"Cute, funny, intriguing," I thought to myself, but I'm trying to get out of debt here... I really don't want or need to spend money on these things. But when I saw a similar product on a shelf at a CVS (or was it Walgreens), a few months ago for a lower price (I think I paid $3), I decide to go for it! I mean, sure, the ones I got were plain yellow with no cute hedge hog face... but come on... I waste more than $3 on other things, even if this was a flop, it was worth trying.
Little did I know that The Dryer Ball would be my new favorite invention! Have these things always existed and I just didn't know it? We L-O-V-E our dryer balls. Let me count the ways...
1) My mom always told me never to use dryer sheets with towels. Not sure why. Something about making them less fluffy? Or less effective? Yeah... less effective... which I never really understood, but did anyway. But now that I process it, it makes sense because...
2) You're not supposed to use dryer sheets with cloth diapers, because the dryer sheet leaves a coating on the cloth diaper that makes it less absorbent. So any load that I wash that has cloth diapers in it, automatically no dryer sheets. And that means that the clothes in that load (I often wash my own delicates with Olivia's cloth diapers) don't get the benefit of dryer sheets either!
3) Here's the kicker... did you know... that... the dryer sheet not only coats your clothes, but it also coats the inside of the dryer? So if you use a dryer sheet with one load, then the little dryer sheet particles will still be in there for the next load... thus even when I keep the dryer sheet out of my cloth diaper load, they're getting residuals from other loads!
and 4)... you all knew this was coming... not only is it a green choice (less waste, not disposable, made of good stuff...) but it's CHEAPER! These things last supposedly forever. So my initial investment of $3 divided over the number of loads I'll use them for??? WAY CHEAPER THAN DRYER SHEETS! What a win. :-)
Ben and I have started using these little guys in all of our laundry. We don't have a single issue with static cling. I think we actually have less lint. And our diapers are SUPER absorbent, rarely ever need stripping.
All in all, I HIGHLY recommend 'em!
What's your favorite green/cheap household product/invention?
If you do end up with static cling issues, put some vinegar in the liquid fabric softener dispenser in the washer. Boom. And it doesn't smell like vinegar. Also, whenever you need to eventually replace your dryer balls, I've heard that the wool ones work really well speeding drying time (maybe your current ones ones do too?). I haven't tried them yet though, as we just nixed dryer sheets altogether and didn't notice a difference (plus we can't adjust the time on the dryers in our apartment building).
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