How to Keep Your Drawer Fresh

Remove all the contents from drawers every two months. Examine clothes for stains, holes and tears and set them aside for an overall re-folding and sprucing up. Prioritize and organize clothing-related accessories.

Shut an open dish of vinegar in the closed drawer for 24 hours to absorb lingering musty odor. Be careful not to spill any vinegar, while opening and closing the drawer.

Sniff each article of clothing to see which ones smell fresh and which ones have a stale odor from being pent up in the drawer for long periods. Evaluate whether to keep the clothes you don’t wear often. Separate clothes into three piles: clothes that smell fresh and need to be re-folded, clothes that smell musty to be washed and kept, and musty-smelling clothes to be tossed out or washed and give away.

Wash musty smelling clothes and dry them with a dryer sheet to lock in a fresh scent. Pack up the clothes you’re giving away and put the clothes you’re keeping with the rest from the drawer.

Re-fold the contents of the drawer. Rather than putting T-shirts in a pile that will be displaced every time you look for something to wear, “file” the shirts by placing the bottom of the folded pile at the inside front of the drawer, so the collars and bottom hems of the T-shirts are touching the bottom of the drawer and the midsections of the shirts are facing up. This way you can flip through the shirts and pick out the one you want without disturbing the rest.

Slide dryer sheets between the folds of a few shirts and place an unused bar of soap at the bottom of the drawer.

Soak an absorbent cloth with a favorite perfume or cologne to store in an intimate apparel drawer.