You are not alone! We've had this topic come up here before. Our own wicking synthetic fabric garments are starting to develop the dreaded terminal odors. The odor in our shirts is not limited to the armpit area, either.

The link below is a good start with an explanation as to WHY this happens.

"Google" something like bacteria causes odors in synthetic fabrics and you will learn more than you want to know. I may slowly go back to cotton workout clothing as budget permits.

At the end of the summer, I ran all my workout tops thorugh a "Sanitize" cycle in my front loader. I won'5 know until next summer if it helped.

Basically, the problem seems to have no good solution although various people will swear by various fixes.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to National Public Radio article

This post was edited by Cavimum on Mon, Jan 12, 15 at 16:46

any chance your washer has a sour smell, as many washers do when they aren't properly left aired out between wash days? If the washer is sparkling clean (odor wise) I could envision that any problems with sour smelling clothing could be exacerbated by washing in a sour machine. If it's a FL and you haven't run a cleaning cycle recently, do that with a 1/2 cup of bleach if your nose tells you there is the slightest hint of odors in the washer (stick your head right in there and sniff).

Tried baking soda?

Cavimum, I'm glad I'm not alone in this battle against smelly underwear, haha. I am somewhat taken by surprise that the issue is so widespread that the manufactures haven't done anything to remedy the problem. I will try your suggestion to run them through a sanitize cycle, perhaps adding baking soda as recommended by spicy19.

My FL is does not have the dreaded odor so many do. I'm fortunate to live in a dry climate (NM) and am able to leave the door cracked open when not in use. I also run a bleach cycle at least once a week and use the Tide FL cleaner once a month. Fortunately, this has stayed off the smell.

Thank you both for your suggestions, I will certainly try anything at this point!!

Sanitize cycles and synthetics aren't the best of friends. Additionally, some undergarments have elasticizers which are equally problematic and synthetic.

It also might be worthwhile to try using Persil liquid detergent, either for whites (green gel) or for colored clothing (blue gel).

It's the only detergent I've found that deodorizes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Persil

Can you hang them outside? My clothes always smell so good when they get to dry outside.

My solution is to spray the affected areas (armpit area) with sanitizer, let it sit for a moment and wash. My girlfriend is fussy about her clothes so I'm not allowed to wash most of her polyester tops warmer than 85F. Naturally, this does very little to remove bacteria. The sanitizer (I use Sagrotan, which is the German name of Lysol) gets the job done without bleaching or harming the fibers. And it's much cheaper than that Persil disinfectant rinse that stays on the clothes after the wash cycle.

Personally... if it ain't cotton, I ain't buying it. Period. The same goes for clothes with silly care instructions like "wash cold".

Alex

The sanitization cycle did not work. I will try the Persil recommended by rococogurl next. Unfortunately, I don't have a line to hang clothes outside. My mom suggested the same. I know the sun is a great sanitizer.

I don't know anything about smells in synthetics, but had trouble with smelly bath towels (new house/new washing machine) and thanks to a GWer, I now use white vinegar in my fabric dispenser when I wash towels. It has solved the problem. The issue was supposedly soap not getting thoroughly rinsed out of the towels. Might be worth a try.

My wife and I are / were in the same boat... after a bike ride together we would smell homeless. I now wear cotton but she prefers the microfiber stuff so now only SHE smells homeless.

We found a product that was stupidly expensive but did work well, sadly the company went out of business, after many more experiments she found "Penguin Brands Sport Wash". It works for a while but eventually it can't keep up and the shirt or whatever has to go...

Here is a link that might be useful: Sport Wash

Try adding 20 Mule Team Borax along with your detergent. It is a good deodorizer and will also help clean.

Hanging the things on the line outside might not work. We always dry our washing that way, except in inclement weather, and yes, the washing smells lovely when it's been out in the sun EXCEPT for when it pongs. It will still pong after a stint in the sun.

It's a funny smell, and not confined to armpits. So I plan to check the materials of the offending objects from now on.

We have a front end loader with that fashionable large door (the only models that the stores had) and occasionally I wipe it out all those folds of rubber that catch residue. What a silly design. Our first front end loader was more sensible.

Try mixing a half-cup of (lemon) Pine-Sol into the wash cycle.

That works for all of the odors that we've encountered.

Well, I have tried nearly all of the suggestions listed, and nothing works. Cavimum, you are exactly right. Fresh out of the laundry they look and smell clean, but almost immediately after putting them on, that odor is back. It's disgusting!

Hi,
For all sportswear I use the Miele Sportswear detergent. It kills germs which cause the smell as you can't wash the Nike and Adidas at high temperatures or it will ruin those fabrics.

Here is a link that might be useful: Miele Sportswear detergent

My running shirts stink after a few months and nothing has ever helped them. Cotton or synthetic, both have the problem. I can bleach them and all seems well, until I wear them again and they get damp and then...ugh.

I've tried liquid, powder, sport, baking soda, borax and bleach. Nothing works. So I just buy cheap ones and replace them regularly.

Someone suggested a diaper pail filled with detergent solution for workout clothing so they don't sit before washing. Sounds like a good idea, but a hassle there are a lot of times when sweaty clothes sit in gym bags after workouts anyway before I get home for the day.

I've dealt with this before - we had quite a lot of "scent buildup" combined with yellow deodorant residue in our clothes after years of using a wash and fold service, and athletic gear was especially bad. I figured I had nothing to lose, so experimented a bit, and what worked for me was an overnight soak in HOT water with a lot of sodium percarbonate (I used about 5 Tbsp of sodium percarbonate in a small dishpan and covered it with tin foil to keep the water warm even longer) followed by another overnight soak in a strong concentration of powder Persil for whites and then a hot wash with Persil. (Persil was just what I had on hand at the time, I'm sure you could substitute for Tide with Bleach powder)

Now, I was ready to toss the clothes, so I used the hottest tap water and then on top of that added boiling water from a tea kettle even on synthetics. A couple of cotton/spandex shirts lost their stretch, but everything else turned out fine, however YMMV - I'm not sure the elastics in the underwear would take kindly to boiling, so just tap hot might be a better option.

Among the other things I had tried unsuccessfully were borax, vinegar, Biz, STPP added to regular detergent.

Make sure you are using enough laundry soap to get them clean in the first place. I followed someone's tip that we don't need near the amount the washing machine manufacturer recommends, so I cut down on it. Then my husband's shirt started smelling before the day was over. I went back to using the recommended amount and it solved the problem.

It seems that the type of boxer briefs in question are the sports kind. Like the kind worn by athletes???? While it may seem silly I wonder if you contact your local pro sports teams and ask them about how they wash the teams clothes. Can you imagine the smell from a pro football teams undergarments? You may have to be a little detective to get your call routed to the laundry room but I bet they may be able to help you. Each pro sports team has an equipment manager. Have you ever smelled hockey equipment? When my son played hockey we used to let his equipment air out to completely dry before putting away. Dry air does wonders.

Also have you contacted the manufacturer of the boxers? I would and ask them about it.

I tried pinesol and it left a horrible smell that lingered for a few washes.
Try adding a couple of TBSP of the lemon lysol clean and fresh.
I use it on my towels that smelled fine when they came out of the dryer, but a few days in the cupboard and they had a very very
slight sour smell. They were dark colors that I couldn't bleach.

Funny you mention this. While I don't have underwear problems like you describe, I am a fitness buff and all of my workout gear is made of the synthetic "wicking" fabric as well (some of the name brands, some generic "Under Armor").

This is especially susceptible because when working out of course you sweat, and my shirts get a horrible, sour smell as a result.

I've tried everything myself and found that temperature does not matter, it's a property of the fabric. Adding some P&G "Unstopables" to my workout gear wash load is the most effective remedy I've found to date, but once I sweat the shirts up they're gonna stink no matter what you do, so I've learned to live with it.

"Can you imagine the smell from a pro football teams undergarments?"

My guess is they have a line item in their budget to replace those uniforms on a regular basis.

I live in South Florida and have a compact Maytag front loader. The combination of Method detergent and Biz powder works great for eliminating odors. Excellent cleaning and whitening too. For towels I use Simple Green detergent to ensure the lowest sudsing, and 1/4 cup of liquid bleach. The bleach is the ONLY thing that ever got the sour smell out of my towels.

BTW...My gardening shirt really smells awful. I do a hand wash in Dawn dish soap before I throw it into the machine.