It's those lovely Chinese chemicals. Try soaking in vinegar water (1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of water). Don't wash them with anything else or that will smell too! Does it smell like turpentine? Mine did.

dirtygardener, yes it does smell something like turpentine! Really an obnoxious smell. Did the smell come out of your jeans after the vinegar? What's sad is all this soaking has taken a lot of the dark blue dye away--the reason I bought them in the first place. My fault for buying super cheap jeans made in China!

Clean it with a warm water in which you can add any mild detergent and 1 tbsp of baking soda. You can also add 2 tsp of tea tree essence oil for disinfecting your jeans.