I Have Made a Great Discovery!

(It’s about laundry)

OK, the title is clickbait. I didn’t quite uncover the secret to life itself, but my discovery is useful nonetheless. And I will tell you, I promise. I’m just going to start with some backstory.

Welcome to Mount Laundry

It’s a lifelong woe that I was cursed with some of the stinkiest armpits known to womankind. Innumerable soaps and deodorants, from the most all-natural to those whose every ingredient was created in a lab, have attempted to conquer my underarm odor… and failed.

(No advice or suggestions, please. I'm reasonably satisfied with my current regimen, and all joking aside, poor executive functioning is a huge factor. It doesn't matter how good my deodorant is if I forget to put it on. Although if you’ve invented one that works from across the room, please let me know.)

Likewise, many a laundry detergent has tried, and failed, to remove the stench from my shirts afterwards. Products I can use are limited, because I'm allergic to the category of synthetic scents that show up in the ingredient lists (of damn near everything) as "fragrance/parfum." It doesn't matter which scent it is. I suspect I’m allergic to a “carrier” molecule, because I’m just fine with most things that have naturally strong odors. I don’t wheeze around seaweed or spices or essential oils or farts.

Perfume is another matter. I even react to some “unscented” products, which is how I learned that many of them contain "masking fragrances" to cancel out whatever they smelled like in the first place. Things like soap and sunscreen do actually have smells of their own, and if you want zero odor, you have to do something about that, and what better way to make something unscented than to… add perfume.

(A note to the makers of anything "free and clear" that contains fragrance: you FAIL. I bought a dish detergent that promised to be "free of unnecessary chemicals" but had perfume in it. I guarantee you that perfume is not necessary in a dish soap. I can prove it, in fact; my other dish soap contains no perfume and works JUST FINE, thank you very much.)

Anyways, back to the laundry. I tried everything. I read article upon article. I dove deep into the interwebs seeking an answer. (By the way, I’m talking about tackling odor here. De-yellowing fabric is a different load altogether.) The same suggestions came up over and over. Baking soda. Vinegar. Baking soda and vinegar. Baking soda and lemon juice. Baking soda and salt. Baking soda and borax. Frankincense and myrrh (wait, wrong list).

I tried them all. I tried laundry soap and dish soap and people soap and floor soap. I tried Better Life kitchen cleaner, which makes grease vanish like magic. It’s apparently made from coconuts, and I suspect those coconuts have been through the digestive tract of a unicorn, because I don’t know how else the stuff could be so effective.

(By the way, I have not been paid, bribed, cajoled, or in any way compensated by the makers of the products mentioned in this article. However, I’m open to any endorsement deals they want to send my way.)

I tried using extra bleach, and then my shirts smelled like a swimming pool full of armpits. I tried every household product short of toilet bowl scrubber and furniture polish. On an obscure bit of advice, I even tried (diluted) that stuff you used to clean hard water deposits off the plumbing fixtures, which according to the instructions is so scary you should probably store in a vault and open it only while wearing a full hazmat suit. It helped, but only a little, and I was afraid it might spill and eat holes through the floor.

For years, my best chance at cleaning the pits of my shirts was to give them a lengthy pre-soak in dissolved baking soda (dissolved in water, I should specify, given the paragraph above). But that’s labor-intensive, and only moderately effective… which is still better than not effective at all.

Overall, I don't mind doing laundry, provided that the stars align. This means that I have a few hours free, the laundry room in my condo row is nicely aired out, and no one has used strongly scented products in there in the past few days (sharing a laundry room is kind of a nightmare when you're allergic to the majority of laundry products.) Laundry is a deeply satisfying chore to accomplish, and does anything feel better than wrapping up in something floofy that’s still hot from the dryer? Ok, maybe sex and/or eating chocolate, but only by a disturbingly small margin.

It's the fact that perfumes tend to linger in the laundry room that led to my great discovery (see, I’m getting to it!). I’m not a chemist, but I can tell from the intensity of my wheezing that there’s something special about the particular type of synthetic fragrances that are added to soaps and shampoos and detergents. I assume that’s because the fragrance molecules have to be clingy enough to stick to skin or hair or clothing even as you wash away everything else that’s sticking to said skin/hair/clothing. This also means that if I accidentally get one of those products on me, it won’t just wash off. I can’t tell you how long I’ve spent scrubbing, and with how many different types of scrubbers, after accidentally using a fragranced hand soap. If I ever get one of those concentrated fabric softeners with a name like “springtime lavender-pine meadow breeze” on my hand, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to chop the whole thing off “Evil Dead” style.

Therefore, I am always in search of products that are not only perfumeless but also capable of neutralizing other fragrances. Fortunately, I found a product that does a pretty decent job clearing the air: fragrance-free Smells Begone. I don't know what's in the stuff, but it seems able to grab hold of those perfume molecules and put them in a headlock. Or an armbar. Totally immobilizes them is my point. Maybe mixed martial arts metaphors aren't my thing.

Then I thought: if this stuff can neutralize so many scents, could it possibly deodorize my nasty-ass shirts as well? Only one way to find out. I squirted some onto the armpit region of a washed shirt that still smelled like I'd worn it to the gym for a week… gave it a minute to sink in and do its thing… sniffed again… and Voilà!! No more stank. Miraculous! My shirts have been given new life.

So that's one problem solved. It's a minor one, and certainly won't change the world, but it made me happy. If you find it to be a useful tip, I hope it makes you happy as well.

Now, if only I can stop getting salad dressing on my clothes at every dinner…

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