Baking soda gone foul??

As an archery whitetail deer hunter I use a large amount of baking soad each season for sent control on my clothing. This year for the first time the baking soda appears to have had some type of chemical reaction that turned it foul smelling almost onion powder smelling resulting in all my clothes stored in plastic tubes with lots of baking soda stinking. I ended up rewashing all my clothes several times to get the smell out. Anyone else ever run into this

No, and I suspect the baking soda is not the problem. Perhaps something else got in and simply overpowered the soda's ability to absorb odor.

Have you ever seen the vigorous chemical reaction when a little vinegar is mixed into some baking soda? It's not the most stable compound.

If the clothing was damp with sweat (or some other acidic liquid), you might have had a similar reaction take place. Even if the liquid were allowed to dry by evaporation before storage, humidity from the air could be enough to act as a catalyst if baking soda would come in contact with it.

- Jerry Z.

Explore the North American Outdoors

How true! Remember the volcano experiment in school! Wasn't that done with vinegar and baking soda?