This $30 Laundry Booster Works Like a Charm to Remove Any Musty Odors
There’s nothing quite like the fresh scent of clean laundry. It’s a fragrance that I find to be incredibly comforting, even Proustian, in the way that it conjures up childhood memories of my mother pinning freshly laundered sheets onto the clothesline. Her detergent of choice back then was Wisk (which has since been discontinued), and its pleasant soapy scent is the epitome of how I think fresh laundry should smell.
Imagine my frustration, then, whenever my clothes come out of the wash smelling anything less than clean. That’s just the kind of predicament I found myself having any time I let my workout clothes sit in the hamper a bit too long. They would acquire a musty odor that would linger even after I had washed and dried them. The same thing would happen to wet bathing suits and damp towels that I didn’t immediately toss into the washer. Often, I would have to rewash these items to try and rid them of the mildew smell.
Since washing a load of laundry twice in a row didn’t feel like an efficient use of my time (or utilities), I went in search of a product that could potentially help. I came across Micro Balance EC3 Liquid Laundry Additive on Amazon and decided to give it a try. It’s a laundry booster designed to rinse mold spores from most washable fabrics and claims to address the “source of musty and unpleasant odors so that laundry smells fresh and clean.”
When it came time to wash a load of workout clothes, I followed the directions on the bottle and added 3 ounces of the solution into the bleach reservoir of my washer. I followed up by adding my regular laundry detergent and washed it on a normal cycle. Once the cycle had finished, I removed the clothes and was pleased to discover they indeed smelled fresh and clean, with no hint of mustiness whatsoever. I tried the product again on a load of particularly musty towels, which also included a mildewed dish-drying mat that was long overdue for a wash, and again, everything came out smelling super clean.
Even though the product is botanically derived with a custom blend of tea tree oil and citrus extracts, it doesn’t leave any of its fragrance on the fabric. It just removes the musty odor and allows the clean laundry detergent scent to shine through. According to the company’s product description, this is because the product is designed to penetrate deep into the fabric and remove mold spores from it, whereas a standard fabric softener would only mask the odor by adding perfume without actually removing the spores.
As a bonus, I’m able to use the product to freshen up my washing machine, too. Anytime I notice a musty smell inside the washer, I simply add 2 to 3 ounces of the liquid additive directly into the basin of the machine and run it on the clean cycle. It completely rid the machine of any icky odors, allowing my clothes to come out with that wonderfully fresh and clean smell, just how I remember from my childhood.
Buy: Micro Balance EC3 Liquid Laundry Additive, $29