The Continuing Dryer Sheet Saga

So...a little while ago (a month ago? a month and a half ago?) I wrote about making my own dryer balls to replace chemical-laced dryer sheets. What actually happened was that I wrote about how the hubs made me some dryer balls because I didn't have a sliver of the patience or fine motor skills needed to wrap all that wool. Between the annoyance of actually making the balls and the fact that one of them unraveled in the dryer the first time I used them, they had their share of issues. I thought they were working pretty well, though.

But then there were a couple of times I pulled my flannel shirts out of the dryer and they were super static-filled. And then I noticed that my microfiber cloths were full of static...as well as most other things. I shrugged it off. The fateful day came, though, when the hubs was examining his closet and pointed out that all his clothes had quite a bit of dog hair on them. For someone who wears a whole lot of black Harley t-shirts, this wasn't going to work. The dryer balls might have been doing a decent job of getting our clothes dry and a mediocre job of getting rid of static, but they were officially doing a terrible job of eliminating our 75-pound baby's hair off of our stuff. So back to the drawing board I went.

Thankfully, this was a pretty easy process and has been painless so far (I say "so far," acknowledging the fact that there may someday be a follow-follow up post about how this current solution isn't working anymore, but fingers crossed). I had seen the cleaning product brand Seventh Generation in various stores, and knew they boasted their clean, eco-friendly products. I figured that was as natural (no pun intended) place to start as any. I did some minimal research and confirmed that fact that they don't have dyes, bleach, or chemicals, and figured that about crossed off everything on my minimally-informed list. I have officially used them for a full day of laundry - meaning that they were put to the test with towels, sheets, a comforter (covered in previously mentioned dog hair), and all of our clothes, and they worked like champs. No dog hair to be found, and no static at all. Win win.

Obviously, they're more expensive than the regular dryer sheets I was buying at Costco before my minimally-informed self decided to switch things up, and they're more expensive than the homemade dryer balls with a one-time cost of the $8 wool. But if they're free of chemicals and do everything I need them to do, I think it's probably worth it.

In other news, I now have three tennis ball-sized wool yarn balls who need a purpose...