Here’s a detailed, practical recipe.
Vinegar Laundry Rinse
Ingredients
- ½ cup (120 mL) white distilled vinegar — for a normal load
- ¾–1 cup (180–240 mL) — for a large or particularly musty load
- Your regular laundry detergent
- Optional: 5–10 drops of essential oil for fragrance after the vinegar is diluted (optional; fragrance is not necessary for odor removal)
How to use it
- Load the washing machine with your clothes. Don’t overfill it; clothes need room to move freely.
- Add your normal amount of laundry detergent to the detergent compartment.
- Pour ½ cup of white distilled vinegar into the fabric-softener/rinse compartment.
- If your machine doesn’t have a dispenser, add it during the final rinse, not directly onto dry clothes.
- Run the wash using the warmest water appropriate for the fabric, following the clothing-care labels.
- Let the machine complete its normal cycle.
- Dry the laundry promptly after the cycle ends. Leaving damp clothes sitting in the washer is a common cause of musty odors.
For very smelly or musty clothes
For towels, workout clothes, or laundry that has developed a persistent odor:
- Run a normal wash with detergent.
- Add ½–1 cup white vinegar to the rinse compartment.
- Use an extra-rinse cycle if available.
- Dry completely, preferably in good airflow or sunlight when appropriate for the fabric.
Important: Don’t mix vinegar with bleach
Never combine vinegar and chlorine bleach. The combination can produce dangerous chlorine gas. Also, vinegar should not be mixed directly with other cleaning chemicals.
A good everyday formula
For most household laundry, you don’t need much:
1 load = regular detergent + ½ cup white distilled vinegar in the rinse compartment.
Vinegar isn’t a replacement for detergent—it mainly helps with residual detergent, mineral buildup, and stale odors. It also generally doesn’t leave clothes smelling strongly of vinegar once they’re completely dry.
Tip: If your washing machine itself smells musty, cleaning the washer, detergent drawer, rubber gasket (on front-loaders), and drain/filter may be more effective than simply adding more vinegar to every load.