After you purchase your first vape kit and switch to vaping, getting rid of the smoke smell in your environment will be one of your first priorities. You’ll find the cigarette smell repugnant once you’re no longer a smoker. Moreover, once you’ve made the switch, you won’t want the smell to be a constant reminder that you used to smoke.
Getting the smoke smell out of your home and car is also important because it helps to preserve the value of those assets. Your home and car are two of the most valuable items that you own, and nonsmokers won’t want to buy those items if they smell like smoke.
As you’re about to learn, removing the smell of smoke from your environment is a long-term process that will require many steps. It can be helpful to hire professional help for some of those steps, but it’s possible to do everything in this article on your own if you have the time and initiative. Here’s how to remove the smoke smell from your home, car and clothes.
How to Get Rid of the Smoke Smell in Your Home
A home is a complex system that can be extremely challenging to clean when you stop smoking because the smell of smoke will adhere to almost everything – and you’ll need to treat hard and soft surfaces differently. It’s going to take time and patience, but you can do it. Here’s how to get rid of the smoke smell in your home.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Furniture
To get rid of the smoke smell on your furniture, you’ll want to start by vacuuming the furniture on all sides. This should include the portions that you don’t normally clean, such as the undersides, backs and cushions. Sprinkle baking soda liberally on all items. Wait 24 hours and vacuum the furniture again. Baking soda works very well for absorbing odors, and you’ll use a great deal of it as you remove the cigarette smell from your home and car. Buy plenty of baking soda before you get started.
After you’ve vacuumed away the baking soda, your furniture should smell much fresher. If it doesn’t, consider placing the items in direct sunlight for a few hours on a bright day. Ultraviolet radiation is an effective odor remover because it destroys the molecules that cause foul smells. Exercise care with this technique, though, because direct sunlight can also potentially damage leather and some fabrics.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Drapes, Linens and Towels
To get the smoke smell out of your drapes, linens and towels, wash those items with good detergent and strong vinegar. You may find it helpful to use the high-capacity machines at your local laundromat for larger items. Before you begin, though, it’s worthwhile to consider the costs and limitations of getting the smoke smell out of these items. In some cases, using high-capacity washers and dryers may cost almost as much as just replacing the dirty items. In addition, no amount of washing will fully remove the yellowing from white items. In some cases, replacing linens, towels and drapes may make more sense than washing them to get rid of the smoke smell.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Carpets
To remove the smoke smell from your carpets, start by sprinkling baking soda liberally over the carpets to absorb as much of the smell as possible. Leave the baking soda in place for 24 hours and vacuum it away. Don’t forget to vacuum under and behind things – get all of the spots that you usually skip when cleaning your house.
It’s likely that the baking soda will greatly improve the smell of your carpets, but it probably won’t remove the smoke smell completely. Finish the job by renting a steam cleaner and giving your carpet a deep cleaning. Consider adding strong vinegar to the cleaning solution.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Walls, Ceilings and Hard Floors
When you smoke inside your home, the smell of the smoke will stick to every surface – and that includes hard surfaces such as walls, ceilings and tile floors. Luckily, it’s usually fairly easy to remove the smoke smell from these surfaces by washing them with a strong vinegar solution.
If simply washing your walls and ceilings doesn’t remove the smoke smell completely – or if the surfaces are badly yellowed – you might want to consider applying a new coat of paint. When professionals remediate the homes of smokers, they use odor-encapsulating paint. The paint traps odor-causing molecules and prevents them from escaping into the air.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Air Conditioning System and Ducts
When you’re trying to get the smoke smell out of your home, the heating and air conditioning system is one area that you should leave to a professional because having a company come in to clean and disinfect your coils and ducts costs much less than replacing a component that you’ve accidentally broken because you didn’t know how to clean it correctly. Replacing all of the filters in your home’s climate control system, however, is something that you can do on your own when you want to get rid of the smoke smell.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Hard-to-Reach Places
As you work to remove the smoke smell from your home, you’ll find that smoke can get just about everywhere. That includes areas that are very hard to reach, such as under sinks and inside cabinets and closets. Place bags of activated charcoal in these areas. You’ll find them online and in your local home improvement stores. Charcoal is an extremely effective odor absorber. Refresh the bags every month or two by placing them in direct sunlight. After about two years of use, you should replace the bags with fresh ones.
How to Get the Smoke Smell Out of Your Car
Your home isn’t the only part of your environment that carries an odor from your time as a smoker. If you smoked cigarettes in your car, you’ll need to get the smell out of there as well after quitting. Hiring a professional detailer can be very helpful here. Detailers often have to remediate the cars of former smokers. They do it by cleaning the ventilation ducts and by running ozone generators in the cars overnight. There’s also a lot that you can do to remove the smell of cigarettes from your car on your own, though, and we’ll walk you through that process next.
Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Car’s Windows and Fixtures
To remove the smoke smell from your car’s windows, wash them with a strong vinegar solution. For other hard fixtures such as the steering wheel, dashboard and armrests, it’s a good idea to test a small section with the vinegar solution to confirm that the vinegar doesn’t cause discoloration. Clean the fixtures with vinegar if it is safe to do so. If not, use a cleaning product from your local auto parts store.
Replace the Cabin Air Filter
Replacing the cabin air filter is one of the simplest things that you can do to improve the way your car smells. The cabin air filter is probably located behind your car’s glove compartment; you can confirm this by reading the car’s instruction manual. Replacing the cabin air filter takes only a few minutes. After you’ve used the filter for a month or two, it will probably have absorbed much of the smoke smell. At that point, you should replace the filter again. After that, you can resume the normal filter replacement schedule, which is once a year for most vehicle models.
Clean Your Car’s Upholstery and Floor
Your car’s upholstery and floor will be the areas of your car that have absorbed the majority of the smoke smell because they’re soft. You generally shouldn’t clean your car’s roof lining on your own because cleaning it can cause it to stretch and loosen. However, you can clean the floor and seats on your own – and to do that, you should start by vacuuming them thoroughly. Vacuum under the seats and between the cushions as well. Smoke adheres easily to dust and crumbs, and giving the car a thorough vacuuming will remove much of the cigarette smell.
After vacuuming your car’s interior, sprinkle baking soda liberally on the seats and floor as we described earlier in the article. Remove the baking soda with a vacuum after leaving it in place for 24 hours.
Use Activated Charcoal to Keep Your Car Smelling Nice
After you’ve given your car a thorough detailing, you should find that it smells much better – but the smoke odor probably won’t be completely gone. You can reduce the odor further by placing bags of activated charcoal under the seats. As we described above, you’ll need to refresh the charcoal periodically in direct sunlight and will need to replace the bags after about two years.
How to Get the Smoke Smell Out of Your Clothes
When it comes to removing the smoke smell from your clothes, the simplest solution is to replace them. That’s not always practical, though, so the next best solution is to wash your clothes in a strong vinegar solution. Some people recommend using baking soda to remove the smoke smell from clothes, and you might also try using washing soda or a peroxide-based bleach alternative. Don’t combine vinegar and baking soda in the same washing load, though, because they’ll neutralize each other, and you’ll lose most of the power of both cleaning agents in the process. In addition, the foam generated by the combination of baking soda and vinegar could cause your washing machine to overflow.
Getting Rid of the Smoke Smell Is a Long-Term Process, so Don’t Lose Patience
Getting the smoke smell out of your home and car is a long-term process that may take months. After you clean one area, you’ll notice the smoke smell somewhere else and will then have to clean that area. Remain patient and troubleshoot the problem areas as you find them. Before long, you’ll forget that your environment ever smelled like cigarettes.
