Bike Forums - View Single Post - How do you de-stankify a messenger bag?

07-05-05 | 10:25 PM

#17

peripatetic

Senior Member

Joined: Oct 2004

Posts: 2,124

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From: NYC

Bikes: All 70s and 80s, only steel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnLaCalle

so you're saying that the Tide is bad for washing it?

Tide makes me break out. Even from before I turned into a closeted Eco-nazi environmentalist fanatic. Of all commercial detergents, I find it to be the most corrosive. Tide and most other detergents are bad in large quantities; it's generally bad for the environment; and ultimately, it's unnecessary. But if you want to use it, just supplement at the beginning or end with vinegar. Really. Trust me on this. It works.

And the suggestion above this one refers to Arm & Hammer, which is baking soda, which is one of the several things I suggested. Generic baking soda works just as well. And just to be clear, vinegar and baking soda (though not together) are generally the only things one needs to de-stankify anything. My girlfriend moved into an apt. a year ago that had been occupied by a woman who had obviously had a different standard for personal hygiene than most people here in the States. The room and surrounding apt. space had a lingering odor of BO. Basically, it seemed she bathed less, or washed her clothes less than most people. I've never really believed that Lysol and other crap like that works, so I got online and found suggestions for alternative approaches. Vinegar is highly touted. Something I read talked about getting rid of cigarette odors by putting a bowl of vinegar in the smelly room for a day. I did this in girlfriend's place and it worked like a charm. The odor completely vanished (fresh air is also good in conjunction with the vinegar.) I use it to rinse my clothes in the wash all of the time--it's a totally effective fabric softening rinse; far cheaper and far more effective, too. It also doesn't strip the fibers from your clothing the way commercial/industrial fabric softeners do. If you machine wash your bag, pre-soak in vinegar for a few hours or even overnight, then wash like normal, but add 1/4 cup of vinegar in the 'fabric softener' tray. Your bag will come out clean and crisp.

Do a search on about.com under vinegar, and you'll find quite a few suggestions.

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