How to Get the Damp, Musty Smell Out of Clothes in Monsoon

That musty smell is bacteria growing in fabric that never dried fully. The fix is to rewash the garment and then get it completely dry as fast as you can, with moving air rather than just time. Indoor humidity above 80% slows drying and lets bacteria multiply faster, which is why a monsoon load can come out of a perfectly good wash already smelling off.

Why do clothes smell musty in the monsoon?

The smell is not dirt. It is the by-product of bacteria and mould feeding on the small amounts of moisture, skin cells and detergent residue left in the fabric.

In dry weather this never gets started, because clothes dry within a couple of hours and the organisms have no window. In the monsoon, wet clothes on a balcony line in air that is already close to saturated can stay damp for most of a day, and that is all the window they need. The smell develops during the drying, not during the wearing.

It also explains why the smell keeps returning to the same garments. Once a load has been through this cycle a few times, residue builds up in the fibres and the smell reappears every time the fabric gets humid again.

How do you get the smell out, step by step?

1. Rewash the garment on its own, not mixed into a fresh load. Use the warmest water the care label permits, which for cotton is usually warm, but for rayon and georgette must stay cold.
2. Use less detergent than you normally would, not more. Excess detergent is part of what feeds the smell and it rinses out poorly from a full machine.
3. Add half a cup of plain white vinegar to the rinse water for cotton and linen. It neutralises odour and helps strip old residue. Skip it on delicate fabrics like georgette, and never combine it with bleach or any other cleaning product.
4. Rinse twice. This step does more work than the washing does.
5. Spin or squeeze out as much water as you physically can, because less water going in means less drying time.
6. Dry it fast, with air movement. A ceiling fan or a pedestal fan aimed at the garment beats a still balcony every time in monsoon weather.
7. Once it feels dry, check the thick parts: seams, waistband, collar fold, hem. Press them against your cheek, and any coolness means it is still damp.
8. Only then fold it away. A garment put into the almirah at ninety-five per cent dry will smell again within days and will pass the problem on to whatever is stacked beside it.

How do you dry clothes indoors when the balcony is useless?

The principle behind all of it is moving, drier air. Heat alone in a closed room simply raises the humidity in that room.

Does the washing machine itself smell?

Often, yes, and it will pass that smell straight onto clean clothes. Front-loading machines in particular collect residue in the rubber door gasket and in the detergent drawer.

Wipe the gasket dry after each wash, pull the detergent drawer out and rinse it, and leave the door ajar between washes so the drum can dry. Run an empty hot cycle every few weeks if your machine offers one. And never leave a finished load sitting in the drum, because clothes left wet in a closed machine for a few hours in monsoon weather will smell without fail.

How do you stop the almirah itself from smelling?

• Put clothes away only when they are completely dry, seams included.
• Leave air gaps between stacks, because circulation is what keeps stored fabric dry.
• Open the almirah doors for an hour on any dry, sunny day.
• Use cloth or muslin covers rather than sealed plastic. Plastic traps humidity against fabric, which is the same mistake that causes stored cotton to yellow.
• Keep a moisture absorber or a few silica gel sachets on the shelf, and replace them once they are saturated.
• Never hang a worn-once, slightly damp garment back in among clean clothes.

Which fabrics smell fastest?

Dense weaves and thick seams, because they hold the most water for the longest. Heavy cotton, denim and anything with a lined bodice are the usual culprits. Synthetics hold body oils that turn sour quickly.

Linen is the most forgiving, since it dries relatively fast and resists mildew-causing bacteria better than dense weaves. That is one of the reasons it performs so well in this climate, as we set out in linen versus cotton for Indian summer.

Delicate fabrics need a completely different approach. Do not reach for warm water or vinegar on them, and follow the gentler routine in our georgette care guide instead.

What about shoes and bags?

They pick up the same smell and are usually ignored until it is bad. Stuff damp footwear with newspaper or a dry cloth overnight and let it dry away from direct heat, which cracks leather and warps soles. Store bags with a silica sachet inside, and never inside a sealed plastic cover.

For the rest of the season, dressing around the weather helps as much as any laundry trick, and our monsoon outfit ideas for Delhi lean on fabrics that dry fast and forgive a sudden downpour.