stinky jeans

[Anonymous]

I would return - however I would never pay $130 for Lucky jeans - you can get them for $30 at Marshall’s.

[Anonymous]

I just bought a pair of Lucky Jeans..and same, they really smell. I am really concerned about what is making them smell? My fear is the chemicals they use to treat the jeans...and what is that doing to our bodies? Our skin absorbing this? This is a bit frightening if it is the case...we could start a Class action lawsuit on threatening our health.

[Anonymous]

I thought my washer was broken. It was a Lucky brand shirt that I bought from Marshall’s. Smelled like skunk or weed. The smell spread to all my other clothes in the load. Washed with baking soda and vinegar. Didn’t help. Threw out the shirt. Currently cleaning out my washing machine with vinegar and hot water. Hopefully I can get the smell out of my other clothes.

[Anonymous]

It may be the dye or other toxic chemicals they use during processing and storage. My experience with smelly jeans (especially darker washes) is that the smell does not wash out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought my washer was broken. It was a Lucky brand shirt that I bought from Marshall’s. Smelled like skunk or weed. The smell spread to all my other clothes in the load. Washed with baking soda and vinegar. Didn’t help. Threw out the shirt. Currently cleaning out my washing machine with vinegar and hot water. Hopefully I can get the smell out of my other clothes.

Yup. Once you stop buying clothes and detergents and other scented and treated things, you will notice the chemical smells more. You’d be surprised at how much is sprayed and soaked. Lately I don’t order from Amazon nearly as much because everything I order seems to reek of whatever sweet smelling insecticide or pest control chemical these use.

And forget shopping in the Walmart clothing section. The smell is overpowering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in the corporate part of a flash sale website (think Rue La La, etc.) and this was a big problem with some of our less-expensive, direct-from-wholesale stuff.

With items that weren’t jeans, we got a lot of stuff that smelled like kerosene and other chemicals. You would be sad to know the conditions a lot of this cheap clothing is made in- it’s a lot of rundown factories or people’s homes (for pattern cutting or finishing) and so clothing picks up whatever is going on there, including spilled kerosene from heaters, random chemicals, and cooking smells.

Jeans seem to be a particular problem and I don’t actually know why but my theory is that less expensive denim washes are achieved through processes that use a lot of water and not necessarily clean abrasives. Your jeans are picking up the local water smell and then sitting in gross conditions before they’re shipped, so they get that garbage-y weird funk to them. Denim is also slow to dry, so any moisture picked up in the shipping container is going to be absorbed and sit there while absorbing cardboard/plastic smells.

I don’t know if this explains why the smell won’t go away even after multiple washes. I think it’s the processing, manufacturing, storage and transport. It’s baked into the cheap process for cheap clothes. It’s not just a matter of bad luck.

[Anonymous]

Everyone call or e-mail the brand and report it.

They probably have sufficient supply chain tracking to figure it out.

In olden times, blue dye work made use of urine on purpose. It's probably some similar chemical that smells like a back alley in a bar district.