How To Get the Diesel Smell Out of Clothes?

If you are struggling on how to get diesel fuel out of clothes, these tricks below will help you for sure! Anyone who uses diesel engine cars will have a tough time removing fuel smells from their clothes.

Someone may like that smell but someone does not, it turns bad when the smell permeates everything. It never seems to come out no matter how much you wash it.

Why Does Diesel Leave Odor? – Magic Component

Diesel is a chemical cocktail comprising many ingredients: 75% saturated hydrocarbons (primarily paraffins including n, iso, and cycloparaffins), and 25% aromatic hydrocarbons (including naphthalenes and alkylbenzenes).

The average chemical formula for common diesel fuel is C12H24, ranging approximately from C10H20 to C15H28. As it contains automatic hydrocarbons, which includes Benzen.

Benzene has a naturally sweet smell that most noses are particularly sensitive to. It’s so pungent that the human nose can detect it if there’s just 1 part per million in the air that we breathe.

symptoms of bad gas in car — Diesel includes benzene which has a naturally sweet smell that most noses are particularly sensitive to. Source: Fosterfuels

Some people actually enjoy the scent of diesel and prefer it to the pungent smell of gasoline. Gasoline evaporates faster than diesel, which makes removing its odor or residual stain much less difficult.

Why Do You Need To Remove Diesel Smell?

So before knowing how to remove diesel smell from clothes, you should know the reason why you have to get rid of diesel smell.

The diesel does not only leave the smell on your clothes, which is really uncomfortable especially for someone who is allergic to the chemical composition of diesel.

According to the scientists, if you smell diesel based fuel, you’re actually inhaling their fumes. These fumes enter the body, get absorbed in the bloodstream and reach your vital organs including heart and brain.

Your blood ends up containing traces of the fuel, oxygen content reduces and thus your organs don’t get enough oxygen so it is really bad for your health.

Also, the presence of fuel traces in the blood would have harmful effects in the body. These harmful effects actually would take place only in case of prolonged inhalation of the fumes.

If you smell the fumes while filling fuel, twice or thrice a month, it may be okay. But if you’re smelling the fumes regularly then it’d be harmful. However, diesel doesn’t just make your clothes smell, it makes your washer smell, and it stains your clothes.

There are several different ways you can take care of the messes that diesel leaves behind. So now you understand why you should remove the smell out of your clothes. We are now introducing to you how to get diesel fuel smell out of clothes.

How To Get Diesel Fuel Out Of Clothes

There are some popular detergents which you see everyday that can answer your question of how to get diesel smell out of clothes. They are baking soda and vinegar, Coke and baking soda, Listerine, and fast orange.

All are products that get the smell out relatively well especially you may hear effective use of baking soda a lot. These methods below are pretty easy to follow and do not take a lot of time or money.

Baking Soda and Vinegar

A combination of baking soda and vinegar, which are natural deodorizers, can be used as an effective diesel odor remover. You can find baking soda and vinegar right in your kitchen and can prepare to get rid of the smell of diesel.

What you need to do is sprinkle the baking soda onto the fabric and let it sit for a few minutes. Then, spritz the area with vinegar from a spray bottle, and rub it into the fibers.

The vinegar will evaporate quickly and neutralize the odor in the process. It is suggested that you keep the clothes in vinegar for 20 minutes. Then you can vacuum up any leftover powder or residue.

Important note: baking soda and vinegar work well if the diesel smell is not strong. If the diesel smell is too strong, you should repeat the process several times to get the smell out.

how do you get diesel fuel smell out of clothes — The vinegar will evaporate quickly and neutralize the odor in the process. (Photo: Motor Hills)

Mouth Wash

One tip of how to get rid of diesel fuel smell is using mouthwash as Listerine. The inexpensive medicinal mouthwash found at the grocery store has long been known to remove the scent of smoke and soot from professional firefighters’ clothing.

It also works well in removing diesel odors and diesel stains on clothing or lingering odors that may have attached to your washing machine and dryer.

Pour the wash mouth as Listerine to the clothes. Let it sit there for 15 – 20 minutes then rinse it under water. It will not only get rid of the diesel smell, but it will clean your washing machine as well.

Coke and Baking Soda

Another combination which is a really useful tip on how to get diesel fuel out of clothes. Coke is a degreaser and baking soda is a detergent , when they go together, it works to remove the smell and stains of diesel.

bad gas in car symptoms — Coke is a degreaser and baking soda is a detergent , when they go together, it works to remove the smell and stains of diesel.

You need to prepare a tub of warm water, 1 cup of degreaser, 2 little bottles of coke and 1 box of baking soda. First, you need to let the clothes soak in the tub of warm water and degreaser for 2 hours.

Then drain the water, rinse and then refill with clean water, 2 little bottles of coke and a box of baking soda. Mix it really well. Let’s soak for about 12-24 hours and then rinse.

Rubbing Alcohol and Baking Soda

Rubbing alcohol evaporates quickly, so it can make it ideal for the diesel stains area then can soak up water and have hard time drying out, leaving you open to mold issues. Firstly, sprinkling on a good layer of baking soda,douse the area with rubbing alcohol.

Usually, it takes 2 – 3 times of repeating the process to get rid of diesel smell from clothes. It is how to get diesel fuel out of clothes.

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How To Remove Diesel Stains

You may get the diesel stains on your clothes which can not be removed easily with regular soap and water.

You need a degreaser or heavy duty solvent-based stain removal product since diesel stains can set quickly and be truly difficult to entirely remove. The process is quite longer than removing diesel stain.

Before you begin: If your clothes are labeled as “dry clean only”, take it to the dry laundry as soon as possible. Washing it with water will lead to the stain spread out and you damage your clothes a lot. You might have to buy a new shirt, jean stand for it.

First, pretreat the stain with a solvent-based stain remover or an enzyme-based heavy-duty liquid detergent. Then, Rubbing the stain with a soft bristle brush, let it sit for at least 15 minutes.

The next step is reading carefully the label and washing the garment as usual in the hottest water appropriate for the fabric.

Now, you have to soak it overnight in enough water to completely submerge the fabric along with one cup of baking soda. Then, wash the garment as usual.

Last, dry the clothes in a dryer if there is no lingering odor or on a clothesline. Allowing clothes to air-dry outside will help remove odors as well.

Sum Up

So now you already know how to get diesel fuel out of clothes and how to get rid of diesel smell. You can pick one of these methods which you think fits you. Sometimes, it requires several repeat times of process for the best result. So do not give up, keep calm and you will remove it from your clothes.

Check out our maintenance tips to better understand your car problem and fix it as soon as possible.