I have washed my dishrags and drying rags 3 times now with 2 kinds of bleach and detergent. They still smell horrible. Everywhere I look online says to wash with hot water but washing machines here don’t seem to have that option. Does anyone know a cause and solution? Should I buy different rags? Mine were pretty cheap from Donki. I want to start cooking again but refuse to wash my dishes if theyll smell even remotely like the rags.
12 comments
How are you drying them?
We have a washer/dryer combo that can make its own hot water when washing. Maybe get one of those or just buy new dishrags when the old ones get rancid.
Once they get the funky smell there is no way to remove it if hit water and vinegar does not help. Boil them in hot water and vinegar but if they still smell chuck them and start fresh.
>I want to start cooking again but refuse to wash my dishes if theyll smell even remotely like the rags.
Use sponges for cleaning the dishes, and (new) dish rags for drying only. If you use them only for drying they should not get funky. If your sponges get funky after a while you have two choices:
1. Soak them in water, then put them on a plate and into in the microwave, and zap them for a bit. (This should kill the bacteria that makes it smell and return it to a fairly new state.) The bit about the plate is important, as otherwise you may be tempted to reach in and grab a nuclear hot sponge with your bare hands…
2. Toss them out and buy new sponges.
Use sponges from Daiso to wash dishes… mine last long and don’t smell.
What are you doing with the rag, is this just wiping your dishes after washing? Or are you using them to clean your kitchen stove after cooking? If the latter, well you could only get so much out of one rag. For me, I’m using a wet alcohol tissue for cleaning kitchen stove, so I can just throw them away after use. My rag is only used for wiping excess water after washing the dishes.
The best of option is just wash them regularly, like every time you use them (just like Japanese and their bath towels). These may have a higher initial cost, but it should cut down the running cost of replacing them.
Sponges and then wet them a bit and microwave them for several seconds frequently, and then use the dish rags for drying instead. While perhaps sponges can hold on to bacteria more, they’re also easier to clean in my opinion, since you can just heat them in the microwave and kill everything.
Can’t you hand wash them in hot water and a bucket/bowl/stoppered sink?
Otherwise (or also), change the rags more frequently, and soak them in Oxiclean before washing (and make sure to rinse the dishrags thoroughly before soaking). We’ve never had that a smell issue.
Wash with sponges and/or a good brush. Replace them regularly.
If you have dish cloths that smell and they still smell after soaking them in bleach, throw them away and get new ones – it’s not worth trying to clean them when they’re so cheap to buy.
Every few washes add vinegar to the load. It’ll prevent the smell from forming. Also as other said fully dry them
Yeah, they do that. My wife does the bleach thing once, then banishes them to other clean-up duties around the house and buys new ones. Just think of all the things that dishrag is picking up day after day then just sitting there…it *should* be pretty gross after a week.
used to work in a restaurant and this is how we cleaned our wet rags
1. boil in detergent for 10 mins
2. rinse and press out detergent with water
3. leave soaked overnight in 5% bleach solution
4. rinse and press out bleach with water in the morning
it gets it clean for use the next day but is quite hard on the rags so it will start to disintegrate after a week or so
for dry rags replace step 3,4 with drying them overnight. at home you can hang them outside with clothespins