try 1 cup of vinegar (no detergent)

Tide with Bleach and one cup of ammonia.

20 Mule Team (borax) you can find this in the laundry section at your store it is in a green box. This works great for removing that musty smell.

Christy

cleanteamofny - Never, never, never, never, NEVER mix any bleach-containing detergent with ammonia. You will make chloramines, hydrazine, hydrochlorous acid and chlorine gas. Think poisonous, explosive, and highly reactive to lung tissue. If you breath the resulting gas, it forms acid in your lungs, causing them to fill with fluid - chemical pneumonia. That is, if the fumes don't kill you first. I don't care how many times you may have done this and been fine. You've been lucky. Please don't do it again, and NEVER tell anyone else to do it.

sazaks - Vinegar, with the hottest water your towels can safely be washed in should take care of the odor.

Try 1 cup of vinegar (with detergent)and put vinegar in the bleach dispenser and fabric dispenser.I do this on every wash and the clothes are soft and smell great.

>"NEVER mix any bleach-containing detergent with ammonia."

That's only for CHLORINE bleach.

Q. What kind of bleach is in Tide Powder with Bleach?
A. We use a non-chlorine bleach along with a unique bleach activating system we developed for Tide with Bleach. This system gives Tide with Bleach its effective, color-safe bleaching performance.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.tide.com/en_US/products/product.jsp?topic=faqs&product=tide_bleach

Sorry. "Tide with Bleach" and" Tide with color safe bleach (or bleach alternative)" used to be separate products. My post would only apply to chlorine bleach. As a caution for colored item, ammonia will increase the bleaching power of the common non-chlorine bleaches, and may cause them to damage colors.

Alice, deja vu, White Rabbit,

Sometimes I wonder if some of you READ LABELS?!?
Tide with Bleach is a powder safe bleach and ammonia can be used in this combination. If I said use Clorox liquid bleach and mix it with ammonia then I stand to be corrected!

For those of you who got my back, Thank you!
Now where is my apology aliceinwonderland_id?

Like I said, "Tide w/ bleach" was initially a chlorinated product for whites only. I don't buy it now and assumed it was still the same. Nobody spends their time reading all of the labels for the thousands of products they don't purchase.

I already apologized for my error. If it wasn't enough, then let me be very clear. I am sorry for jumping down your throat. I was wrong about this particular product, but I won't apologize for being adamant about mixing chemicals. Its a real danger that too few people are aware of, made even more dangerous by poorly-named products.

Alice,

You may be thinking of something else. When Tide first came out with bleach, the powder was called "Tide with Beach," and the liquid was called "Tide with Bleach Alternative." Neither product contained "chlorine" bleach. Tide never has had a chlorinated detergent.

Joe

aliceinwonderland, thanks for the reminder. I don't use chlorine bleach anymore so I really don't think about it but my husband almost killed me with that stuff. I had put toilet bowl cleaner in the toilet. Well, he thought only bleach could clean a toilet and poured some in and shut the lid. Let's just say that I'm grateful I was standing up when I opened the lid. I only got a whiff of the fumes before I turned on the fan and ran outside.
I'm with you, if it says bleach be careful. Better safe than sorry.

I've heard this scare before and did some research. I can find no reputable source which confirms that Tide has ever contained chlorine bleach. What got me to research this a bit is that it just doesn't make sense when you use some logic and common sense! Chlorine bleach kills enzymes which are a big part of the cleaning performance on most P&G laundry detergent products.

Furthermore, if you read the labels on both bleach and laundry detergents, most recommend if you use chlorine bleach, you should add the chlorine bleach about 10 minutes (or so) into the cycle. This is consistent with the above since it gives the enzymes the chance to do their job and it doesn't matter if they get killed off. Then the bleach has the chance to do its job.

I understand caution about mixing chemicals, but some people go overboard about it. Theory isn't fact. The major explosions that are a potential just haven't proven to be as dangerous as some suggest. I can't even find one documented explosion. Are there some safety concerns? Yes. Should we be running around like Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling? No. Good grief, some people would have Homeland Security at the checkouts to see if we're buying bleach and ammonia!

Use common sense and be educated. That's the best recommendation I can give. After all, we're talking about washing clothes here fer cryin out loud! :)

Back onto original topic: I like Borax and vinegar as the most common additives in laundry and especially for smells. I'd use the Borax first, then try the vinegar. If you have a chance to hang the items outside in bright sunshine it can do a marvelous job of deodorizing unless you're in a neighborhood with bad odors anyway! I would also run an empty load in the washer with bleach and maybe a Borax cycle too with hottest water to deodorize the machine itself. Occasionally I sense a sour smell in my machine if I haven't done many hot loads and will do this as a maintenance item. Worked well for me. And no explosions! ;)

Happy laundering everyone.

Alice

If I remember correctly you are the engineer who conducted the detergent comparisons tests we discussed in the threads back in the early 2000's.
I didn't realize that the addition of ammonia to non chlorine bleach would increase the bleaching action and might damage colored fabrics. Thanks for that info.

jerrod6: I wasn't on this board that long ago. Sounds interesting though.

Old post, new comment (because I have towels left in washer for 3 weeks (someone else put them there and forgot). They've got green in them. As far as cleanteamofny's post goes, my first response was geez, NO! I've never used Tide with Bleach so have no idea what's in it - but when I see "bleach and ammonia" huge alarms go off in my head. So I don't think aliceinwonderland was out of line.

Tide with Bleach powder isn't going to help with moldy towels..but for future reference... Tide with Bleach powder and ammonia are perfectly safe used together. It contains Oxygen Bleach so ammonia is fine with it.

BUT AMMONIA AND CHLORINE bleach NO NO NO...don't even use ammonia if the towels were previously washed in chlorine bleach and there's a hint left in the towels.

Echo...I need some info...biggest what washer do you have traditional top loader or front loader? What color are the towrls?

Also there was never a P&G laundry detergent with chlorine bleach in it.

Echo...you will need a chlorine bleach to remove the mold from the towels..but more importantly your gonna need it to save your washer. I hope you haven't washed any clothes without doing some serious mold removal from the washer...and vinegar will not help you with this.