Sleeping bags

 

 

We were just doing what we were supposed to do.  We had used the sleeping bags for several trips, so we decided to wash them.  The tags on the bags said to take them to a laundromat so we could use their commercial size machines.  That makes sense.  Don’t want to fill up a residential size machine so tight that they won’t rinse out well.  We left the bags with the proprietor of a laundromat to wash and dry for us.  We picked them up the next day.

 

What we didn’t think to do was specify “no fragrance”.  I don’t know why the default setting for so many people is to add fragrance to things that aren’t naturally fragrant, but when we got the sleeping bags back, we couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them.

 

Time to mitigate.  We opened them up and spread them out on chairs on the deck to let them air out for a week.  That barely made a dent.  We put them in our own non-commercial size washer and ran each one through a full wash cycle, but without any soap so there wouldn’t be any problem getting it all rinsed out in our non-commercial size machine.  We put them back out to dry and air out for another week.  Better, but still a long way to go.  We started washing them, one at a time, each with an unscented tide pod, then running each one through another full wash cycle with no soap to be sure they got a complete rinsing.  Several times.

 

The situation is much improved.  For the last several days I’ve been able to walk past them on the deck and not notice any fragrance.  Time to bring them inside for a few days and see if they survive the sniff-test in a more enclosed area.