How to keep your clothes fresh when you travel

Frequent flyers love to travel light, and even when sheer necessity calls for checked luggage it still comes down to packing efficiently: choosing clothes and colours that are versatile, with a mix-and-match or ‘capsule wardrobe’ approach in mind.

But no matter how carefully you pack, you always want those clothes to smell crisp and fresh. These tips will achieve exactly that.

Put some dryer sheets in your luggage

Dryer sheets – the same as you’d use in a tumble dryer –  make a world of different to how your clothes smell when you unpack them at the other end.

Pop a sheet between layers of your clothes, and if you’ve a large piece of checked luggage, add one sheet at the bottom of the bag and another at the top.

An alternative approach with similar results: grab one clean sock, insert a small bar of scented soap – good-quality soap from a hotel is ideal – then fold the sock over and fasten it with a rubber band so the soap stays snug inside.

Steam your clothes in the bathroom

It’s an old standby of road warriors: hang your clothes in the hotel’s bathroom, get hot water blasting into the bath and/or shower, close the door and turn the bathroom into a steam room. As the clothes absorb the water, any creases will drop out.

For a clothes-freshening finesse to this routine, add a generous dollop of body wash or shampoo 

to a sink full of hot water and the scent will gently mix with the steam.

Bring a small bottle of fabric freshener

If you’re not already using something like Febreze Fabric Refresher at home, you’re really missing out.

Of course, you  don’t need to take the whole bottle on the road. Just buy a small spray bottle (Amazon has oodles to choose from) and pour some Febreze or similar into this.

If you’re travelling in carry-on mode, make sure the bottle is under 100ml (3.3 US fluid ounces) so it’ll be allowed in your cabin bag by airport security.