Friends:

I hope the day is treating you well as it nears its end.

I'm preparing for Northern New England deer tracking Benoit style this fall, and as I pull out my woolen jackets and pants to get them ready to go, I realized I haven't done much in terms of cleaning them up over the last 50 years. Sure I have sent them off to the drycleaners, but the last time was prolly when Obama was president. So even if they aren't super dirty, they are bordering on ripe, if not already there.

Anyway, the labels on the main garments (Johnson Woolen Mills) say "Dry Clean Only". I'm thinking that means chemicals and a chemical smell. Not so hyper-enthused about that.

So the next option is hand wash, mebbe in baking soda and cold water.

Yet another option is to go with the ozone cleaner: line the clothes up in a closet, close it, and give them a good hour of ozone treatment then let them air out, maybe outside in the woods or in a garbage bag with local spruce/fir/cedar branches.

Your thoughts? Any opinions cheerfully appreciated!

Fresh air and direct sunlight.
Happy hunting!

If you have an ozone purifier, try it. Make sure the space ozone-treated (i.e. closet) is vented for a couple hours when done to diffuse the ozone. Open a few windows once the closet/treated room is done with the ozone timer cycle. Don't be near it or breathe it, as ozone (O3) can damage your lungs.

I bought a used Enerzen O-777 Industrial O3 Air Purifier from ebay for $35 shipped for a musty basement sunroom. It made a huge difference (for the better). I set the timer for 2 hours for three nights in a row. Smells spring fresh in the sunroom now.

Maybe you can put your hunting clothes out in a spare bedroom and great the whole room for a couple of hours.

You can also wash the jacket and pants in your bathtub with Woolite, rinse, and hang to dry.

Good luck

I do fire restoration. I own 2 ozone machines that can treat a home. Ozone doesn’t clean. Think of it as greatly accelerating the airing out process. Example. Smoke smelling clothing can be treated in 24 hours on what would take a month on its own. However if the smell isn’t one that would air out. Ozone isn’t going to work. Example. Pet piss smell in carpets.

+1
My suggestion is to liberally sprinkle baking soda on them and pack them away in a big leaf bag. That's how I treat my wool sweater, and it stays fairly scent free.



Baking Soda-- The Shamanic Method

I’ve read every Benoit book and magazine article on tracking deer and honestly, I don’t ever remember the Benoits being much concerned with the wind direction. The deer is likely heading into the wind itself anyway and unless it circles out behind you, it isn’t going to get your scent. I think that a stand hunter is more likely to be sniffed out than a tracker.
That said, I did take my Woolrich pants to the dry cleaners one year and when I picked them up I felt like saying, “No, I didn’t want to buy them again, only clean them.” Wildly expensive.
Be careful washing them yourself. Shrinkage happens. Lots of my large stuff has turned into mediums that way.

While my avatar says I’m a “campfire tracker”, far from it these days. I decided that deer have four feet and I only have two. I got a lot of deer killed…by other people when I tracked “my” deer into someone up ahead with more patience than I had. You need the right kind of woods to go tracking in and in a state with 600,000 deer hunters here, I don’t have it where I go.

I’m with those that prefer to hang and let Mother Nature air them out. I also hunt Maine in the Rangeley Lakes region. It’s been a couple years since I hunted there, usually the week before thanksgiving and it hasn’t been cold enough for wool. I would bring something to wear that’s not to heavy besides the wool.

I am in the camp that prefers not to waste time trying to make hunting clothes scent-free. You can't do it. The only scent your woolens will carry likely to disturb a deer is human scent and you are not going to be able to "descent" yourself, no matter what the legion of snake oil salesmen try to convince you of. The only thing that matters is wind direction and distance.

I never wash my Cammies, during the season if they get stinky i hang them on the fence for a few day's, I have 3 or 4 pair of Cammies, hunt the wind and forget all this scent killer crap. when the season is over I wash mine and hang them on the fence for a few days again. mostly so they are fresh ready for next season. Rio7

Smoke em.

I started doing this 10 years or so ago and have had far less deer bust me when under 10 yards.

Just find a big pile of some animal [bleep] , stomp around in it
If your hunting farm land , stomp in whatever is on the farms , if it’s mountain hunting or wilderness , stomp in deer [bleep] , if you cover a lot of ground in a day most of the [bleep] will be pealed off by the time you get back to your vehicle
Kenneth

#1.. Hunt the wind.
#1a.. Your body is constantly shedding skin cells and that’s how critters smell ole Elmer Fudd. 👍

#2.. Take your wool to the cleaners.

#3.. Hunt the wind.

#4.. Wear your favorite aftershave, it ain’t gonna matter.

#5.. Hunt the wind and enjoy the outdoors!

Almost all of the mentioned methods just cover the smell. They don't remove the source of the smell, the dirt, the sweat, etc. Besides, the smell, dirt wears out the fabric. Dirt is abrasive and it will wear out the fibers. It needs a real cleaning once in a while to make it last longer.

Nothing removes it IME, which is why I consider scent eliminators, ozonics, etc a complete waste of time and money. As mentioned, the wind is your friend.

Wash it in something scent free then stretch and hang outside to dry. I use Eucalan on some of my wool, helps keep the lanolin on the wool. Even the unscented has a little smell to it but hang outside to dry and it does great.
I use and wear KOM and some Sleeping Indian wool with merino base layers.
A delicate, scent free detergent works well too.

After it all dries I put in in a giant ziplock bag with some branches that match the trees growing where we hunt.

And yep sometimes we rub elk poop on out boots etc to cover our scent a bit, but the wind is the main factor.

Just step in PIG SCHITT and your scent will be covered for the season here in S. Texas. Rio7

Just hang your gear outside. Unpack mine in cedar or pine boughs but I doubt it makes a difference.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

THIS...in Spades, you'll never be scent free until you've found the magic solution...and learn to quit breathing. An awful lot comes out in the breath.

I hand wash my Beagle, Codet, Johnson, and Labonville wool clothing with Nikwax Wool Wash. When they are dry, I hang them in a garment bag with freshly cut evergreen boughs.

My Father and his deer hunting crew favored Oil of Anise, licorice scent, as a cover scent. They were still hunters and informal drivers in northwestern ME and northern NH, hunting out of a tent camp at Sunday Pond in Oxford County, ME.

IMO, ozonic is good for hunters bad for deer. A deer doesn't completely trust what they hear or see. But if a deer smells you the gig is over. There's no way to eliminate human scent, but you can control and manipulate it. You can use the terrain in helping with scent control. It takes time and thought to learn how to use thermals and wind shears to your advantage. When a deer walks past you and doesn't alert to your smell ask yourself why.

Thanks Gents!

I'll run with this information. Very helpful.