Fabric Softener is part addiction and part necessity. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish between the two. I want my clothes to feel soft and to smell great—maybe mostly smell great…
This goal is at odds with living clean and with trying to eliminate all the toxic chemicals that are in household products. Commercial fabric softeners (the ones with teddy bears and baby’s on the front of the bottle), leave a chemical film on the fabric that makes it feel soft and to smell great. Unfortunately, skin that touches this chemical film also absorbs the chemicals. Those wonderful scents that make your laundry smell like mountain streams or clean laundry are really indoor air pollutants or VOCs. The commercial fabric softeners can cause long-term health issues. Some experts maintain that of all the cleaning products in the home, regular softener sheets are considered to be one of the most toxic. Non-toxic dryer sheets replace chemical laden commercial sheets that are absorbed from treated fabric touching skin.
I’m not a person who can sit around and watch my laundry cycle through a wash cycle so that I can add fabric softener at the perfect place in the cycle. This means that I add vinegar up front to the fabric softener ‘cup’ in my washer and that I use non-toxic dryer sheets.
Non-Toxic Dryer Sheets
- 2 c. white vinegar
- 2 c. filtered or distilled water
- 2 T. vegetable glycerin
- 10 – 20 drops essential oil (I use orange essential oil as it is gender neutral)
- Cotton cloths or thin cotton washcloths
- Cut cotton fabric into 5×8 rectangles. I use those ultra-thin wash clothes sold in multipacks at Dollar or discount stores. You can use old sheets, cotton jersey, or 100% cotton T-shirt material too. Just make sure that whatever you use, it is 100% cotton.
- Add all ingredients to a bowl or jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake to mix. Add in cloths (I add 4 washcloths and reuse until all the wet mixture is used up)
- Before adding to dryer re-shake and wring out one cloth. Add to dryer just as you would a regular dryer sheet.
- Once load is dry, return sheet to mixture to reuse.
NOTE: I haven’t had any issue with these sheets spotting any items that are dryer safe.
See my post on non-toxic, all natural Laundry Detergent