What to Do When Your Favorite Yoga Pants Take On a Permanent Stench

By Jolie Kerr

The dryer is not your friend, friend.

Have you ever pulled a pair of clean yoga pants out of a drawer only to catch a whiff of your last workout? It's frustrating and gross when freshly laundered athletic gear retains the smell of your sweatiest gym sessions. It's also totally common and very treatable.

You can avoid this grim fate by making a few changes to the way you launder your workout gear, no fancy detergents needed! But if you'd like a fancy detergent, by all means get one. Fancy detergents are fun.

Use An Odor Eliminator

Our exercise clothes naturally take on more odors than do our regular clothes, and because garments like sports bras and yoga pants are commonly made from synthetic fibers, they will retain smells differently from natural fibers like cotton. Those two factors mean that, when washing workout gear, detergent alone may not be enough to completely eradicate lingering smells. Enter the odor-eliminating laundry booster.

There are a lot of products that you can use in conjunction with detergent to ensure that odor-causing bacteria and product buildup is removed completely in the wash.

• White vinegar: White vinegar is an excellent odor eliminator, and it also has the benefit of being inexpensive and very easy to find. Add half a cup of it to the rinse cycle of the wash by pouring the vinegar into the compartment for fabric softener, which will allow the machine to dispense it at the right point in the cycle.
• Borax: Borax is gentle enough to use on baby clothes, so it's safe to use on delicate items like sports bras. Borax will also have a brightening effect on white and light-colored workout clothes.
• Zero Odor®: This is a liquid product that works in conjunction with detergent to neutralize smells. To use it, pour two ounces of Zero Odor® into the compartment for detergent, which will dispense it into the drum at the correct point in the machine's cycle.

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