I play tennis daily, and I sweat a lot.
I tend to use dri-fit shirts, which are great for playing, but as they get older, they tend to smell even after they're washed. They smell great after you wash them, but once they start "warming up", they begin to smell awful.
I tend to wash on weekends, so what can I do with these dri-fit clothes once I use them daily?
Christmas is coming, and I'll be getting lots of these dri-fit shirts and shorts, so I would like to maintain them properly.
I used to play tennis 3 or 4 days a week and sweat a lot too and I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area where it's 100+ F four or five months a year so I experienced the same thing as you with my dri-ft and clima-cool tennis clothing.
Here is something you can try that I had some good results with:
Musty smells can occur if your clothing is stored in enclosed wardrobes that aren’t cleaned regularly or are prone to damp. To remove the smell, soak your clothing in a bowl of cold water mixed with one cup of baking soda. The baking soda will help release any odours that are trapped in the fabric
I have a lot of workout clothes that have not entirely disintegrated yet, which is the only way my stuff gets tossed out, so some items date back to the 1980s.
Needless to say, you get a bit of perma-funk after a while. My ways of combating that, in order of what I feel the success is -
1) Salt water. Give the clothes a good rinse and wring to rinse out some of the residual sweat and residue, then soak them in hot salted water in the kitchen sink, maybe do some agitation by hand after they've sat for a little bit. The reason why meats are preserved with salt (dry-cured ham, bacon, etc) is because the salinity kills bacteria, which is the cause of most of the stink. After soaking I put them into the washing machine for a spin-only cycle, and then either sit/hang them out with salty residue still in there, or do a regular wash on them.
2) Baking soda. I usually add a bunch to the washing machine tub.
3) Hot water washes - this is pretty tough on the fabrics, though.
I have to lift weights for my high school baseball program. What I usually do is I take my workout clothes home with me each day and wash them with tide for sports and I also add baking soda for good measure. Baking soda is used in deodorant for a reason, you know. It is surprisingly good at removing odors.
