If you want to keep your clothes in your closet smelling clean, you need to keep the air inside the closets fresh. When homeowners think of custom closets, they tend to focus on space and aesthetics.

Fortunately, there are some easy steps to keep clothes smelling fresh in your custom closets as well:
 
  • Understand the causes of bad closet smells
  • Prevent foul odors
  • Use air fresheners
  • Absorb and neutralize smells
The best part? Many of these tips require items you probably have sitting around your home. It’s time to say goodbye to the musty, embarrassing odors that cling to your favorite outfits. Keep reading to find out how to keep your wardrobe smelling as good as it looks.

What Causes Bad Smells in Closets?

If you’re like most homeowners, your closet is a relatively small space that feels stuffy and is overstuffed with household items that extend well past clothes, shoes, accessories and jewelry. Even if you have a spacious custom closet, your closet design and location may put you at a natural disadvantage when trying to keep the place smelling fresh:

 

  • No windows: Without the presence of natural, cleansing light, your closet offers a dark breeding ground that mold and mildew love.
  • Little air flow: Your closet is probably a dead end with one way in and out. That’s not conducive to good airflow that sweeps out unpleasant odors.
  • Location near your bathroom: Many master closets are next to the bathroom. Excess moisture from the shower can easily infiltrate your closet space where it has nowhere to escape and can lead to unwanted mold and mildew growth. If you don’t regularly use the exhaust fan when showering, you can expect this moisture to be an even greater issue.
  • Highly absorbent materials: Unfortunately, your clothing acts as the perfect sponge for bad smells. Cottons, wools and other materials quickly absorb any odor introduced into this tight space.
  • Bad-smelling items: You may be introducing foul-smelling items back into your closet. Highly soiled or sweaty clothing and shoes can lace the air with the exact smells you’re trying to avoid.
  • Under-dried clothing: Didn’t allow your clothes to fully dry before storing them in your closet? You just introduced excess moisture into a cramped space that is ideal for the development of musty smells.

If you’re struggling with bad odors in your closets, it’s essential you first identify the source of the smell so you can address it. Understanding the more common causes of odors in your closets will help you eliminate those possibilities before identifying a serious issue.

Prevent Foul Odors From Growing in Your Custom Closets

Once you’ve identified the source of the bad smells, it’s time to figure out how to prevent them. In many cases, there are some relatively small changes you can make that yield big results including:

Tread Carefully When Storing Shoes

Shoes can be one of the biggest contributors to unpleasant closet odors that seep into your clothes. To combat the footwear funk, keep your shoes in a well-ventilated space away from your clothes, which will rapidly absorb the unpleasant smells. One of the worst places you can keep your shoes is on the floor beneath your clean clothes. The garments hanging above can quickly absorb the bad odors that rise.

If you do keep your shoes in the closet, it’s smart to keep them as far away from your clothing as possible, preferably in a rack or shelf that offers enough space for proper airflow. The worst thing you can do is tuck shoes away in a crowded, stuffy, dark closet. This is essentially asking for unwanted fungal growth that not only smells bad and can transfer to clothing, but can also decrease the lifespan of expensive footwear and put you at risk for athlete’s foot.

In addition to proper placement, you should consider cedar shoe trees, which not only help preserve the shape of expensive leather shoes and extend their life, but also help eliminate excess odor. The wood shoe trees absorb excess moisture from the inside of the shoes, where it can cause smelly bacterial growths. Plus, the cedar itself has antimicrobial properties that prevent the growth of bacteria in the first place. Finally, cedar has a fresh, pleasing odor that will be picked up by not only your shoes, but the area surrounding them as well. If you do notice the cedar starting to lose its pleasing smell, you can lightly sand it to bring back its original scent.

Storing sweaty workout shoes in your closet? It may be time to rethink that move. For exceptionally hard workout days where you sweat a lot, you should at least consider taking out the removable liners, which act as a sponge for the sweat, and allow it to dry. Set your super sweaty shoes out to sit on a porch or well-ventilated space with lots of sunlight before ever bringing them back into your closet, where they can transfer their smells to your clothes. For extra-pungent sneakers, you can spritz them with a vinegar or alcohol spray to sterilize them and prevent any unwanted growths.

Let Your Suits Breathe

Far too many professionals don’t know how to properly care for their expensive suits. Do you immediately throw your suit onto a hanger and slide it in right next to your other clothes as soon as you take it off? If so, you’re committing one of the cardinal sins of caring for your business attire. 

If you want to keep your suits looking and smelling their best, allow them to air out after wearing. This goes for blazers, jackets, vests and any other formal wear that is constructed of a heavy, thick cloth that traps in moisture. Chances are you’re not taking a suit to the dry cleaner every time after you wear it, which makes it especially important to keep it as clean as possible. Although you may not be getting smudged with dirt while wearing your suit, you will likely emit body moisture that will make it into the fabric of your clothing. If you immediately tuck a warm, moist suit away into an enclosed space without air flow, you’re just asking for a smelly bacterial explosion. Plus, those odors will waft into the fabric of every other piece of clothing nearby.

Instead, allow your suits, blazers and other formal wear to air dry before putting them away. This will allow sweat or other moisture the garment picked up to evaporate before any type of bacterial growth. Wooden hangers are also a great option because they not only help keep the shape of your shirts, coats and blazers better than skinny wire frames, they also help absorb excess moisture. Plus, a quality wooden hanger specifically designed for suits will help maintain the shape of your jackets.

Keep Your Dirty Clothes Separated

Keeping your hamper with dirty clothes tucked away will not only keep your clean clothes smelling great, it will give a sense of organization to your entire closet. In far too many closets, an overflowing hamper is the first thing you see, and smell, when you open the door. Fortunately, there are different types of hampers for keeping your dirty laundry out of site and out of range of anyone with a sensitive nose.

Both pull-out & tilt-out hampers tuck neatly into your existing closet furniture and usually include  easy-to-remove cloth liners.

Replace Unwanted Odors With Your Favorite Scents

This is an obvious one. If you’re noticing a slightly unpleasant odor seeping into your clothing, you have many options to introduce your favorite pleasing scents:

  • Air fresheners or Linen Sprays: There are thousands of consumer products available, from plug-in fragrances to linen sprays. Just be careful about using directly on or near your clothes, which may absorb more scent than you anticipated.
  • Soap: As soap warms up, its pleasing odor will be emitted into the ambient air. Pick your favorite bar and leave it unwrapped below your clothing.
  • Scented dryer sheets: Whether it’s used or new, a dryer sheet will also release its pleasing scents into the surrounding air. You can tuck used ones into the pockets of your jackets or leave fresh ones at the bottom of your closet.
  • Essential oils: You can add a few drops to your clothes as they dry, or you can soak some cotton balls and leave them in your closet to take advantage of their relaxing, pleasant fragrance.
  • Potpourri: Whether you make your own or buy a pre-made one, this is an old standby for freshening up stale air.

Use Common Household Items to Absorb and Neutralize Smells

Don’t want to just mask unpleasant odors? There are several household products that you can use to absorb and neutralize these smells, instead of just overpowering them:

  • Coffee grounds: Fresh-ground coffee doesn’t just smell great. It can even help absorb unpleasant odors. You can leave fresh, dry grounds in a bowl in your closet, or poke holes in a container filled with them and leave it in your closet. Once you notice smells beginning to return, just change out the grounds.
  • Baking soda: This timeless odor eliminator is affordable, convenient and effective. Lots of people leave an open box in their refrigerators to help absorb unpleasant smells, but you can use it elsewhere in the home too. This includes your closets.
  • A vinegar-water solution: You can use a vinegar-water solution (equal parts of each) to spot-clean clothes in a pinch. And don’t worry: The vinegar odor will dissipate as it dries, so you won’t be left smelling like salad dressing. 
  • A bowl of white vinegar: Once again, white vinegar comes in to save the day. In addition to spot cleaning smelly clothes or areas of your closet, you can leave out bowls of white vinegar to naturally deodorize all the air in the closet and neutralize any offensive smells.

Chances are you have these items in your kitchen cabinets now. If you’re noticing unpleasant odors lingering on your clothes, stop them before they make it to your wardrobe.

Conclusion

Most professionals, such as yourself,  have invested significant time and effort into assembling a wardrobe that they take pride in. However, if you’ve poured all this time and money into your closet and wardrobe, it’s important you also make sure your clothes smell great as well.

There’s a reason the perfume industry is worth tens of billions of dollars: smells matter. Fortunately, with a few simple steps and common household items, your closets can smell as great as they look.

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