How do I get rid of that awful plastic smell on my stability ball??

[mojolisa]

I am trying to get rid of that terrible rubber scent on my stability ball. I love using it, but the smell turns my stomach - especially at 4:30 a.m. I've tried soap and water and spraying it with an air freshner, but this didn't help much, if at all.

I can't remember the brand name of the ball, but I got it from Walmart. It came in a red and black box, and it included the air pump.

Does anyone else have this problem? Are there any scent-free balls on the market? At this point I'm almost willing to plunk down another $20 for a new ball if someone can guarantee me that I can get away from that awful rubbery smell. Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

[kristina]

Try baby powder.

 

[mogambo]

It will outgas after a few weeks. A problem that fixes itself!

 

[kathryn]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-02 AT 06:28PM (Est)[/font][p]Ah..that must be the downside of Walmart balls! One of my stability balls has always smelled like vanilla, a very pleasant odor, while the Paul Check ball I recently got smells like citronella--not unpleasant, but I get the feeling I'm repelling insects when I work out on it!

Since the vanilla-scented ball has never lost all of its odor, I'm not sure if the rubber scent will ever go away completely. If this were a blanket instead of a stability ball, I'd suggest putting it out in the sun and rain and letting nature take care of it (it works on male cat spray odor). All I can suggest is airing it out as much as possible (they are supposed to be kept out of the sun, but you could put it in a room with windows open, for example, instead of in a closet or other place where the odors would tend to just hang around).


Just a note: one thing to NOT do is to spray it with a citrus-based air freshner, as they eat through some types of plastic.