How to get urine odor out of Mom's panties?

But whatever you use, make sure it's safe for humans and rinse panties thoroughly.

Oh, thanks, ramiller! How about trying a product that you would use to get cat urine out? Cat urine is insidious! Find a product at the pet store.

Oh no dont dry clean, sorry to disagree but after working at a dry cleaners several years ago I learned odors become more set by the dry cleaning process so please avoid that.

Borax should help, so will baking soda and peroxide. I also sprinkle Desenex antifungal powder on the undergarments, it seems to prevent the urine from turning rapidly into ammonia.

Agree with cloud, start with small load few items with one idea see how works before doing big load.

One more idea: The most stingy clothes could be taken to the dry cleaners.

Sounds like a great plan. Also since she wears a cath bag make sure she is rinsing it with warm water mixed with vinager. I had a client who wore one and that is how we cleaned it every night when he changed from day to night bag. Never had odor problem. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the help! She shares the w/d with my brother's family....and I know she buys her own detergent and stuff...and she is one to "cook" wet clothes, not dry them. Luckily, she is as regular as clockwork about her routine and Mondays is always wash day. I will do what I can. She's planning a surgery soon (lady loves her a good surgery!) and during the 8 weeks she'll be in a rehab facility, I bet I can wash all her stuff.

Midkid58, If her clothes have been washed and DRYED several times the drying van set the smell so it becomes a biggger challange. I dont think detergent alone will work at this point. Get white vinegar and add a cup to wash let it soak for 1 hour before completing wash cycle. Let us know if that works. I will also ask my daughter and get back to you, she deals with vintage clothing and has learned alot about cleaning clothes with set in odor. I'll see if she has any ideas. Let hope for best!

You can also buy her several boxes of the good detergent. You get away with it by telling her they were on sale and you couldn't resist.

Here's an idea, 58. Maybe you can get your mom to add baking soda or vinegar to her wash under false pretenses. I hate to ask you to lie, but you can tell her that it increases the effectiveness of your laundry detergent (not a total lie). My suggestion of Shout might not work in this scenario. I wish you the best.

All these are good answers--I spent the whole day with Mother and noticed that she smells very strongly of old urine....she has a supra pubic catheter (wears the urine collector bag strapped to her leg) and she keeps herself scrupulously clean, but I think in the past when she was suffering incontinence issues, her clothes got wet and she never did get the smell out. I am thinking I will have to help her find a better detergent. She goes for "cheap" and uses too little for her laundry. We went to a baby shower today and I could tell others were noticing she smelled pretty strongly....she'd die of embarrassment if she knew--so this will have to be tiptoed around. Can I just have her add Borax to a better quality detergent and that should help?? I so do NOT want to have this discussion with her!

Wash in hot water.

I'm going to stick to answering "gropups" question because regardless of what sort of adult adaptive underwear you use, NOTHING is completely free of leaks. Even if changed regularly and often, soakings happen -- and so do accidents. We haven't tried vinegar, and I would sure go with that first because it's cheap, natural and safe. However, my sister and I have successfully used a product made by Downy, although I believe there are other manufacturers of similar products. It has the advantage over other products (which might be great) in that in can be be found in most grocery stores (but NOT our Wal-Mart). It's called Unstoppables. To my surprise it's not really a cleaner, but it seems to work at getting rid of bad scent as well as enhancing good scent (as from detergent or -- surprise -- one's fabric softener. It's called a "scent booster"; we like the lavender but there are others. It's in a plastic canister type container and looks like little pellets. You put it in the washer with the laundry detergent before adding the clothes. Bleach rots elastic and is very hard on all fabrics not to mention skin -- although extra rinses would help that -- but we can't use bleach on any of Mom's clothes and this works on all kinds of fabrics. I live out of town so I don't do Mom's laundry very often but when I do it's in a commercial laundry so I can't soak and have zero control over length of wash cycle or multiple rinses. Using this product even on pjs that have sat wet in her bathroom hamper for days has given completely satisfactory results: no odor. And no perfume-y smell either -- just fresh. I do not recommend bleach. Try this if vinegar doesn't work for you and especially if you have no time to soak clothes or do multiple rinses. Good luck!

When I took a caregiving course they taught us to put white vinegar in the wash water. The ph in vinegar will fix that urine smell and it works!

Also washing soda added to the laundry helps eliminate odors. Not baking soda, washing soda.

I used a cleaner called Mean Green in the washer with warm or hot water

Use vinegar (1 cup) in the rinse cycle.

I had this problem and found a fairly easy answer. Vinegar in with the detergent, I use a cup of vinegar in the wash as the water if filling up. I now do it everytime, works like a charm for us and we have really hard water.
Good luck,

I try to get my mother to at least wear pads and try to catch them on sale. She has vowel accidents also. I use bleach or soak them overnight in a bucket of water with Oxygen Clean.

For urine and feces (after the item has been rinsed thoroughly) I've used non-sudsy ammonia by itself with water in the Top Loading wash machine on a rinse cycle. Then I do a full cycle rewash with Tide and Borax afterwards. Comes out fine. No stains or smells, no loss in color of the item either.

Shout gets it out. I do all mom's clothes in the steam cycle of my washer first. Anything that still dmells when it comes out (underarms, panties) gets Shout and then hung to dry, not put in the dryer. I then do that laundry agsin the next day. I used to put Shout on the filthy clothes first, now I prefer to get the dirt off first and then deal with the remaining problem. My best friend, whose mom is incontinent, also swears by Shout. That being said, I don't know what's in Shout, except that its really strong, so when using it, I do an extra rinse. I find tjis particularly important when it comes to washing panties. I've also used baking soda for odors, but it didn't work as well on the underarm odors. And tge most effective laundry detergent I've come across is Purex powder. Hard to find where I live, but more effective than the Purex liquid. Good luck.

Ive had urine leak issues on my my moms underwear many years ago when she was at the inbetween needing a diaper. I bought her a ton of them and threw them out when they were too wet. Bleach, hot water, and the dryer is the cure but sometimes the underpants are cheaper than all of that so I threw them out! Yeast can live on underpants, fyi, I even buy all new ones for myself every 6 months or so just in case.
Now, when I get bedpads and nightgowns urine saturated, I soak them in hot water in the bathtub with Irish Spring gel, it kills anything and smells great. I then use bleach and hot water afterwards. Good luck

I've found baking soda will help, depending on the amount of panties you want to clean mix about a 2/3 baking soda with the panties in water let soak for about 30 mins then wash in separate load with baking soda laundry detergent. This helped for me hope it works for you.

Have her wear Silhouette's which are comfortable, get AZO which is an herbal supplement, or have the doctor order a med for incontinence. You have to wash often because what you are smelling is ammonia, which is very pungent. Either wash, change pads, or stop it with meds.

Use disposable panties such as Depends 24/7 to save your mother discomfort and embarrassment.

Sometimes I can't get Mom to relieve herself on the toilet before bed and on those nights I put Abri-Flex Premium Air Plus pull-ups on her as they are super absorbent.

These products prevent constantly having to clean up messes on clothing and bedding. But just in case, I use a GoodNites Disposable Bed Mat on top of the bottom sheet.

If you don't mind doing extra laundry, non-disposable versions of these products also are available at drug stores and Wal-Mart.

Best wishes for a quick resolution to this challenge.

vinegar in wash will work !!!! Dump it in Works for shampooing rugs too

There's also a great product I buy at Bed Bath and Beyond called Zero Odor. You can also order online. It works on the rank smells in my husband's work out clothing which holds sweat like crazy! It's not cheap, but you need use very little of it.

One cup on vinegar in wash will work and cost is very low.

I use depends but if they leak overnight and her sheets and nightie get wet I have found very hot water, tide, and borax get the smell out. Not as harsh as bleach.