A dark blue funk--smelly jeans

A couple of months ago, I bought some jeans at Lane Bryant. Actually, I bought two pairs of jeans–one black, and the other dark blue. My problem is with the dark blue ones. You see, they have a strange smell. It’s rather chemical, kind of sulfury and kind of musty. I didn’t notice the smell when I bought them, but I did kind of notice when I wore them the first time. I’ve washed them several times, and the smell doesn’t go away! When I wear the jeans, the smell seems to get worse throughout the day.

I have also tried Febreze. I sprayed the Febreze on and left them overnight. In the morning, they smelled like Febreze, so I wore them to work. Big mistake. As the day wore on, the smell came back. (Fortunately, no one at work seemed to notice!) At the end of the day, the Febreze smell was gone and the nasty funky smell was in full force.

I’ve never noticed this smell on any of my other clothes, or on the other jeans I bought that day. I’m guessing that it has something to do with the dye. Is there anything I can do? Unfortunately, the receipt seems to be long gone. I can try to take them back anyway, but, other than the smell, I really like the jeans, so if there is something that can make the smell go away, I’m willing to try.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I have the same problem with a pair of jeans I just bought.

Darn - I was hoping that once I washed them, that funky smell would go away. :frowning:

So I have no advice but I will be watching this thread.

Weird. I have that problem with a pair of black jeans, but only in rain, so it’s normally not a problem.

I’d just whizz ‘em, if febreezin’ em and washing 'em ain’t doing nothing. “MustyPants” is not a good nickname.

I bought a pair at JC Penney a few weeks ago that seems to have had the same thing - but it’s mostly faded now, except for every once in a while I’ll get a whiff, but very mild. At first they smelled like serious ass though.

What detergent do you use to wash your clothes? I ask because I was washing my clothes with Tide and they all developed a really horrid smell over time but the clothes that got it the fastest and the worst were the things that were blue and brown in color. Something about those color dyes apparently made it worse. Tide changed their formula and now it smells like a combination of flowers and ass and I can tell who uses Tide and who doesn’t when I ride the subway, that is how strong and horrible the smell can get. If you use Tide go get a small bottle of dye and perfume free laundry detergent and wash everything with that and see if the smell goes away. If not then I can’t help you, except to say that Tide will make the smell much worse so you should avoid it.

Return them to the store. I used to be a retail manager at a women’s clothing store, and opening the boxes of jeans was sometimes an unpleasant experience. Most of the time it was fine, but sometimes we would get a shipment in that would smell exactly as you describe. It was a combination of chemicals, must, and almost like pesticide. Actually, we used to theorize that they were sprayed with something to keep moths or whatnot from eating the material. Probably not true, but the smell was plain nasty. I hated having to hang a bunch of those - it sometimes made me dizzy and always left a weird taste in my mouth. Nice.

Only one customer ever returned them, but we knew exactly what she was talking about and gave her money back. She didn’t have the receipt but I was able to look the transaction up in the cash register database. At worst you can get a store credit. If the store isn’t too out of your way it’s worth a try. I know that in our store we would give refunds if the customer was even mildly unhappy. No one wants to have a customer call the dreaded corporate office, after all.

I have a pair of jeans that used to have that smell. I got rid of the odor through repeated washings, followed by drying them outdoors in the sun. I might have added baking soda to the wash water; I don’t remember.

I had a pair of jeans made in Egypt that had a different smell to the fabric and wondered if the type of cotton made a difference. It never washed out.

Good suggestion, but I already use the perfume-free stuff. All Free and Clear.

I’ve Googled around and it looks like these jeans (particularly the dark rinse color) have been plagued with smell problems since Lane Bryant introduced them last year. Great.

One thing suggested was to wash them with vinegar, as that will help set the dye. Another suggestion was baking soda. Tomorrow, I think I will try one of those.

I saw the thread title and thought “Lane Bryant Right Fit, dark blue!” :slight_smile:

I had the exact same problem. Since I only got the dark blue ones, I didn’t think it was the dye. Those jeans make me look so hawt I seriously thought they were made out of some sort of very special material that kept fat girls like me looking “shapely” and that material was stinky so I’d just have to deal with it :smiley:

I wore them a lot last year and they still smelled. This year I bought a lighter color and they didn’t smell at all (so, not the super-secret hawt fabric).

I actually JUST pulled out my pair tonight and wore them, after maybe oh…6 months or so of them sitting around un-worn. They did not smell.

So, I can tell you that the smell fades. And, those are some damn fine jeans!

I bought a black pair of Levis a while back that had a canvas feel and smell that lasted for months. They felt a little stiffer then normal. Does it smell like an old tent?

Have you tried a little ammonia in the wash water? That helps with unpleasant odors.

I find that a cupful of Borax in the wash works wonders on all sorts of odors. I use 20-Mule-Team, 'cause that’s what’s at the store.

And I’m going to Lane Bryant now, 'cause I need some jeans that will make fat girls look shapely. I’ll just sniff 'em before I buy 'em.

I thought you meant that she should pee on them at first. I was a little confused as to how that would help.

I used to smell that on boxes of clothes sometimes when opened. The thing is the same smell was on all oriental rugs we got in, and on many other imports like wicker baskets. I think it’s some chemical of fumigation that gets put on the items. It would just be on products imported and could be anything that was organic.

I have a pair of jeans that had a similar problem. They had some serious stench going - this weird metallic, acrid kind of stink that makes your nose burn. Straight out of the wash, you didn’t notice the smell, but as soon as those babies were anywhere near body heat (ie. mine), it would come back and follow me around everywhere I went. Take them off, and the smell would go away again.

Impervious to every detergent and de-stinkifier I tried. But the jeans made my ass look so good that I stubbornly hung onto them, and after 18 months they finally don’t stink any more.

My theory is that this particular smell comes from a chemical treatment applied to the fabric during manufacturing - either it’s the dye itself, or something they used to make the jeans feel softer and more worn-in.

So yeah… it goes away. Eventually. It stinks like hell in the meantime, though.

So if I see a woman with a nice [del]butt[/del] pair of jeans and is walking around sniffing the air like a bloodhound tracking a criminal, I should say what exactly?

And why did that Lynyrd Skynyrd song just pop into my head?

Sort of. More like an old tent that’s been sprayed with burning tire.

Pheromones…? :eek: :smiley:

Vinegar should work.

I haven’t used it on my clothing with persistent smell. It’s not jeans, but a black silk knit blouse that I bought years ago. Cheap silk.

Washed in Forever New. Still smelled like cheap silk.

Dry cleaned. Still smelled like cheap silk.

Sprayed with Febreze. Still smell liked cheap silk.

It’s been…ten years. I really thought that smell would go away.

I’m afraid to try vinegar for fear the blouse would just disintegrate. And, its being black, there’s a limit to ways to wash it.

I just assume that, if anybody other than me can smell it, it will just smell like cheap silk to them, too. I think this would be doubly true for jeans, since they’re usually further away from the nose than a blouse.

Well, I tried the vinegar. The smell seems noticeably decreased, but not gone. I’ll try wearing the jeans today since I’m not going to work. If I can smell them while I’m wearing them, I can take them off.

It is disconcerting, since jeans are so far away from the nose, to get a whiff of this horrible smell and realize it’s coming from ME.