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Is there any way to remove the smell of smoke or cigarettes from a book? |
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when i come home from the thrift store just to be safe I normally put them in a heavy cardboard box and set them outside on my porch for a day or so. If it is cold enough the odor will go away and the books will smell fresh as a daisy (LOL). |
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Best luck I've had so far is with charcoal insoles - like Odor Eaters:P They're expensive though, so it's not like you can toss a book into a box full of them. I found some at Big Lots (closeouts, I think) for a few bucks. I use two on a bed of kitty litter, in the bottom of an airtight plastic tub. Sit the books on top of it for a couple of days & they usually come out fine. But I've never tried just sitting a book to air out in the sun on a pretty day either - which a lot of people swear by. You can get cartons of activated charcoal at the pet store relatively cheaply. You just need to put it in something like a cloth bag or whatever. |
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I put them in a box with unscented kitty litter and put them on my back porch. It seems to work fine to remove the smoke smell. I also have an RC asking for books that don't smell of cigarette smoke or heavy chemical smells. I once bought a box of books on E-bay where the seller claimed they were from a "non-smoking" household. When I opened the box it about knocked me out with the harsh chemical smell. I wrote the seller and asked her what the smell was and she said "Oh, it must be Freebreeze, since I spray it in my house to keep it smelling fresh". From the smell of these books, she had to have sprayed it directly on the books because it was so strong, I had to close the box and take it outside to get rid of the smell. I also detected an underlying smell of cigarette smoke. I suspect that she was really a smoker and sprayed the books with Freebreeze to try to take away the smoke smell. I was never able to get rid of the smell and ended up in giving the books to the Friends of the Library. |
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Dryer sheets work well. I stick a couple between the pages and let the book set for a few days. It once worked to remove a gasoline smell from a book that was damaged on it's way to me. It had oil stains and smelled of gasoline but a few days with dryer sheets between the pages and wrapped around the book took care of the smell. :) |
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