Those long hot nights don’t just make the bedroom muggy or cause the house to smell like a gym. Sometimes your sweat seeps into the mattress and leaves it with the same, musty smell as an old gym bag. In other cases, the body odor just seems to linger and make you smell like you need to take a shower as soon as you get out of bed. Let’s talk about how to get sweat smell out of mattress covers and mattresses themselves.
Each night, your body generates half a pint of perspiration. The salty sweat along with dead skin particles spreads across the mattress surface. This means the first thing you can do to reduce the smell is [easyazon_link identifier=”B00316H2L0″ locale=”US” tag=”aquapponics-20″]vacuum the surface of the mattress[/easyazon_link]. This lifts up dead skin cells and hair.
The next step is to uncover the mattress and washing your sheets. After all, the sheets were there to absorb that sweat and dander before it reached the mattress. If the smell is gone after you’ve finished the laundry, you’re probably done.
However, this isn’t always enough. If the mattress badly needs to be deodorized, you could sprinkle baking soda on the bed, let it sit for an hour, and then vacuum that up.
You can start by leaving the side of the mattress you sleep on exposed to open air and sunlight, a natural disinfectant. If this isn’t enough or you have obvious sweat marks on the bed, then you’ll need to spot clean. Mix two parts of hydrogen peroxide with one part bleach-free dish soap. Combine them in a plastic dish, and then dab this onto stains or the spots that smell the worse.
Let the liquid soak in a little, and then use a clean it with a clean rag that’s been soaked in clean water. Don’t let the mattress get over-saturated, or you’ll just trade one smell for another. Dry the area with a clean towel, dabbing but not rubbing, to soak up the moisture.
You could also use distilled vinegar as a combination disinfectant and deodorizer. Simply fill a spray bottle with distilled vinegar. Spray it lightly and evenly across the mattress, taking time to get it in the crevices and on the sides.
If the vinegar smell is too strong for you, mix in a few orange rinds before spraying the mixture on the bed. This will give you a pleasant citrus smell without the stains essential oils can leave behind.
Let the mattress dry out, since letting the wet mattress get covered up will foster mold and mildew growth. You can accelerate the drying process by turning on fans and opening the windows.
The soap-peroxide or vinegar smell should be mostly gone before you put the sheets back on. If the smell is still strong, you could dust the mattress with baking soda again, letting it sink in for an hour, and then vacuum it up.
To avoid having to repeat this process, consider using this opportunity to put a mattress cover on the bed and/or have several layers of sheets between you and the surface of the mattress.