Should I give up on this secondhand jacket because of the smell?

[Mamma363637]

I bought a lovely polyester designer jacket from a charity shop. I didn't realise how much it stank of perfume until I got home. It's an intense musk that I would never wear and gives me a headache.

I looked up all the remedies to remove odours. I tried:

• leaving it outside in wind and sun
• washing machine and laundry detergent (gentle wash)
• sprinkling and soaking with bicarbonate soda
• spraying and soaking in white vinegar
• spraying and soaking with vodka
• bagged it with activated charcoal for about 2 months

Is there anything left to try? I've put it back in the sun now. I'll leave it there until the end of the bank holiday. I think I've spent as much on remedies as the cost of the jacket. After all that, the intensity of the smell has not changed. I can still smell the musk 1m away.

After Monday it's going back to the charity shop. With a warning label. 😭

Put the jacket in a storage container with a lid, or a plastic bin liner that you can seal firmly, along with a tumbler of bicarb to which you add essential oils of your choice. You place this beside the jacket, don’t sprinkle it over. I use clove oil and lavender oil mixed. I used this method to eliminate a very stale cigarette smell on an old book I bought. Left it for a week and it worked a treat!

I might try that. I did wonder if they're anything I can add to mask the musky smell. I like citrus smells, woody smells as well as lavender. Anything instead of musk!

Try bagging it up with ground coffee in a tea leaf ball or similar; the coffee oil absorbs the smell. This worked for me with an old fur stole. Isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle worked for a damp smell on wool. Smells are harder to shift in man-made fabrics. UV light is excellent if we ever get any sun!

I’ve had good results with freezing - give it overnight or a couple of days

Just hang it on a hanger outside for weeks and weeks,if you truly love the jacket.

I believe that an onion cut in half absorbs smells, well paint smells anyway. You could try that.
I don't think the jacket will end up smelling of onions but if it does just wander about with an open bag of cheese and onion crisps and people will think it's that.

I bought a new leather jacket which smelled dirty and was vile if I wore it as the heat intensified the smell.
I stuffed it with crumpled up newspapers, down the arms and body. Put it in a bin liner and put crumpled up newspaper all around it before sealing the bag and leaving it in a dark cupboard. I forgot about it so it was left for a few months!
When I opened the bag the smell was completely gone. The newspapers soak up the smell.

Op I feel your pain! I had similar with some eBay Levi's that I couldn't get the funky smell out of.

Wash it in mild dettol. Will obliterate any other smells and eventually the Dettol smell will also wash away. In about 10 washes.

Fortunately I like the smell of dettol...

Are you sure the musk is not perfume but could be animal urine?

My daughter when young took a pet rabbit into her bedroom overnight and he pee- ed on a blanket which she rolled up and hid in a cupboard! 🙄

It dried and smelt very musky not of urine and I didn't know what it was until she confessed and I then used a pet urine remover spray on it before washing again and that worked.

It's quite a sweet perfumey musk. Like the body shop white musk. I don't know what animal urine would smell like. It's a jacket you'd wear on a night out though, not one you'd wear with animals. Plus the smell is concentrated around the neck and chest area, which is where I'd expect someone to be spraying it on.

Thanks, I'll try that too.

Thanks, you've all given me lots more things to try!

I did love the jacket, but the smell is turning me off so much, I'm starting to not love it. 😂