How can I de-stink a mobile phone?

You can try gentle wiping it with alcohol but that might screw up a plastic finish. The smell could also be inside the microphone textured surface.

There are cell phone cases that smell good:

http://www.wirelessemporium.com/blog/article-14344-now-you-can-make-your-cell-phone-smell-like-jelly-beans-on-purpose.html

So, there is a removable plastic back that I took off, scrubbed with dish detergent, sprayed with eyeglass cleaner and scrubbed for a while. Still stinks. I can – and just did – order a new plastic back in hopes that it will help.

Edit: also, I don’t want to cover up the smell with another smell. I’m smellophobic in general, and don’t associate with smokers or people who wear perfume/cologne.

I found several helpful suggestions here.

You could try putting it in a baggie with some small charcoal odor absorbers like these.

I would spray it with Fabreze.

I will pull the battery and stick it in a dish of rice or put it in a bag with a slice of bread overnight.

LOL. Apparently this a big enough problem on eBay that there is an entire help page on the site just on getting smoke odors out of your eBay purchases.

There are no suggestions for electronics though, The only method listed there that might work, without damaging the phone is similar to what @Kayak8 suggested and that is:

Put vinegar on white bread into bowl or 1 cup old coffee grounds and let sit beside items Both are known to eliminate odors and smells.

thanks guys. Trying a baggie of baking soda on the soon-to-be-replaced battery door. We’ll see how this works. I’ll dig into these other suggestions as well.

I really didn’t know people still smoke – or were able to afford a smartphone if they did smoke. I will have to be careful to ask before I buy another phone on ebay.

Yes, @tom_g, people still smoke, and some of them are going to have smart phones.

According to the CDC 19.3% of adults in the U.S. smoke, 45.3 million people.

The percentage is a lot lower than it used to be, but 45.3 million people is still a lot of people. That’s about 11,000,000 more people than the entire population of Canada. If just American smokers started their own country, even if they left their non-smoking spouses and children behind, American Smokistan would be the 30th largest country, by population, in the world.

Even if, say, 5% of them have smart phones, well below the national average of 35%, that’s still about 2,150,000 stinky smart phones that could be out there; and that’s just the smart phones. Who knows what else they could be selling on eBay?

So, going by the numbers, yes, you should probably ask, in the future. :-)

@tomg the smoking shelter where I work is full of people standing there with a cigarette in one hand and their smartphone in the other.

Vinegar is excellent for getting rid of smoke smells. I would put some vinegar in a cup, and put both the cup and the phone in a plastic bag, seal it up tight and leave it overnight.

update: While this didn’t completely remove the odors, the following seemed to have helped. I will try again tonight…

I put the battery door in a bag of baking soda. The phone was resting above a bed of ground coffee beans in a sealed container.

I’ll look for some vinegar. Thanks everyone.