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OT: aluminum foil balls instead of dryer sheets
- This topic has 13 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 1 month ago by
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Question: do any of you use these? What has your experience been with the foil balls? Do they really work well to eliminate static cling? Can you reuse them? For how long?
Will Sue ever stop asking questions???
Never heard of it. I haven’t used dryer sheets in years. I either use staright vinegar or, using three bottles, dilute all natural fabric softener with vinegar at 1/4 fabric softner to 3/4 vinegar and when each bottle gets to half-way, I top it off again with white vinegar. I pour this into my fabric softner container in my washer. If you don’t have that, you can use those liquid balls.
We’ve been using white vinegar for about a month now, and the clothes are relatively soft & smell like….well, clothing! However, those items that are dried in the dryer have a lot of static cling.
I’m trying a 2.5- to 3-inch foil ball on a dryer load as we speak….I’ll let you know how it goes!
The small amt. of natural fabric softener does the trick over plain vinegar and with as much as I dilute it, one bottle of fabric softener lasts at least 4 mths!
So I’m only purchasing fabric softener 2-3x a year! I get whichever all natural concentrated one is on sale.
I use soap nuts to wash and do not feel like I need dryer sheets. Not that I would ever use them anyway for several reasons.
I do not know what the foil balls are.
The foil ball worked great–no static whatsoever! I only used one, and I’ve read they can be used over and over again, but I suppose if you have a really big load, you might want to use two foil balls. It gets all smooth and a bit more compact from bouncing around in the dryer, so I know it won’t snag the clothes or anything like that.
I use vinegar in the washer rinse cycle, but it did nothing to reduce static. I pinned the blog article I found about making the foil balls here on my Pinterest board.
I’d love to know how you use soap nuts. I have some but haven’t felt brave enough to use them. 🙂
My 16yo son has synthetic clothing that gets static-y and he uses tin foil balls. (The rest of the family doesn’t so we don’t have a static problem and don’t use dryer sheets or fabric softener/vinegar.) He says the tin foil balls do help though he says there will still be some small amount of cat hair on his clothes which he hates. He is trying dryer sheets for the first time and I haven’t asked him if he thinks they help more or not.
The tin foil balls do get very smooth and compact and last a very long time…seemingly until your puppy finds it and chews it up!
Best,
Shannon
soap nuts work best in warm or hot water and I wash in cold so i just boil a few and use the liquid.
I don’t know if it has anything to do w/it but there is no static.
Never heard of the foil, but I know lots of moms with cloth diapers use wool dryer balls to reduce drying time and reduce static/soften them. You can make your own if you have 100%wool or buy them on etsy, etc.
About the soap nuts again, thought I might add, I use them for all the regular laundry but didn’t use for cloth diapers and towels. It’s better to get something else for that.
We use wool balls in the dryer and vinegar rinse in the washer. We live in a really dry part of the country. For all the cotton clothes – they work well. On anything with polyester or nylon – not so well. I’ll have to try the foil.
I just tried the foil balls. I made two balls and then I just threw in a sheet of aluminum foil (I read that it would become a ball in the dryer). I thought it worked wonderfully. I had 2 sweatshirts, a pair of fleece pants and a soft bath robe in the load and there is no static. The sheet of foil became an oblong soft shape. It is in the second load now, maybe it will become ball this time. Thanks for the tip, Sue! Does anyone know how long they can be used before being replaced?
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