- cross-posted to:
- anticonsumption@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- anticonsumption@slrpnk.net
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Gen X here, I only use unscented dryer sheets because if I don’t I will get shocked a lot. My apartment is great because the humidity is super low in the winter, but clothing hurts. Humidifier doesn’t work because if I don’t use distilled water everything gets a rust color on it. Also I’d be going through a gallon of distilled water a day. I can’t afford that, but I sure as heck can afford a big box of unscented dryer sheets that solves my problem.
Fabric softener is great. Mix a bit with water and use it to clean your shower glass doors/walls. It removes limescale like a charm thanks to the anionic surfactants that are in there. And the Aldi store brand costs hardly anything.
It’s worth noting that cat owners(at least, never had anything buts cats) should avoid certain essential oils, As our furry pals’ little organs aren’t equipped to process them, and they can easily be deadly!
@pseudo@jlai.lu, saw you mention essential oils too, just a PSA.
Wool balls do not work with synthetics.
I’m not convinced about the cost. A kilogram of borax seems to run about $10CAD. 2 cups, at 1.7g/CC, would be about 850g, so $7 just for the Borax. Unless there’s a much cheaper place to get it…
A ~5L jug of Tide costs $31, or about $6/L. If they have approximately equivalent cleaning power per volume, Tide wins.
Nobody’s mentioend laundry detergent sheets yet? Super cheap. I buy the Poesie brand. 160 sheets in a box for $9.49. That’s just under 6¢ per load. For my two loads of laundry per week, a box lasts me a year and a half.
Bonus: the box takes up almost no space, 6" x 5" x 3".
Also, white vinegar is an awesome replacement for fabric softener!
It’s worse. Fabric softener is composed of an anti static oil. When you run it in the laundry, it coats all of your clothes with a very thin layer of oil.
Which is why towels dried with fabric softener and dryer sheets don’t absorb water anywhere near as well as plain towels dried without it!!
My mom complained to me for years that I wasn’t “doing it right” by not using fabric softener. But her towels are useless compared to mine! She continues to spends $100/ year on fabric softener while on social security. Over the year she has spent thousands and thousands of $$$. 🤦♀️
It’s worth wondering how much fabric softener would cost someone over their adult lifetime as an exercise. Let’s say 50 years of adulthood, and 12 bottles a year costing $10 each. That’s six grand. For something that serves no functional purpose, makes towels less effective and has an environmental impact.
So yes it’s a scam. If someone really needs to use fabric softener, at least buy a cheaper supermarket brand and use it sparingly.
Fabric softener is sometime useful for very hard water. You don’t have to buy it, though. You can use white vinegar to soften the water to actually soften the fabric mix in a big container one part white vinegar to one part sodium bicarbonate. Wait for it to stop foaming. Add four drops of essential oils per liter of mixture. Stir. Allow to rest a few hour before using. You can make big quantity ahead of time as long as your container is big enough for the big foam of the big batch.
That homemade laundry soap made with bar soap would be a nightmare in hard water. I don’t even want to think about soap scum in the drains and in my clothes.
I just use the smallest amount of detergent I can get out of the bottle, that works well. And don’t wash a garment after wearing it once if it’s not underwear. Invested in a lot of Merino stuff which manages to be comfortable even here in Florida and doesn’t stink ever. I can wear those shirts and just hang them back up.
I’m happy buying detergent honestly - it last a LONG time when you actually use the correct amount per load. I think the real crime is the “measuring caps” on liquid detergent basically tricking everyone into using WAY too much detergent. Most washers will recommend 1-2 tablespoons of detergent maximum for heavily soiled loads… Most measuring caps are over that even at the first of several marks, and people rarely think they need the minimum (moar soap moar clean, right?) - so people tend to add 5-10 times the detergent they need.
The numbers on the cap are just numbers and lines on the cap. You assign meaning to them as the maker never tells you what they are for.
and they we have pods. Which are the hugest ripoff per load, but for the first time people are actually using the right amount of detergent and they’re all amazed that the machines don’t get gummed up.
Just measure the real stuff right?
Yeah I buy maybe 2 £4 bottles of washing liquid a year, because I put in like 1/4 of what it tells me to.
So honestly making my own just isn’t worth the time.
The best soap for washing machines is powdered. They remove all the extraneous crap that can also cause mold growth in the washer. Front loaders are really bad about this too.
I was with you until the wool in Florida. I lived in FL almost my entire life and there were times I’d have taken off my skin Hellraiser-style just to be less hot
Admittedly I run cool, was born here. But ride to work in the Merino wool t-shirts from Unbound or silk/Merino thin knit sweater and also merino socks, and arrive absolutely presentable, so much better than cotton, not better than linen, but better looking for an office. Only the v-neck though, can’t stand it near my neck, that does itch. And not all brands, only Unbound for the T-shirts. Silk/Merino blend always rocks.
Washing Soda
No. Just no. Sodium carbonate, you americans!
If only millennials bought more fabric softener instead of avocados and coffee they would be able to afford a house.
I propose we start calling it fabric lotion. Maybe the disgust with that mental imagery will shut down this worthless product.
they would be able to afford a house
How much avocadoes for a house?
And you forgot the /s.
Don’t need the /s on here, all the idiots are still on reddit
There’s always avocados in the banana stand!
At the current rate? Depending on where you live, 3-10.
probably most everything is a scam if you look close enough.
Honestly at a loss here. The title references fabric softener, but the content relates more specifically to DIY laundry detergent while only mentioning that softener makes clothes more vulnerable to wear & tear. What’s the nitty-gritty on the fabric softener? Does it actually damage clothing in some way?
As geek analogy, is it like the subatomic bacteria that starts destroying the Klingon ship in Star Trek: the Next Generation S2E8’s “A Matter Of Honor”, or does it just make the material more susceptible to tearing?
https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/how-do-fabric-softeners-work.html
It was created so that when you dried clothes outside (especially cotton) they didn’t get crunchy. The fibers tend to freeze an interlock microscopically when they dry. It coats the fibers and makes them not stick together.
When mechanical dryers became the norm, they needed a new reason, so the called out static. And in some climates, dryer static can be a bit of a pain. Dryer balls supposedly help with this, but I can’t find any reasonable data to back that up, and that’s just the kind of thing we’re confirmation bias over.
Softener can/will build up on the fabric. It can discolor bright whites.
I think the worst of it is:
- if you use it on towels or anything meant to absorb water, it seriously dampens that ability
- it builds up in the nooks and crannies of the washer and it’s hard to clean off,
- it’s expensive
- for mechanical drying in moderate climates, it does little more than add smell.
- some people have allergenic reactions to it
Dryer balls supposedly help with this
From what I’ve heard, dryer balls help the drying process by warming up faster than the wet clothes and drying from inside the pile. And even if that turns out to have been misinformation, I’m not too annoyed by it because it’s a single low-cost expense whereas dryer sheets are consumables
But dryer sheets soften and reduce static. I have never had that with dryer balls. While they do fluff of and make softer, then never remove the static.
Yup, I saw a reasonably well-conducted study that verified they decrease dryer time.
So I live in a super dry climate. I’ve gotten static shocks that leave my hand numb (not from the laundry, taking off layers while wearing rubber boots) because it’s just that dry here.
Dryer balls don’t work for static in my experience. Put a couple pins in it? That didn’t work. Dryer sheets are pretty much the only thing that actually cuts it as far as I can tell.
You are correct. Only way to remove static is dryer sheets.
warming up faster than the wet clothes and drying from inside the pile
not sure how true this is, but they do help dry clothes faster because they’re knocking everything around more which distributes the air/heat better
Just the sort of information that I was after, thank you.
I worked in appliances for about ten years, and not a single washer manufacturer would actually recommend using fabric softener. It horribly gums up the workings of the machine, even when you use the tiny amount you are actually supposed to (which most people use way too much). They are (or were originally) basically just animal fats and emulsifiers with some fragrance thrown in. They smell awful when they are left stuck somewhere for a long time (like the outer walls of the inner tub of your washing machine - seriously, it probably looks furry if you opened it up to see).
I can’t speak to what it does to your clothes specifically, but I can imagine several downsides to essentially coating fabric in lavender scented industrial mayonnaise.
Interesting take, it’s the first that I’m hearing about them gumming up the machine’s innards, but I can definitely see that being a serious issue over time.
Yes. As I understand it, fabric softener softens the fabrics. Obviously. Which makes them more prone to ripping, tearing, and just deteriorating faster. In addition to being another cost, both financial & possibly environmental, it’s plain unnecessary.
I buy some really nice clothing & I want my clothes to last as long as possible. Most of my clothing takes a long time to wear out. My recipe for success for the last 10 years is precisely as follows:
I have a frontloading washing machine, which uses far less water & it doesn’t have an agitator screw thing in the middle that grabs your wet clothes (clothing is weakest when it’s wet). I button & zip my pants, and anything else with a zipper like a jacket, so the zippers aren’t attacking clothes during the wash cycle. Nice clothing, I turn inside-out to preserve designs or outward-facing fabric. I use the ECOS greywater friendly laundry detergent from Costco, and I just use more of it like I dump a full cap or 1.5 caps per load. In case it’s not as effective as conventional, just use more. Plus 1 scoop OxiClean (idk the greywater/waste impact of OxiClean; I’m convinced it’s a powerful multipurpose cleaning agent that is gentle on clothing).
All clothing is treated the same, whites & brights & colors & blacks, all get washed together, I couldn’t care less. Run washer on Tap Cold, Extra High Spin, Heavy Soil level every time. No matter the load. So my washer works extra hard to gently wash my clothing & then wring nearly all the water out of it. The harder you run the washer, the less work is done by the dryer, which save you electric/gas & is gentler on your clothes.
Then my athletic gear, wool socks, and denims never go into the dryer, I let those air dry. The rest is gently run through the dryer & “it is what it is”, it’s mostly stuff that doesn’t really matter.
It takes longer to write out than to do, you can see, it’s quite expedient. I don’t separate. I dump a lot of simple, gentle detergents in. Wash when dirty, wring out water, dryer if necessary. I’m telling you: my clothes last a very long time. Less is more.
Sound habits, these. Except for the front-loader, and Oxiclean, it sounds like we’re on the same page. Aside from these strategies, I figure that the quality of the clothes, and having kept all synthetics out of my dresser/closet have helped to lengthen the life of my clothing as well.
Baked baking soda is used to make ramen
But it can also irritate your skin
