Welcome to Ask Wirecutter, where deputy editor Annemarie Conte helps you figure out how to make the most of your stuff in real life. If you have a shopping conundrum for our advice columnist, submit it using this form.
Dear Wirecutter,
I love going to estate sales, thrift stores, and stoop sales. Every now and then I’ll find something incredible for cheap, Iike a linen blazer or hand-dyed silk scarf. But nine times out of 10, I’ll leave it behind because it’s dirty or smells SO BAD—like mothballs or cigarettes. Is there anything I can do at home to make this an actual bargain?
K.M.
Dear K.M.,
The joy of scoring an amazing real-vintage find can quickly dissipate when you realize that it literally stinks: musty, mothbally, old and dusty.
Although “thrift-store smell” used to mean an impenetrable stale funk, resellers have more recently been combatting that stereotype by spritzing fabric with an odor masker, giving the items a chemical whiff of Summer Rain or Puffy Clouds (or whatever the marketers want you to think it smells like).
“Some [of our sorters] may use Febreze. Some may use store-quality air fresheners on their sales floor,” said Bill Parrish, senior donated goods consultant for Goodwill, the national charity-based organization, in a phone interview.
But you may still experience that typical old-clothes smell if you’re hitting up garage sales, estate sales, or a relative’s closet.
Either way, of course, you want any new-to-you clothes you own to be in wearable condition and to smell neutral—or at least like a thing you want them to smell like.
I consulted Wirecutter’s laundry-care expert, staff writer Andrea Barnes, for tips on how to solve your problem. She assured me that getting rid of funky smells from secondhand clothes is easier than you might think.
“There has never been any good-quality clothing item that I’ve thrifted that I haven’t been able to bring back to life in a couple of hours,” she says.
