Why Use Wool Dryer Balls?

Why use wool dryer balls? Are you sensitive to chemicals? Do you or your children/baby react to detergents, fabric softeners or dryer sheets? Do you want to avoid a chemical coating on your dryer? Do you want to retain the fire retardant properties of you child's sleepwear? Do you have a new baby that you want to keep from being exposed to chemicals on their clothes? Do you use cloth diapers and are worried that fabric softeners may not be cloth diaper safe (they aren't)? Are you concerned about the environmental impact of throwing away used dryer sheets, empty boxes, empty bottles of fabric softener, the packaging for these products, not to mention the shipping and production costs to the environment. Do you feel like your dryer takes forever to finish a load of clothes? Wool dryer balls prevent all of these problems!



Most people that are allergic to wool (I'm allergic to wool and I use them!) can use wool dryer balls with no problems. The wool is not attaching itself to your clothes. Many people however, are allergic to the chemicals used in fabric softeners and dryer sheets. Even if you don't use fabric softener sheets all the time, they leave a buildup on the inside of your dryer. Children, especially babies are often sensitive to chemicals used in laundry products. Contrary to popular belief, these products do not rinse out fully in the wash. Fabric softeners are made to bind to your clothing and basically 'bake' into them during drying!



Fabric softeners increase some clothing's flammability and children's sleepwear manufacturers specifically tell you not to use fabric softener on their products as it reduces the flame retardant. Taken directly from Consumer Reports:



Avoid using liquid fabric softener on all-cotton clothing made of fleece, terry cloth, or velour. In our flammability tests, liquid fabric softener added to rinse water accelerated the burning speed of these fabrics."



Did you know that dryer sheets cause a waxy, chemical laden buildup that completely coats your dryer and the air vent? Try this if you use fabric softener sheets: Take out your lint filter, run it under cold water, watch the water bead up on the surface before it finally passes through the filter. Air and water are both liquids. If water can not easily pass through your filter, neither can the air in your dryer. This creates back pressure on your dryer reducing the efficiency of your dryer and leaving more lint on your clothes. Some people have claimed that this can cause the dryer heating element to burn out faster or that it can cause dryer fires due to the lint building up in the dryer vent because it 'sticks' to this film. The Consumer Product Safety Commission does state that dryer fires can be caused by lint buildup in the dryer but do not link it to fabric softeners/sheets, but they do not say it is not caused by this either. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/5022.html



If you cloth diaper, the best thing for drying your diapers is to hang them out. The sun's uv rays kill viruses and bacterial naturally as well as acting as a natural bleach for stains. It's also the most environmentally friendly option. However, if you are going to dry your diapers in the dryer, please make sure you follow the manufacturer's direction. Fabric softeners, both liquids and sheets are NOT cloth diaper safe. Also, if you use softeners on your other clothes you still have that buildup in your dryer just waiting to attach itself to your cloth diapers. Even if you line dry you may sometimes have to use the dryer due to weather. Also, if you want to get rid of that 'crunchy' feeling that your line dried clothes and diapers get you can throw them in the dryer for a few minutes on the air fluff setting and wool dryer balls will soften them quickly and economically.



Wool dryer balls are good for the environment also. My dryer balls are made from recycled wool rather than virgin wool so already you are keeping stuff out of the landfill. I'm not wasting virgin wool that could be put to better uses. I use only 'green' detergent in the cleaning and felting process of my dryer balls (Rockin' Green: http://rockingreensoap.com/) that is free from phosphate, dioxin, petroleum, SLS, and animal by-products. It is also biodegradable and not animal tested! They aren't thrown away after each load. You don't have to worry about running out because they can be reused time and time again. You aren't adding to the landfill with each load. Not just a fabric softener sheet but the box it came in, the empty bottle of liquid softener, the packaging, the shipping packaging that it came to the store in, not to mention the impact on the environment of shipping the product to the store from the factory (possibly from the other side of the world), the raw materials, the working conditions... Instead you have me, driving 5 miles from my house to the thrift store, working in my spare time and shipping from home or delivering it to a local store. (You are also helping to support my 5 children by buying my products!)



I have saved the best for last... wool dryer balls can decrease your drying time, sometimes dramatically! You can generally expect a small load to dry about 50% faster and a large load to dry 25% faster than without using dryer balls. Unlike the plastic dryer balls that are sold in stores, wool dryer balls do not off-gas chemicals as they heat up in your dryer. These 'steam balls' (an 'As Seen on TV' product) that claim to create 'steam' in your dryer... well, lets think this through, if this claim was true all of your wet clothes would be creating steam already... Understand that a dryer does not get hot enough to boil water, your dryer combines heat and air to quickly evaporate water from your clothing. Also, these 'steam balls' off-gas chemicals from the plastic as they heat in your dryer. Wool dryer balls bounce around in your dryer and gently soften your clothing through mechanical action without any build up or chemicals. Wool dryer balls help to lift and separate heavy wet clothes so heat and air can more efficiently circulate in your dryer.