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Are Your Workout Clothes Suffering From Rebloom?

rebloomEver had this problem before? You do a load of laundry — say, towels and your fave workout apparel. It comes out of the dryer smelling like daises. It sits in your closet for a day or two until you bust it out for your fave workout class. You pop it on, feeling not just so fresh and so clean, but also so fit. You get to class. You got this. And then, five minutes into the workout, you wonder: what smells so … musty and icky? OMG, is that me?

Yep. Been there. Done that. And “that” actually has a name in the laundry world. It’s called “rebloom,” and it sucks monkey chunks.

I’ve noticed this off and on with some of my favorite workout apparel and athleisure pieces — and especially with my bath towels. Holy crap, that mildew smell just gets in there and LINGERS. Here’s why.

What Causes Rebloom

Seventy percent of laundry soils are invisible and our bodies produce soils that get trapped in the fabrics of performance fabrics. In fact, in a single day, your body produces (if you get squeamish about germs and cells and bodily functions and stuff, you might want to go ahead and skip down to the next section):

  • 10 grams of salt
  • 1 liter of sweat
  • 40 grams of grease and sebum
  • 10 grams of skin cells and flakes

Now, imagine it on days you work out. Ew.

Review: Does Tide + Downy Odor Defense Collection Fight Rebloom?

My husband and I have been fighting the towel and workout apparel rebloom issue for years (now we just have a word to use for it instead of “grossness that won’t go away”), so when I was sent the full Tide + Downy Odor Defense Collection to review, I was ready to put it to the test. Like, bust-out-the-science-goggles-and-let’s-do-this-shit ready.

And it’s a system. Really, a pretty brilliant marketing tactic in that there are three products you use to get the full rebloom benefit. (It’s like ProActiv, for clothes!)

laundry-system

Step one: The Tide PODS Plus Febreze Odor Defense that’s said to break down and remove the bulk of those “body soils” (still ew).

Step two: You hit your shirty dirts (I’m not the only one who says that, right? Please let me know; my husband and I have a bet over it.) with Tide Rescue with Febreze Odor Defense, which has oxygenated bleach that breaks down more body soils and odors for a deep clean at the fiber level.

Step three: You add in Downy Fresh Protect with Febreze Odor Defense, which helps to neutralize odors.

Phew. And I thought laundry was time consuming already.

Now, I don’t have a science degree or anything, so I can’t confirm the whole “at the fiber level” stuff. Or the body soils part. (Ew, again. Man, I have to stop saying “body soils.”) But the rebloom part? It takes care of it. Like, for close to a WEEK my mildew-smelling towels didn’t smell of mildew. And my workout clothes didn’t have that musky smell either. Freaking amazing.

Now a few personal cons I found with the full collection. First, you need three products to do laundry. It’s pricey and makes doing laundry take a few extra steps. I know it’s not like putting in two pods and then some beads is hard; but, I’m generally looking for ways to do less in life when it comes to housework, not more. Second, I’m usually someone who uses fragrance-free laundry detergent. This is not fragrance-free by any means. It smells good, but each step of the system has a strong smell. At first, especially right out of the laundry, this put me off. Like, almost made my head hurt from so much fragrance. But, it quickly faded to be much more mild and agreeable, and, by day 5, my towels had a faint smell of sweet floweriness that I really, really liked. It didn’t smell like the fragrance was covering up mildew either — the ickiness was just gone. Again, all just personal preference for me and my nose.

With all that said, I think it’s worth it. Like, I won’t use it for all of my clothes and every time I do laundry by any means, but for my towels and biggest workout apparel rebloom offenders — especially before company comes to stay at our house or I know I’ll be working out in a group? You better believe it.

Do you have any items that suffer from rebloom? What are they? I’ve seriously thrown some of my husband’s clothes away because of it. If only I’d known sooner we could have saved those adidas shorts from the 90s! Jenn

FTC disclosure: We often receive products from companies to review. All thoughts and opinions are always entirely our own. Unless otherwise stated, we have received no compensation for our review and the content is purely editorial. Affiliate links may be included. If you purchase something through one of those links we may receive a small commission. Thanks for your support!

Comments

3 Comments
  1. Ba says:

    You could save a few $$$ and just usw vinegar, baking soda and tea tree oil that kill the bacteria insyead of maskng the odour. i also hardly ever put my workout clothes in the dryer

  2. Jen says:

    Hmmmm…It’s a lotta stuff. I use white vinegar in the bleach cup (along with my normal detergent), and the funky smell is gone. Also no vinegar smell at all. ?

  3. Impressive!Thanks for the post

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