FEW of us would dream of omitting fabric softener from our laundry with it adding both softness and a fresh scent to our clothes.
However, one cleaning whizz has revealed why you should be ditching fabric conditioner and dryer sheets immediately claiming it could be doing more harm than good.
Taking to Twitter, fashion historian Cora Harrington shared why she never adds anything other than detergent to her wash.
In the recently resurfaced tweet, she wrote: “I just saw a commercial that was like, “Do your clothes still smell bad when they come out of the dryer? Add our scent beads!”
“If your clothes smell bad when they come out of the dryer, the solution isn’t to cover that smell up with fragrance. It’s to adjust the way you wash.”
She added: A while back, I talked about how dryer sheets and fabric softeners are a scam, and this is what I mean.
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“Overusing detergent is bad for your clothes (modern day laundry detergents are very effective and more isn’t better).”
Cora went on to explain what happens if you continuously rely on dryer sheets and softener when washing your clothes.
She explains: “Dryer sheets and fabric softeners ruin your clothes by putting a small film of lipids or waxes over the material to make it feel soft to the touch.
“But that same film or coating can trap moisture…which leads to mildew…which leads to things smelling bad. For one example.
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“So now overusing laundry detergent and using dryer sheets has messed up your clothes and they smell weird, so how do you fix it? Buy *yet another product* that covers up the smell with fragrance.”
Cora then added that it was important not to mistake a fresh smelling garment for a clean one.
“I feel like a lot of us - and this speaks to the effectiveness of marketing - conflate heavily fragranced clothes with clean clothes,” she says.
“We’ve been conditioned to interpret perfume as “clean,” even when our senses are *literally* telling us otherwise.
“If you find that your clothes are never feeling clean or smelling clean (and I mean clean as in not musty), then the issue might actually be with the washing process. And adding on more product won’t fix that. If anything, it will exacerbate the problem.”
Her thoughts were previously echoed by laundry expert Deyen Dimitrov who said the use of softener can also prove dangerous.
According to the expert, there are some fabrics that you should never apply fabric softener to as doing so will drastically reduce the flame resistance of the clothing you’re washing.
This means increasing the risk of your clothing catching fire, which should always be avoided.
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The Flammable Fabrics Act of 1953 says that fabric softener can reduce the flame resistance of textiles due to the build-up of chemicals present.
This is because fabric softeners contain emulsifiers and alcohol ethoxylates, Deyan explained, both of which are flammable.
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