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Removing Odours And Body Oil Stains From Bedding With Common Household Products

by Glen Shelton

Sebum, the oily substance secreted by your body, is essential to prevent your skin from drying out. However, if you tend to have oily skin, your bedding can become stained with excess sebum. These yellowish stains can be hard to remove, but so can the unmistakable musky odour of sweat. If you're prone to sweating in bed, you'll know the residual odour on your sheets doesn't exactly make your bed an inviting place of rest after a long day, but the smell can linger even after your linen has been through a hot wash cycle. You don't have to resort to harsh stain removers and odour neutralisers to improve your sleeping environment. Here's how to banish odours and body oil stains using common household products:

Bed Linen

Quilt covers, sheets and pillowcases can be stain and odour free using the following cleaning routine:

  1. Wash your linen with your regular detergent and leave it in the machine once the cycle has finished.
  2. Add 100g of soda crystals and two tablespoons of dish soap to the detergent drawer, and pour 120ml of distilled white vinegar into the fabric softener drawer. Soda crystals are an effective natural odour neutraliser and stain remover, dish soap breaks down oils and vinegar is a natural disinfectant that also neutralises odours.
  3. Select the hot cycle on your washing machine and pause the cycle for around half an hour once the machine has filled with water. This gives the products you have used time to penetrate the linen and break down the stains. Restart the wash cycle and, once finished, dry your linen as you usually would.

Quilts

If sweat and body oil has penetrated your quilt, you can pop it into your washing machine and follow the same routine outlined above. Polyester quilts can usually be put through a hot cycle, but washable wool quilts should be put through a cold or warm cycle using the wool option on your machine. The dense fibres used in both polyester and wool quilts can make deep cleaning difficult, so for optimum results your quilt should be dried in the sun. The ultraviolet radiation can neutralise any lingering odours by killing the bacteria that cause them, so your quilt will be clean and have that fresh smell that can only come with drying bedding outdoors.

This cleaning and stain removal routine can be implemented as often as necessary, and it works best when used on stains and odours that are still relatively fresh.

For more information on deep cleaning linens and quilts, talk with experts in quilting materials, such as those at Luxor Linen.

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