How do I get the "thrift shop" smell out of an old purse?

You can try a leather cleaner. It’s like a lotion you can rub on. Also try to let it air out for a few days. Maybe try one of those little baking soda things that people put in fridges.

Fabreeze. I lurve that stuff.

Febreeze will ruin the leather. It will leave little water spots.

Can you bring it somewhere to have it professionally cleaned?

What I want to know is how this got on my question list? I know nothing about cleaning things or getting smells out of them!

@elijahsuicide Really. I used Fabreeze on a leather jacket with no problem. But why chance it.

Skip the Fabreeze.

@cprevite was your jacket waterproofed? Purses usually aren’t. You probably would be safe using it on the inside cloth liner.

Depending on the finish of the leather, you can sometimes spray it with vodka without getting the leather all spotty. I’d take a little bit of vodka and put it on an unobtrusive part of the purse (inside a pocket or a seam) and see if it affects the finish – if not, put some vodka in a spray bottle and spritz the purse lightly – after it dries, the smell should be gone (or at least less noticeable – you might have to do it a couple of times to get it out completely…)

We use vodka spray to get smells out of costumes all the time in the theater – it works even better than febreeze. But leather can be finicky – so be careful!

Open the purse & set a little bowl of coffee grounds in there. That’ll absorb the odors & leave a better one. I’ve used this method lots of times, with good results. It took the smell of spilled beer out of the trunk of my prior car.

@sdeutsch Don’t we usually cut the vodka with a little water?

I agree with jbfletcherfan about the coffee grounds. You can also soak a paper towel with vanilla, and then put that in an open baggy. Place that baggy (top opened) in the purse for a couple of days. We’ve used the vanilla method in a cooler that my hubby left fish in for many days…ick! It smelled like new in a day or so after the vanilla.

@elijahsuicide Yeah. I think it may have been.

I’ve heard that crumpled up newspaper lightly stuffed inside can work, too.

I dunno, when ever I have a shirt I want to smell nice but don’t have time to wash it I just throw it in the dryer with some of those softner sheets or what ever. Though I will point out I have not done this in years because now I pay for my laundry :P it was usually only for work uniform stuff anyways and i was on the fly. But anyways I dunno what that will do to the leather but It would probably be okay.

Put some charcoal briquetts in it for a couple of weeks. They will absorb all the odors.

@sdeutch, won’t the vodka spray make the purse smell like alcohol? The combination of old perfume and alcohol might be even worse.

@sfgal The vodka evaporates pretty well, so no. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

@andrew: And multi purpose too; you can drink whatever you don’t use in the interest of being frugal!

@andrew We usually cut the vodka with water, but for things that can’t get water on them (like silk), you can use straight vodka. It’s just cheaper if you can cut it with water! ;)

@sfgal I have no idea how it works, but the vodka evaporates, so the alcohol smell disappears, and it somehow takes the odor with it. The coffee grounds method should work too, though, and you’re in less danger of messing up the leather that way – I’d try that one first. And who doesn’t want a purse that smells like coffee? Yum! ;)