymes will do their thing. I usually soak mine over night in that or actually soak them in bleach & hot water for half an hour then wash them when they start to get smelly.
posted by wwax at 11:58 AM on June 5, 2015

1- It sounds like there is too much soap/detergent in the rags that is not being completely washed out of them. Even though the laundering part is done they may still contain some residue soap when they're dried. This causes the fabric not to dry completely and the remaining soap to attract more dust/dirt and basically stay "wet" even though you just took them out of the dryer.

2- You can probably skip the hot water if you like but wash them with other towels and throw a cup of white vinegar in the machine and let it soak for 15 minutes of the wash cycle. You can try adding an extra rinse too but I eliminated that part after a while.
posted by eatcake at 12:05 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this will work for rags, but I regularly run my sponges through the dishwasher. I never liked the microwave option because although it might kill off bad critters, the sponges were still DIRTY—like, stained with spaghetti sauce or whatever. (They were also too hot to handle right away.) The dishwasher does a great job on sponges, so if you have a dishwasher and it has a spot where you could stick a rag or two without them floating away, it might be worth a try.

Another thought: Would you be willing to cut up one of your large all-purpose towels into dishrag-size?
posted by wisekaren at 12:05 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: This is just a theory, but is there any polyester (or other man-made fibers) in your dishrags? My dishrags, which are 100% cotton, take a little while to get stank and freshen up with a wash. This is similar to how special workout clothes are harder to de-stink than plain old t-shirts.
posted by mchorn at 12:22 PM on June 5, 2015

Best answer: Try adding 1/2 cup of white vinegar to the laundry next time you wash them. That kills a lot of smells. Drying them in direct sunlight outdoors (if you can do that) also helps get rid of bad smells.
posted by colfax at 12:34 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Possibly this is just nuts, but others have the cleaning angle covered. I'm convinced that my dishrags get stinky if they dry on something metal. I have an extra plastic hook hanging off my thin metal towel bar thing and I believe leaving dishrags to dry there helps.
posted by Leona at 12:55 PM on June 5, 2015

I had a hard time with dishcloths getting stinky. As other suggested, I ran them through the wash on HOT and dried them until they were completely done. They still got stinky very quickly.

My current method:
-Thoroughly rinse all crumbs from cloth
-Wring it out (fold cloth in half and twist aggressively, don't just squeeze water out)
-Lay flat on counter
-Spray several times with a vinegar/water combination (heavy on the vinegar)
-Spread out along tap for next use
posted by cranberrymonger at 1:18 PM on June 5, 2015

Only use 100% cotton rags and also make sure they're washed and dried without fabric softener. Vinegar soak will help remove built-up fabric softener oils and waxes.
posted by quince at 1:28 PM on June 5, 2015

I came to second the dishwasher. Works like a charm on our stinky sponges.
posted by bearwife at 1:50 PM on June 5, 2015

My diagnosis: not enough bleach in the wash. The rags don't have living germs but are retaining and building up some of the more clingy stink chemicals.

I would, initially:
1. Wash per usual with detergent and hot water.
2. Dry.
3. Soak in a solution of 1/2 cup peroxide, 3 tablespoons baking soda, and enough hot water to soak the rags through. This is basically a much cheaper version of oxyclean, so you could use that instead.
4. Wash again.

In the future, use a 1/2 cup of bleach in the rag wash. This will have the extra benefit of cleaning your washing machine. :)
posted by zennie at 2:21 PM on June 5, 2015

Best answer: Don't microwave your dishrags, it makes the microwave smell horrendously bad, and disperses hot wet manky-dishrag steam all over the kitchen. Try it once if you want to, but I doubt it'll be the cure-all you're hoping for.
posted by aimedwander at 2:25 PM on June 5, 2015

Best answer: You say you dry between uses, but what's your method for drying? I have a couple of these racks hanging on the back of a door (the outside part, not inside a cabinet) and I air-dry all of my tea towels/rags between uses and before throwing them into the wash. I think lingering dampness can make things smell.
posted by kate blank at 2:29 PM on June 5, 2015

I discovered cleaning cloths made of wood fiber at my local Japanese market and they are remarkable. They Do. Not. Smell. Ever. They're supposedly naturally anti-bacterial, too. Another bonus: they dry in minutes. Also, they're super lightweight.

This is something similar from Amazon. Sorry, I don't know the Japanese word for them but if you have a Japanese market they should have at least one brand of these for about $1/cloth.

These are seriously the greatest things ever.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:13 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you're swapping them out every day or two and usually let them dry out between uses, the smell really shouldn't come up that quickly. I say try a different brand of dishrag.

One time I tried a kind of sponge that started to get that moldy smell within a couple days of taking it out of the package. I could smell the sponge from a foot away, and I'd barely even used it, and it happened with every sponge from that pack of three. I've never had that problem with any other sponges I've used.

Letting these items dry out completely at least every other day generally staves off the moldy smell for a while, in my experience. You shouldn't have to be bleaching or microwaving these things several times a week or whatever to keep them decent.
posted by wondermouse at 3:23 PM on June 5, 2015

Have you considered using J-cloths? Less disposable than paper towels, but can be thrown away every couple of weeks or even less frequently. I have started cutting my J cloths into 4 parts.
posted by leslievictoria at 5:28 PM on June 5, 2015

Something not to do: Never use fabric softener of any sort on them. No liquid in the wash, no dryer sheets.

Personally, I'll use it on most of my clothes to give them that bit of socially acceptable scent, but never on towels, dishrags, sheets, socks, or underwear/undershirts. It prevents the cloth from absorbing water as well as it otherwise would and gives bacteria and whatever oils and fats to feed on.

If you have been using it, you'll need to wash them with hot water and vinegar several times to get it all out. Probably less so on your dishrags, but when it comes to towels and the like, you've probably got enough soap and fabric softener already in the fabric to last a few washes if you have a top load washer and aren't super stingy with the soap.
posted by wierdo at 11:44 PM on June 5, 2015

Bleach and vinegar work well. I've used the microwave for sponges and dish rags, just keep an eye on and don't light your microwave on fire overdoing the rag/sponge. Wring out the dish rag first.
posted by WinstonJulia at 3:37 AM on June 6, 2015

I clean mine with dishliquid, rinse thoroughly and then microwave. That way the cloth is clean going into the microwave and the worse thing the steam coming off the cloth smells of is lemony freshness.
posted by Jilder at 4:19 AM on June 6, 2015

Get a few more dishrags, so that you can use one or two per day so it doesn't get SO dirty before you get a new one out. They don't have to be such good quality, I have like 12 dishrags/towels from walmart and use them for all kitchen things, but swap them out pretty often.

And wash them with vinegar and a little bit of detergent.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 6:34 AM on June 6, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks, there are some good ideas here! I'll address a few points for the others who are interested.

I have microwaved sponges and there's no way I'm going to do that with a dishrag. It didn't help all that much and it made my kitchen smell like the inside of the sponge. Ugh, no. I toss my sponges in the dishwasher occasionally and that does seem to help, but I don't see it working with dishrags.

I never use fabric softener on anything and haven't changed dish soap or laundry detergent during the time that this problem has come up. I have bought all the dishrags from Target, not sure if they are the same brand but I would guess so. I do hang the dishrags over the sink divider or faucet - both of which are metal. I think Leona may be on to something with that, as my mom's dishrags never get stinky using pretty much the same method but she has a porcelain sink.

Based on your advice, I'm going to try to destinkify my current cloths with vinegar, oxyclean, and sunlight (hey, it works for diapers! I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me.) I'll probably pick up a new pack of dishrags too, but 100% cotton or bamboo or other natural fiber, and see if they get stinky the same way. I'll update with the results!
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 8:51 AM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]