How to make a deck smell good

Well, I bought a deck on ebay and to put it bluntly it smells like an ashtray and when I look at it I gag. I won't be able to use this deck if I can't get the smell out.

Now I have gotten decks in the past that smell really nice, so I know it is possible. I would love for all my decks to smell that lovely. How do you do it? Any suggestions other than leaving it out side?

Do you recomend any oils or something of that sort that I could put in a tarot bag with the deck? All suggestions are welcome.

Ouch, that stinks (no pun intended)

Hmmmm, i don't know about tarot cards, but my friend's Magic:The Gathering deck smells good. he uses alot of incense. Maybe if you lay your cards around a few sticks of them for a while, whey will smell better.

It depends a lot on what you want it to smell like! I have just begun to store my decks with packages of incense in the same drawer and they are starting to pick up the scent a bit. If you are more interested in a floral smell, try putting sachets of potpourri or scented soaps in the same area as you store them and see if that helps. Packaging may have a lot to do with it. Take it out of its box, put it in a fresh tarot bag and let it get scented with the above idea. Toss the box....

Another possibility is spraying the air with a perfume you love and then quickly passing the cards through the mist. Don't spray on them. Just walk through the scented air. That is actually one of the best ways to wear perfume all day long!

Oils have effects on the cards if any gets on them. I know this . It takes the ink off (luckily it was a back....)

The Lunatic (small edition) smells VILE. I shut it in a box with some dryer sheets (some here suggested that) and it worked very well.

The other thing I did with a deck recently was shut it in a box for a week with lavender oil scented candles. That worked too.
I find that with incense and sprays etc the effect doesn't last. Lengthy confinement seems to be the only way.

What I would do is this:

I would lay a zip-lock bag down, where you can leave it for about a week, untouched.

I would put the cards on the bottom.

I would get a can of unscented Oust, and spray it on cotton balls, not soaking them, just spray a bit of it on them. Then I would put the cotton balls on the inside side, top, so the cotton doesn't touch the cards. Seal the bag for about a week.

Unscented will just absorb the smell you don't like without masking the scent.

Then you can scent them anyway you like, once they have no scent.

Or, in time, they might loose the ashtray smell.

I feel sorry for you. I don't like cigarettes either.

Dryer sheets. What a great idea. I would never have thought of that. I was going to try oil so I am glad for the heads up.

I have this beautiful lavender sheet spray that I love. I would love that smell.

I had this happen once, I used just about everything I could think of from baking soda to lavender to soap & water! Still the ashtray smell was awful. I tried rubbing the cards with a drier sheet but found that it just made them sticky.

What I finally ended up doing was putting them in one of those zippered, mesh laundry bags that you can get for your "delicates" and then putting a dryer sheet in the dryer with them and letting them tumbled for a few minutes. It didn't bang them up too badly and the smell was FINALLY gone! Woot! I think it was the combination of the heat and the dryer sheet that did it.

My other non-smelly decks are kept in a box and at the bottom I've placed a stick of Nag Champa incense, they all smell quite nice but not over-powering.

HeavensVault said:

What I would do is this:

I would lay a zip-lock bag down, where you can leave it for about a week, untouched.

I would put the cards on the bottom.

I would get a can of unscented Oust, and spray it on cotton balls, not soaking them, just spray a bit of it on them. Then I would put the cotton balls on the inside side, top, so the cotton doesn't touch the cards. Seal the bag for about a week.

Click to expand...

That was kind of what I did that took the ink off a card.... you'd be horribly surprised what can get off that cotton when you aren't looking. EVIL molecules !
Dryer sheets are absolutely dry. And candles have no "loose" fluids.

That dryer trick could also give your cards that "well-worn" look you want

I had a deck that smelled quite musty. I spread the cards about the house, standing them leaned against windowsills and such so that the air hit both sides of the card. I left them overnight, then I packed them in a box with some herbs and scented candles.

I don't have any dryer sheets. They make me break out in a rash.

airing them out, rather than sealing them up is the best first step.

My personal recommendation based on experience:

Needed materials:

A garage, or a mudporch – a place that won’t ‘stink up’ your house as you air out the ciggie smoke smell. More on this choice later.

1 cardboard box, slightly larger than a shoe box.

Baking Soda

Step One:

Are the cards coated or uncoated? Coated (varnish, finish of any sort) are much easier to work with. Unfinished cards may absorb moisture so the area you leave them in must be quite dry. Varnished cards will be unaffected by the small amount of moisture the cards may be exposed to do to the curing environment. Here in the northwest of the US, winters are wet. Real wet. Really really wet. I use a garage that used to be a barn. It’s huge and uninsulated. So it can have a high humidity inside in the winter. It’s unheated. It’s unheated. Finished cards are a snap. A more ‘finished’ or controlled environment like a mudporch would work fine for unfinished cards.

Step Two:

Toss some paper on the bottom of the cardboard box. Cover any seams.

Step Three:

Toss in some Baking Soda. A bunch.

Step Four:

Put in some more paper. Don’t use newsprint. Plain butcher type paper works great. Tape it to the sides if you so choose. It helps keep it from shaking loose. When we shake it.


Step Five:

Cover the box.

Step Six:

Toss in the deck. Just toss the cards in. Smoosh them around.

Step Six. Let ‘em sit.

Step Seven:

Go in once a day and shake the box upward and downward to mix the cards up.

Step Eight:

Take the top off. Fan out the stench.

Step Nine:

Cover and repeat

Step Ten:

May take a few weeks, but eventually they destinkafie.

Step Ten point Five:

Reiki doesn't hurt...