Can I put gas-soaked clothes in the dryer once I've washed them?

Only if the gasoline smell is completely gone. A machine dryer's heat, and the pilot light on a gas dryer, can ignite fuel fumes, so any lingering gas means the clothes are still a fire hazard. Sniff the load while it's damp, and if you catch even a faint gas smell, soak and wash it again, then air-dry it outside. Do not gamble with a dryer while fumes are present.

How many washes does it take to get gasoline out of clothes?

It depends on how much fuel soaked in and how thick the fabric is. A light splash on a t-shirt might clear in one pre-soak and wash. Denim work pants, canvas gloves, or a towel that took a full pour can need two or three rounds, and a heavy soak that sat for days may never come all the way out at home. Pre-soaking in a degreaser first cuts the number of cycles more than anything else.

Do the same steps work on diesel, gloves, and work boots?

The degreaser soak works on diesel too, though diesel is oilier and clings even harder, so expect more passes. Cloth gloves and towels wash the same as clothes. Leather gloves and boots are different, since they can't take a hot wash, so wipe them down with a degreaser, air them out well, and treat the smell rather than soaking the leather. If it won't clear, a pro treatment is the safer route.

How to Get a Gasoline Smell Out of Clothes

Specialty · By Odor Removal Experts · Updated June 2026 · Cleveland and Northeast Ohio

Siphon a tank, top off the mower, or catch a splash of work fuel at the shop, and it ends up on your clothes. Once it's there it does not just rinse out, and the whole load can come out of the wash still reeking. If you're trying to work out how to get gasoline smell out of clothes, gloves, towels, or a soaked pair of work pants, the real answer is that you have to break the oily fuel off the fibers, because gasoline is a petroleum oil and it clings to fabric long after the wet feeling is gone.

We deal with fuel odor every week, and soaked clothing is one of the trickier versions of it because you cannot just throw a heavy solvent at something you plan to wear again. Here is what actually pulls it out at home, what to skip, and the safety piece that matters most before you touch a washer or dryer.

The short answer

Gasoline is an oil, so you have to lift it off the fibers, not wash over it or cover it up. Get the fuel-soaked clothes out of the house and let them air out, then pre-soak in a grease-cutting dish soap or degreaser with baking soda before you run the machine. Wash them separately in the hottest water the fabric can take, check the smell before it goes anywhere near a dryer, and repeat if it lingers. Never machine-dry fuel-soaked fabric, it's a fire hazard, so air-dry it outside.

Gasoline and diesel are oils, so they cling to fibers and one normal wash rarely clears them.
Get fuel-soaked clothes out of the house first and air-dry them outside, never in a machine dryer.
Pre-soak in a grease-cutting dish soap or degreaser before the wash cycle ever starts.
Skip ozone machines and cover-up sprays, they don't lift fuel out of the fabric.

Get the fumes out of the house first

Before you clean anything, get the fuel-soaked clothes out of your living space. Gasoline vapor is heavier than air and it flows along the floor, so a pile of soaked rags in a hamper is quietly filling the room with flammable fumes. Do not toss them in the laundry basket with everything else, and do not leave them balled up in a corner of the garage or basement.

Carry them straight outside or to an open, well-ventilated spot and lay them out flat where the air can move. Keep them well away from anything with a pilot light or an ignition source, that means the water heater, the furnace, the clothes dryer, the stove, and the garage where a car might start. A spark from any of those near fresh gas fumes is the real danger here, not the smell.

Fuel-soaked fabric is a fire hazard

Never put gasoline-soaked clothing in a machine dryer, and never lay it near a heat source or open flame. The dryer's heating element and the pilot lights on a water heater or furnace can ignite the fumes. Keep the clothes out of the hamper, air them out and dry them outside, and do not smoke or run power tools nearby while you work.

How to get gasoline smell out of clothes, step by step

Once the clothes are aired out and away from any ignition source, work through the passes in order. Do not rush to the washer, because dumping fuel-soaked fabric straight into the machine just spreads gas onto the drum and into the next few loads.

Air them out first. Hang the clothes outside for a few hours, or overnight if you can. A lot of the lighter fuel simply evaporates off, and that alone knocks the worst of the smell down before any water touches them.
Pre-soak in a degreaser. Fill a bucket or utility sink with warm water and a good pour of grease-cutting dish soap, the kind made for greasy pans, or a fabric-safe degreaser. Work it into the soaked areas and let the clothes sit an hour or more. Gasoline is an oil, so a degreaser breaks the film far better than regular detergent.
Add baking soda or vinegar to the soak. Stir in about a cup of baking soda, or swap it for a cup of white vinegar, to help pull the oils and odor out of the fibers. Use one or the other in a given soak, not both together. Give it another half hour.
Wash separately in the hottest safe water. Run the clothes on their own load, never with regular laundry, using the hottest water the fabric's care label allows plus your normal detergent. Heat helps lift petroleum, but check the tag first so you don't shrink or ruin the garment.
Check the smell before drying. Pull the load out and sniff it while it's damp. If you still catch gas, do not put it in the dryer. Repeat the soak and wash instead, because heat locks in whatever fuel is left and the dryer is a fire risk with fumes present.
Air-dry outside, then repeat if needed. Hang the clothes outdoors to dry. If any gas smell survives, run the whole process again. Two or three rounds is normal on a real soak, and heavy work gear can take more.

Why one wash almost never does it

Here is the part that frustrates people. You run a load, the clothes come out clean-looking, and the next morning the drawer still smells like a gas station. That happens because gasoline is a petroleum oil, not a water stain. It works its way deep into the weave, and detergent alone slides right over an oil instead of lifting it. Thick fabrics like denim work pants, canvas gloves, towels, and fleece hold onto it the hardest, since there is more material for the fuel to hide in.

That is also why the shortcuts fail. Cover-up sprays and scent beads lay a perfume on top of the gas for a few hours, then the fumes push right back through once the fragrance fades. And if the fuel reached a whole load, or the clothes sat soaked for days, home washing often gets you partway and then stalls, with a faint gas smell that just will not quit.

Skip the ozone machine

You'll see people online push ozone machines to blast the smell out of a closet or a bag of clothes, but ozone is a harsh oxidizer that irritates your lungs and eyes and has to run with nobody in the room. We don't use it, and even then it won't reach fuel that has soaked into the fibers, so you are left with the same oily film once the ozone clears.

When it's worth calling Odor Removal Experts

If you've soaked, washed, and aired the clothes and the gas smell is still hanging on after a couple of tries, the fuel has bonded to materials in a way a home washer cannot flush out. And if the spill spread beyond the clothes into a closet, a laundry room, a car, or a whole room, you are now chasing an odor in the space itself, not just the fabric. That is the line where DIY stops paying off and our gasoline and fuel odor removal service makes sense.

We don't mask the smell and we never use ozone or chlorine. We break it down at the source with the right method for the job. It starts with source removal and a deep clean to lift the bulk of the fuel residue off the fabric and any surfaces it reached. Enzymatic and oxidizing treatments go to work on what's left, attacking the petroleum directly instead of hiding it. Thermal fogging and hydroxyl generators, which are safe to run while people are around, clear the fumes out of the air and the soft materials, and HEPA plus activated-carbon scrubbing pulls the airborne gas. Where fuel has soaked into something we can't flush, we seal it. Most jobs wrap up in 1-4 hours.

Everything we use is green and non-toxic, so it's safe around kids and pets, and the space is safe to use the moment we're done. We're same or next-day across Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, our techs are fully insured, and the work is backed by a 100% guarantee. If the smell isn't gone, we're not finished.