Here's an update on my experiments to try to rid a silk twill scarf of a heavy perfume smell.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had hand-washed the scarf and aired it out for several weeks but the smell didn't fade. I had washed it in Era detergent, which is not recommended for silk as detergents can weaken silk fibers. Orvus paste is what you want to use. But Era contains anti-surfuctants which in my experience pull out stains and smells so I thought I'd give it a shot. Alas, it didn't pull out the perfume despite pre-soaking the area in Era.
So next I made a special scarf de-odorizer with baking soda, activated charcoal and a takeout dish. I've posted photos below. Basically what I did was take a plastic takeout dish devoid of food residue of course (restaurants will sometimes give you extra dishes for free) and widened the steam holes in the lid. I also cut a large square in the center of the lid to hold the perfume-smelly section of the scarf. I used a poultry sheers to cut. In the bottom of the dish I spread an inch of baking soda with a bunch of emptied capsules of activated charcoal. Then I draped the scarf into the lid so the perfume-drenched portion sat about an inch or two above the baking soda/charcoal but was in no danger of touching it. Activated charcoal powder leaves a black stain on anything it touches.
I wrapped the whole thing loosely in a plastic bag and set it on a high file cabinet far from calamity and the possibility of spilling. I let it sit for a week.
Alas, at the end of the week the perfume smell was still strong on the corner of the scarf that had been sitting above the baking soda/charcoal. It hadn't dissipated at all. Worse, some of the charcoal appeared to have levitated onto the scarf (!!!!
) and there were now black smudges on the scarf!
So back to the detergent and hand-washing. This time I rinsed the scarf in a basin of water with 1/4 cup vinegar as others have suggested. After the vinegar rinse I did two just-water rinses. Voila! The perfume stench is now gone!
So the lesson is....skip the baking soda and activated charcoal and go straight to the vinegar rinse to get rid of a perfume smell.
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