How to clean a smelly silnylon tent without ruining waterproofing?

I’ve used Gear Aid Revivex Odor Eliminator for that very purpose, on an old silnylon tent a friend gave me, and I was very impressed with its effectiveness. Add a capful of it to the bath, soak the tent for 10-15 minutes, then set it up outside to dry without rinsing. The tent went from being uninhabitable to having no noticeable smell.

Natures Miracle has similar products, mostly marketed towards pet owners, but works well for musty smelly gear also.

+1 to GearAid Revivex.

I’ve used nature’s miracle for urine odor, works quite well

Now if I could just quit urinating

No, it wasn’t me, it was the cat.  And other mammals.

Nice; I’ve been needing something to clean my oldest, kept-for-nostalgia tent. 👍

So the Gear Aid product won’t remove waterproofing? I see they have another product to re-waterproof; do you need both? my tent has some woodsmoke smell, and I’m hoping I can just wash it in something gentle and get the smell out instead of buying another couple of products.

And I don’t need any other product–I just wash the tent with Gear Aid Revivex. Right?

It’s super gentle, doesn’t remove waterproofing and doesn’t need to be used with anything else. I’ve used it so far on 2 tents, a backpack and some synthetic clothing that was holding smells. If I understand correctly, it’s not a soap or detergent that “washes” the gear–it’s simply a microbe treatment–which is why you don’t want to rinse it before setting it out to dry. If the tent is covered in visible mold it won’t wash the mold off–you’d have to wash it first. But if the item is clean apart from the smell I’ve found it to work well.

Here’s a page from Gear Aid’s EU page (couldn’t find a similar US one) describing how to use it and how it works: https://gearaid.eu/blogs/help/mirazyme-tips

I have no connection with the company; I was just excited to discover how well it works. On a particularly smelly old cordura backpack I had to do two rounds of soaking and air-drying, but most of the time a single treatment has worked.

maybe a product like nikwax down wash direct would be good to wash off any dirt.  I used it to wash a WPB rain jacket.  That’s supposed to be gentle.  The WPB works much better now.  I used “rivivex durable water repellent” afterwards, but that’s just for WPB, not silnylon.

maybe start by hand washing gently, rinsing off, hang to dry, see if it works.

I got some “atsko sports wash destroys all odors” but haven’t tried it.