6 alternatives to dryer sheets + 2 reasons you should care
by Annie B. Bond | November 7th, 2008 | Comments (9)
topic: Detox, Green Living, Health & Wellness | tags: dryer sheets, laundry, non-toxic cleaning
A few days after friend’s daughter started doing some office work for me, I became bothered by the smell of dryer sheets from her clothes. I had to ask her to stop using them — at least on the clothes she wore when she came to my house. She said she was glad to comply, but didn’t know you could dry clothes without using dryer sheets. My jaw hung open thinking of the power of advertising.
Are you bothered when you walk in your neighborhood and you smell dryer sheets/fabric softener wafting into the air from dryer vents? The smell has become ubiquitous — and those fumes can cause burning skin, respiratory irritation, anxiety attacks, nervous system disorders and irritability. Those are just the short-term reactions you can feel. Also concerning are the long term effects on your liver, pancreas, or gastrointestinal track from chemicals such as benzyyl acetate, A-termpineol, camphor, and ethyl acetate, formaldehyde, and more. (Just go put any one of these chemicals into scorecard.org’s database of toxins to learn about the scary health effects.)
But yes, Virginia, there is a way to run the dryer without a dryer sheet. In fact, there are at least six!
- Wear natural fabrics to avoid static cling. Fabric softeners are mostly static cling busters, and synthetic fabrics, such as polyester and lycra, are prone to static. Wear natural fiber clothing, which doesn’t get static cling.
- Make your own dryer sheets. The key is to use an acid, so another idea floating around the internet is to saturate a small rag with 1 teaspoon of a natural hair conditioner, and put that into the dryer as a homemade dryer sheet. (Hair conditioners are designed to return the hair and scalp to an acidic pH.)
- Toss in reusable, chemical-free dryer sheets. Reusable dryer sheets aren’t doused with chemicals, and they can be reused thousands of times. It’s the fabric they’re made of that helps prevent static.
- For softness, add vinegar to the wash. Many successfully substitute vinegar for fabric softeners. Just add ½ cup of white distilled vinegar to the rinse water of the laundry cycle. The actual scouring of the fabric in the washing machine also softens the fabric, and the dryer fluffs the fabric even more, making fabric softeners unnecessary.
- Use an eco-friendly fabric softener. There are a number of alternative “green” fabric softeners on the market that made with natural scents or are scent-free.
- Try dryer balls. Many consumers report great results when they toss a couple of rubbery dryer balls in with each load in the dryer. They soften fabric by virtue of their nubby texture that helps fluff up the fibers.
Thanks for the great info!
Great information! I love the dryer balls personally, and to add a fresh scent, especially to towels, I use cheesecloth bags of lavendar in the dryer (it goes great with Seventh Generation’s Lavendar-Eucalyptus laundry detergent). Everything smells wonderful without the chemicals, and as a bonus the dryer balls are great for helping to dry bulky items like blankets.
My husband developed allergies which has the doctors puzzled as to why his hands, face, and eyes were swelling. All of a sudden, he needed to carry an epipen after rushing him to emergency a few times. One day, it dawned on me that I had taken all of the sheets/towels and his clothes in the drawer, and used fabric softener on everything. He was surrounded by it 24/7. I stopped using and rewashed all the clothing. He never had the reaction again. It was scary at the time.
I hate to be a contrarian here, but my first reactionto this post was I personally LOVE that warm freshly washed dryer scent of snuggles as it wafts through the neighborhood aire.. sure beats to the soot of car monoxides and 2nd hand smoke anyways.. Guess it depends on your neighborhood and relative smells therein. Either way, I am pretty sure that vinegar, while it maybe a ’safe’ alternative, wouldn’t smell as sweet.
On the other hand, if someone is having an allergic reaction then certainly its time to go hypo-allergenic or buy one of those green product alternatives.
The dryer balls surprisingly didn’t last very long. I know, i’d thought they’d last nearly forever, but nope they cracked and fell apart after about 20 or 30 washes or i should I say dries? guess the heat of the dryer was too much to handle.
~ open mind, open heart, but always watch your back….
I’ve had a set of dryer balls from Gaiam for several years and they are going strong. We do around 5 to 8 loads a week. They’re supposed to last for at least 2 years.
Having used vinegar to do most of my cleaning for a while, I now find it difficult to stomach the “fragrance” of most conventional cleaners. It’s way too chemical-ly and tends to irritate my nose. Surprisingly, adding vinegar to your wash doesn’t leave you smelling like a salad dressing. On the contrary, at the end of the load the smell of vinegar miraculously disappears and all you are left with is a clean, fresh scent. It’s also a mild antibacterial, which helps to prevent odors.
On the subject of dryer balls, I’ve had mine for a good three years now and they still work like a charm. I’m guessing if they break on you it’s probably because you’re using too much heat. I don’t dry on high heat; I don’t need to–the balls keep the air circulating between the fabrics so they don’t really need too much time or heat to dry.
Rather astonished you did not advise the young woman to toss the dryer out with the dryer sheets. I cannot think of another item that could cut down the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as quickly and as painlessly as a line dryer for clothes. Except perhaps a good push mower instead of a gas guzzling lawn mower. We are not playing games here. Please don’t tell me about soft towels. Compared to the catastrophes looming ahead caused our obsessive overuse of carbon releasing fuels, any kind of towels as well as bathing itself may soon become a sad memory.
Vinegar in the rinse water, by the way, works well enough.
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I’ve used vinegar in the rinse for about 20 years, ever since I had babies in cloth diapers. The babies have long since grown out of diapers! but I’ve kept using the vinegar. There’s no vinegar smell at all. I’d say you don’t need to use 1/2 cup, though. I just use a splash or a glug–probably less than a quarter-cup. Towels are soft and absorbent, too. (I even used the vinegar when I hung clothes to dry.)