Bosch's stink-removal gadget just swaps one smell for another

According to the National Park Service, washing machines are bad for our planet, so bad in fact that they can use up to 41 gallons of water per load. Thats not ideal given the prevalence of droughts as climate change intensifies its work to wipe humanity from the face of the planet. Thats why Bosch, the German multinational which makes, uh, pretty much everything, has created FreshUp. Its a tool designed to refresh your clothes without the need to dump them into your washing machine.

The idea is to remove odors from clothes that are otherwise clean, in the sense that theyre not visibly stained. You know, an evening gown or tuxedo that looks a million dollars but smells like the bottom of a well-visited ashtray, or that t-shirt that goes perfectly with your outfit, but smells a little bit sweaty. In those situations, youd grab this doodad, rub it over the required garment and step out smelling fresh as a daisy.

FreshUp is a lozenge-shaped device measuring 6.5-inches long, with a 2-inch treatment area on its underside. Once charged and turned on, you press this against your dry clothes so that the process of breaking down the smell can begin. It works as an ionizer, creating a plasma which Bosch says dissolves the connections between odor molecules.

Theres a beautiful design on the top thats designed to resemble an interlacing series of magnetic field lines. This is backlit in white, and turns purple when its actually treating your clothes with its ionization. Despite the overall vibe that this is a product that fell out of a Sharper Image catalog twenty years ago, its impeccably designed. Thankfully, there are no but wait, theres more innovations to add to the list of jobs this thing can do.

The battery takes around four hours to charge and will give you an hour of processing before it needs to go back on the wire. Bosch also chose a micro USB port for charging rather than USB-C, which is, you know, a choice you can make in 2021. But its not ideal if youre trying to minimize cable clutter and are looking to ditch the older standard as soon as possible.

As soon as youve treated a garment with FreshUp, youll be acutely aware of the ionization in the air. It offers a similar smell to the taste you get in your mouth when youve bitten your tongue. That iron-in-the-blood scent that clings to your hand when youve held onto some loose change while waiting for a vending machine. And it doesnt just sit on your clothes, but hangs in the air, where on very dry summer days youll want to make sure you leave your windows open to encourage airflow.

In its sales pitch, Bosch says that FreshUp was designed to eliminate what it describes as a chair-drobe. You know, that pile of clothes in your bedroom that maybe you drape over the back of a chair, or stuff on the bottom of your wardrobe, because theyre too clean to wash. Im not a regular chair-drobe-ist, but the fan housing of my rowing machine is sturdy enough to drape clothes over on the rare occasions they wind up in this state. Bosch adds that, after treatment, even tough odors such as cigarette smoke and body odor are removed, leaving clothes as if they have been hung outside to dry.

Daniel Cooper

And heres where Ive really earned my wages over the last month or so, because Ive spent a chunk of this summer sniffing awful things. Not to mention, of course, wearing already-worn clothes and spending way too long with my nose in my own armpit. Ive been testing a high-intensity exercise bike and trying to be as active as possible, all the while getting my clothes covered in cigarette smoke and frying oil. Consider this a content warning for what is about to follow, as well as a polite request for danger pay.

There were plenty of smells that the FreshUp was able to dispel without breaking much of a sweat, including the cigarette smoke and fried food. Its in this regard that makes me think that FreshUp is perfect for traveling, when you want to make sure that youre looking and smelling your best. If your top smells like the inside of an ashtray, just waft this thing over it, hang it up for an hour or two, and boom, youre away.

But no matter how much I rubbed this thing over the armpits of my well-worn t-shirts (after, I should make clear, the fabric had dried out) I could never banish the smell of my sweat. I tried everything, including leaving a t-shirt hanging up for a day or two and then treating it again, then leaving it to hang for another couple of hours, and nothing. The scent wasnt eliminated, although I will say that it was moderated somewhat, but not enough to make you not deeply self-conscious about how you smell. But I did wonder if this was a me problem rather than Boschs, and so grabbed clothes from other family members. One of my relatives who went for a run handed me a pair of their socks which stank so bad that they probably violated chemical weapons laws.

And again, Id like to reiterate that the time I spent dry-retching was all in the service of good journalism.

Once dried out, I treated those socks and found that, again, FreshUp hadnt destroyed the smell, but it had reduced the urge to heave. That, broadly speaking, means that this is not going to be your savior if youre schlepping around in a warm country.

But if you arent cursed with the blight of free-flowing underarms (or, in Richard Nixons case, upper lip) then I think FreshUp may have a place for you. I can think of some times where, after a long evening on assignment, Id love to give my clothes an emergency refresh. If youre doing two or three smart events back-to-back and cant visit a dry cleaners, then FreshUp is probably a good shout, but the use cases are limited.

But dont expect the results to be as good as washing, because fundamentally, nothing is going to be able to replace your washing machine just yet. And then theres the price, which at 250 ($342) is a little high for a device that cant revolutionize how you do laundry. At least, not yet.