Remove Mothball Odor
How to Remove Mothball Odor with Nok-Out or SNiPER
Mothballs are solid pesticides that are used to protect your clothes from hungry moths and other insects. The active ingredients are either Naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene, which are petroleum based. Typically, one puts clothes in an airtight container so that the fumes are trapped and build up to a level that kills insect pests. Mothballs work great to protect your clothes, but when Fall rolls around, and you open those containers to get ready for winter weather, how can you get rid of the stench of mothballs? With Nok-Out or SNiPER, you can remove mothball odor from the clothing you love!
First
It is always important to test clothing to make sure the dyes are colorfast. Wrap a bit of soft white cloth over one finger and spray the fingertip with Nok-Out or SNiPER until it is sopping wet. Gently rub the fabric in an inconspicuous place for a minuiute or two. Look at the fingertip to see if any color transfered to the white cloth. If that was no color transfer, you should be okay to proceed. It is rare for either Nok-Out or SNiPER to have any effect on modern fabrics or dyes, some clothing still uses older dyes that may not be fully colorfast.
Bear in Mind
Remember that Nok-Out is an oxidizer; when it comes into direct contact with the source of some odor, it ‘oxidizes’ that smelly stuff, changing it into something that no longer has an odor. It can ONLY do this, if it has contact with ALL of the odor source (if you spray and miss a spot, you won’t get all the odor). Also remember that Nok-Out and SNIPER are water based and mothballs are petroleum based and that oil and water don’t mix. While Nok-Out and SNiPER contain a ‘surfactant’ that allows ‘wetting’ it still requires a bit of massaging to help achieve contact with the source of the odor.
What to Do?
Spray the clothing with enough Nok-Out or SNiPER to make them completely wet. (Spray and massage it in so that it is uniformly damp, but not dripping wet, turn it inside out and spray and massage again). Allow to dry fully. Repeat until the odor is gone. We tried this on several different clothing items. For some items, it took 2 cycles to remove mothball odor. For others, it took 3 or 4 cycles to get it all. But with persistence, it does work!
We have a LOT of Clothing that Needs Treating
If you have several items of clothing, you may want to try Nok-Out in your washer. See: https://nokout.com/Laundry-Odors.html. You may want to increase the amount of Nok-Out used in your washer to treat mothball odor.
Mothball odor can be amazingly persistent and hard to get rid of. After all, those clothes were fumigated in a concentration of mothball stink for many months. Nok-Out and SNiPER can remove mothball odor, but it is likely to take a few treatments to successfully remove all the odor.
Questions?
If you have any questions regarding how to apply Nok-Out, or SNiPER® check out our How To Articles or, call Ted Price toll free at 866.551.1927.