Mold on Clothes: How to Remove It and Save the Fabric

How to remove mold from clothes, step by step

This way of washing moldy clothes works for most washable fabrics, including cotton, linen, denim and polyester. Wool, silk, leather and delicates need gentler handling, set out fabric by fabric further down.

1. 1Take the clothes outside. A soft brush or a good shake removes loose spores and surface growth before any water touches the fabric. A mask and gloves help if you’re sensitive or handling a lot of clothes.
2. 2Keep them apart. Moldy clothes go into a bag on their own until washing, away from the hamper and the clean laundry. A quick look at clothes that touched them, and anything stored in plastic nearby, catches spots early.
3. 3Check the care label. The dots on the washtub symbol show the maximum temperature: one dot is 30°C (85°F), two 40°C (105°F), three 50°C (120°F) and four 60°C (140°F). A plain triangle allows any bleach, a triangle with two lines means oxygen bleach only, and a crossed-out triangle means no bleach. With no label, a test on an inside seam shows how the colour reacts.

1. 4Pre-soak in oxygen bleach. Dissolve oxygen bleach in the hottest water the fabric allows, following the pack. OxiClean suggests about one scoop per gallon for a soak. Leave the clothes in for one to eight hours, or overnight for old stains.
2. 5Wash hot, on its own. Wash the soaked clothes separately at the hottest temperature on the label, with your usual detergent. Where the label allows 60°C (140°F), use it. Cooler washes clean the fabric but leave more fungi alive.
3. 6Add an extra rinse. A second rinse clears dead spores, loosened stain and leftover product from the fibres.

1. 7Dry in the sun, or on a line in moving air. Sunlight bleaches mold stains and helps kill what’s left. Coloured clothes are best turned inside out to limit fading.
2. 8Check before the dryer. If a stain still shows, repeat the soak and wash. Tumble drying a stained garment on high heat can set the mark permanently.
3. 9Clean the machine afterwards. A hot empty cycle stops spores from the moldy load passing to the next one, and it clears any growth in the machine itself.

If you’re hand-washing, the same order works. The soak happens in a bucket, the scrubbing is done gently with a soft brush, and the rinse needs to be thorough, since hand-washing rarely reaches high temperatures.

Mold remover for clothes: what works

Hot water does most of the work in any wash, and the best mold remover for clothes to add to it depends on the fabric and colour.

How to clean moldy clothes by fabric

Every fabric reacts differently to heat and bleach, so the basic method changes a little depending on what you’re saving.

Getting the musty smell out of clothes

Clothes that come out of the wash looking clean but smelling stale still hold something in the fibres. It’s usually leftover mold, bacteria, or a buildup of detergent and softener that traps both.

A long soak in oxygen bleach and hot water, followed by a hot wash with no softener, strips most of that residue. Drying outdoors in sunlight or moving air helps more than any scented product, which only covers the smell.

When to throw moldy clothes away

Most moldy clothes can take one or two full rounds of soaking and washing before you decide. Some are past saving, and letting them go keeps mold out of the rest of the laundry.

A garment is usually done when the fabric has thinned, torn or developed holes where the mold grew. The same goes for clothes that still smell musty or show fresh growth after two or three full treatments.

Clothes soaked in floodwater or sewage need a hot wash with detergent, and the CDC advises discarding cloth items that can’t be washed in hot water. Baby clothes, bedding and anything worn close to the face are easy to replace when in doubt.

Before throwing anything out, it helps to seal it in a bag first so spores don’t spread on the way to the bin. Valuable or sentimental pieces can go to a professional cleaner who handles mold and restoration.

Mold, mildew or just a stain?

Mold on clothes shows up as spots or patches spreading out from one area, often along seams, collars and folds, in white, grey, green or black. Fresh growth sits on top of the fibres and looks slightly fuzzy or powdery, while an ordinary stain lies flat in the weave.

Mildew is an early, flat form of the same growth: a pale powder that brushes off and washes out easily. It’s the same difference that separates mildew from mold in a bathroom, where one stays on the surface and the other roots into the material.

Orange spots are often rust from water or a metal fastener, and yellow underarm marks come from sweat. Pink slime on towels is usually the bacterium Serratia marcescens, which feeds on soap residue.

Pale, fluffy white mold on stored fabric can pass for dust at a glance. If you’re unsure, the free mold detector can tell a mold patch from a stain in a photo.

Is mold on clothes dangerous?

For most people, briefly handling moldy clothes causes no harm. The concern is breathing in spores and fragments, or wearing the fabric against your skin for hours.

Mold spores are common allergens. In people who are sensitive, they can cause sneezing, a blocked nose, itchy eyes, skin irritation and asthma flare-ups. Wearing unwashed moldy clothes keeps that material next to your skin and under your nose all day.

Mold on several garments at once usually means the room itself has a damp problem, and that’s where most of the exposure comes from. A musty smell in the house that stays after the clothes are clean points to growth somewhere nearby, often behind the wardrobe on an outside wall. Dark growth spreading across the wall itself calls for black mold removal in that room, not just a wash.

Why clothes go moldy and how to stop it

Mold spores settle on clothes all the time, but they only grow when fabric stays damp for a day or two and has something to feed on. Sweat, skin oils, food traces and leftover detergent all feed it, and natural fibres like cotton, linen and wool are food in themselves.

Most moldy clothes trace back to a load left in the washer, a zipped gym bag, clothes put away damp, or a wardrobe on a cold outside wall. Clothes sealed in plastic in a basement or loft are the other common case, and so is laundry dried indoors through the monsoon or a wet winter.

Stopping it means getting clothes dry fast and keeping the air around them dry.

• Dry fully before storing. Clothes put away even slightly damp start growing mold within a day or two. In humid weather, running a fan across indoor drying racks or finishing clothes with an iron gets the last moisture out.
• Empty the washer promptly. Wet laundry left in the drum is one of the most common starting points. A timer on your phone for the end of the cycle solves it.
• Keep wardrobe air moving. A small gap between the wardrobe and an outside wall lets air circulate and stops condensation forming behind it. Leaving the doors open for an hour now and then helps too.
• Watch the humidity. A cheap hygrometer shows whether the room stays above 60%. A dehumidifier brings a bedroom or closet down to the 40% to 50% range where mold struggles to grow. Moisture absorbers like silica gel or calcium chloride tubs help in small wardrobes.
• Store in breathable bags. Cotton garment bags let fabric breathe, while plastic bags and vacuum bags trap any moisture sealed in with the clothes. Everything going into long-term storage needs to be clean and bone dry first.
• Air stored clothes regularly. Taking seasonal clothes out every month or two, shaking them and airing them in the sun catches problems early, especially during the monsoon or a wet winter.

Frequently asked questions