How to remove the smell of vinegar: methods, remedies, life hacks

Vinegar is an indispensable household product, famous for its cleansing and disinfecting properties. Acetic acid is actively used to remove various contaminants, but it also has one drawback - an unpleasant odor that remains after cleaning. Of course, there is hardly anyone who will like this scent, because you don’t want to walk down the street and emit this smell. That is why it is important to know how to remove the smell of vinegar from clothes and other surfaces at home easily and simply.

How to eliminate the smell of vinegar?

Acetic acid is actively used to remove stains and marks from the following surfaces:

Furniture.
Cloth.
Tile.
Carpet.
Dishes.

Important! Vinegar is no less effective in combating other unpleasant odors, such as sweat, urine or mold. In general, its smell is much easier to get rid of, which is why it is so popular in everyday life.

To eliminate unpleasant odors you can use:

Salt and soda.
Fabric softener or laundry detergent.
Ammonia.
Dishwashing liquid.
Laundry soap.

Features of fish aroma

All fish, to a greater or lesser extent, have a characteristic aroma, which appears for the following reasons:

The fatty acids contained in the product quickly oxidize, which causes an unpleasant odor.
Many species of fish are carnivorous. There are special enzymes on their body that facilitate digestion when they reach a larger individual. When a fish is caught, the enzymes remain on its body, thereby speeding up spoilage and causing the release of an unpleasant odor.
Fish protein decomposes much faster than similar elements in other animals. Cold does not slow down this process, so within a few hours a characteristic aroma will emanate from the carcass.

All this leads to the fact that upon contact with chilled fish, an unpleasant odor quickly permeates clothing, but it is not easy to eliminate. As soon as mucus or pieces of fillet get onto a T-shirt or trousers, measures must be taken to get rid of the specific aroma.

How to quickly eliminate a strong vinegar smell?

In some cases, a large amount of vinegar is used to remove contamination, so its aroma will be felt throughout the apartment, absorbed into clothes and upholstered furniture. Also, no one is immune from the fact that you can accidentally turn over a bottle of product and pour it onto the floor or carpet. In this case, the unpleasant odor must be eliminated immediately by choosing one of two effective methods.

Important! Before taking active measures, you can ventilate the room or turn on the air conditioner; it will easily eliminate the unpleasant odor if there is an air ionization function.

Method 1

Take half a bucket of water, a tablespoon of ammonia and two tablespoons of washing powder.
To stir thoroughly.
Apply the solution to the flooring using a sponge.
Gently rub the surface.
Remove any remaining substance with a damp cloth.
Dry with a hairdryer, vacuum cleaner or naturally.

Method 2

In this case, dishwashing liquid will help:

Moisten the problem area with water.
Apply a cleaning agent to the source of the odor.
Rub with a brush.
Remove residues with a damp cloth.
Dry in an accessible way.

Professional solutions

Cat urine contains the following substances:

urochrome, which is responsible for its color;
urea, which gives a pungent odor;
uric acid, due to which urine quickly crystallizes, turning it into a sticky coating, which is extremely difficult to remove.

The area of the sofa must be treated as quickly as possible, before the urine is absorbed into the structure of the fabric and thickens. There are many different industrial products that can effectively remove the smell of cat urine from your sofa. They are applied to damaged areas, and after a certain time they are wiped with a damp cloth or sponge. The components of these products dissolve liquid and remove odor.

Dry cleaning

The most reliable and effective way is to dry clean your sofa from cat urine. Specialists carry out home visits, not taking upholstered furniture, but carrying out all manipulations in the apartment. For a cat owner, this option is the simplest and most effective, since professional chemicals are used for cleaning, which are impossible to find in stores. At the same time, this is the most expensive method.

Cold fog treatment

You can wash off cat urine with a dry mist. This is a simple method to get rid of stains, odors, and also freshen the air in the apartment. This processing has a number of advantages:

effectively eliminates the unpleasant odor of cat urine;
a special preparation is used in the form of steam, the particles of which neutralize the molecules of substances that emit odor;
This method does its job very quickly.

Under the influence of dry fog, urinocrystals completely disintegrate into the simplest harmless substances, as a result of which stains, odors, and marks on furniture disappear.

Hot steam

You can remove stains from a sofa or any other upholstered furniture using a steam generator. In this case, the use of chemical cleaning agents is not required. The disadvantage of this method is that this method can only be used for fresh dirt that has just appeared, that is, until all the moisture has dried. Old stains are difficult to remove with steam.

Eliminating vinegar smell from food

No matter how good a housewife is in the kitchen, she is not immune from “overdoing” the dosage of vinegar while cooking. If the added amount of vinegar turns out to be more than expected, then you don’t have to throw away the food, because you can do the following:

Open the lid of the pan and let the vinegar evaporate a little.
Boil the dish for another 30 minutes (at high temperatures the rate of vinegar evaporation increases).

Important! In principle, all the described actions are not necessary, since vinegar easily dissipates on its own. The proposed methods are only needed to speed up the process.

Doctors recommend

The smell of vinegar is not always harmful; in some cases it can help. Doctors advise treating the following surfaces with vinegar from time to time:

Bucket for collecting garbage;
Toilet;
Sink and sink in the bathroom and kitchen;
Cutting boards (especially those used for fish).

If you do not neglect this recommendation, you can protect your home from harmful viruses and microbes.

Eliminating the smell of vinegar from a room

Method 1

You can remove the smell of vinegar from shoes using ammonia. For this it is enough:

Dip a clean cloth in the ammonia solution.
Treat the surface of the boots.
Take to fresh air to ventilate.

Method 2

Eliminating odors from kitchen utensils is possible using salt. Procedure:

Add salt to warm water (make a highly concentrated solution).
Wash the dishes in the resulting liquid.
Allow to dry naturally.

Method 3

Salt and soda are absorbent substances that absorb unpleasant odors:

Pour baking soda and salt into small containers.
Place dishes around the apartment.
Change content periodically.

Important! For this, it is best to buy beautiful small vases that complement the interior, since they will be in a visible place in the apartment at all times.

General recommendations for furniture care

Upholstered furniture requires not only careful handling, but also regular maintenance. In order for the sofa and armchairs to serve for a long time and be in excellent condition, you must adhere to the following rules:

Clean upholstered furniture periodically. Every month, remove accumulated dust from the sofa and treat the upholstery with soapy water or a special shampoo for caring for upholstered furniture. Unpleasant odors can appear not only from urine, sweat, but also from general contamination during use of the product.

Important! Sofa manufacturers recommend cleaning sofas at least 2 times a year, otherwise, in addition to odors, dust mites may also get into the fabric.

Clean up spills immediately. As soon as you notice a spilled drink, try to soak up the liquid with napkins, paper towels or rags as soon as possible so that it does not pass through the upholstery fabric and onto interlining (technical fabric) and synthetic padding. If a lot of liquid is spilled, it can reach the wooden base. In this case, it will be very difficult to remove the smell from upholstered furniture.
Do not allow animals to rest on upholstered furniture. The fur and specific smell of a pet can be absorbed into the upholstery of the sofa for a long time.
Cover upholstered furniture with covers if there are small children and animals in the house. In this case, you will protect the sofa upholstery from unexpected “surprises”. In addition, the cover can be easily washed in a washing machine.
Maintain a constant dry environment in the room with furniture so that harmful microorganisms (mold and mildew) do not spread in the room.

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Removing vinegar smell from clothes

Solution 1

Using fabric conditioner:

Wash clothes in a washing machine, adding powder and conditioner.
Turn on double rinse.
Hang clothes to dry on the balcony.

Important! If you have to wash by hand, then soak the clothes in soapy water and wait 6 hours, then rinse in cold water.

Solution 2

When washing by hand (delicate fabrics or other reason):

Add a few drops of ammonia to the water.
Immerse clothes in the solution and wait half an hour.
Rinse in warm water.
Dry on the balcony.

Solution 3

Using soda:

Mix water and baking soda to create a concentrated solution.
Soak the clothes in the liquid and wait a little.
Rinse in running water.

Important! The last two methods cannot be used for synthetic fabrics, as they may lose their color.

A universal remedy for many ills

There are times when even special detergents cannot cope with the unpleasant odor. Vinegar essence diluted in water removes odors:

sweat in shoes and on clothes;
food in the microwave;
burnt in the oven;
musty kitchen towels;
old bread bin.

Sometimes it is enough just to soak a cotton swab in acid and wipe the problem area with it. In the case of a microwave, just place the vinegar solution in it and start the heating mode. And towels are soaked in a mixture of water and acid overnight - not only the mustiness and feeling of dampness go away, but also the fungus that has penetrated deep into the fabric.

After getting rid of the unpleasant odor with vinegar, a new problem suddenly appears - the cleaned items smell sharply of an acid that irritates the sense of smell.

Or maybe it's not worth fighting?

Not everyone likes the aroma of acetic acid, but if you and your household can tolerate it relatively well, then maybe you shouldn’t fight it? The fact is that this peculiar smell has a detrimental effect on viruses and some types of bacteria. The product has disinfectant properties, but is completely natural. Doctors, for example, on the contrary, recommend it as a worthy alternative when treating toilets, trash cans, sinks, and for washing dishes.

Vinegar is much safer for you and your family than most of the products that are sold in the “Household Chemicals” department. Our mothers and grandmothers used vinegar everywhere. The temperature was reduced with a solution of vinegar and water. It was added to water when washing floors. This was especially true in the summer, when there are a lot of flies.

These insects cannot tolerate the aroma of vinegar. They used it to wipe car windows to prevent them from freezing and fogging up. In addition, apple cider vinegar is an excellent neutralizer for odors, which are much worse. For example, the aroma of acetic acid refreshes the air in the apartment of smokers. Previously, when there were no air fresheners, housewives constantly used vinegar to eliminate odors in the apartment.

On hands

It often happens that after cooking, a characteristic vinegar smell remains on your hands, which simply does not come off. Neither soap nor deodorants can help, the smell constantly returns. In this case, regular kitchen salt will help. You need to literally smear your hands in salt and keep them in this state for some time. At the same time, you need to take into account that if there are wounds or cuts on your hands, they will burn quite strongly (“Don’t pour salt on my wound” are not at all the empty words of the old saying). After this, hands should be washed with warm water and soap. This usually eliminates the odor. If for some reason salt did not help, then other methods described above will also work on the smell of your hands - baking soda, lemon juice and ammonia will help get rid of the smell of vinegar.