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Join us for our Spring Cleaning Challenge to Organize and Clean for a Thrifty and Healthy Home!
Our homemade laundry detergents are a popular post as they are really easy to whip up and very effective in gentle cleaning clothes. If you haven’t seen this yet, we recommend checking out these two links:
But one thing that I shared many moons ago when our site here was fairly new was the use of vinegar in laundry for fluffing it up, softening and essential being a good replacement for regular fabric softener or dryer sheets (you can read about using vinegar in your laundry here). Well, since then, we have taken this concept much further and made our own fabric softener, fabric refresher and much more from this idea to use in every single load!
Here’s what it does:
- Makes the laundry soft and fluffy
- Removes odors
- Removes even more bacteria than just washing alone
- Makes them actually smell good (yes, the vinegar really does this…..)
- And it can also help to lessen the amount of color “bleeding” between fabrics (similar to a Shout Color Catcher)
So that is what we have done! You can make your own fabric softener with 2 ingredients and with 4 different variations! Let me share these easy ways:
- We have previously shared our 35 Ways to Reuse, Re-purpose and Recycle your dryer sheets (you will want to read this too as there is also a free download to hang in your laundry room like you can see in the corner of our picture too). Well, one of those ways is by taking your already used dryer sheets to make your own fabric softener by soaking your old dryer sheets in vinegar that has several drops of lavender essential oil. You will be able to do this several times before the dryer sheets break down and need to be thrown away.
- Make reuseable dryer sheets by cutting up an old t-shirt into squares, then put them into a baby wipes or cleaning wipes tub, cover with the mixture of vinegar and lavender essential oil and throw in your dry for each drying load. Make a new batch after you use them all! These will last forever!!
- Make a pre-mixed liquid version for the wash cycle by mixing vinegar with several drops of lavender essential oil and store in a container to use in your washing machine.
- The fourth and final way to do this is actually what I do! Pour your vinegar in your softener slot on your front loader or top loader washing machine, then add a drop of lavender essential oil! This is the easiest way for me to do this and so that is just how I have been doing it!
Just add the vinegar and then a drop of Lavender Essential Oil in here!
So now matter which way you want to do it, it can easily be done and for a .02 per load too!
It is also a cheap and FANTASTIC addition to either of our two popular laundry detergents!
Finally, use this new thrifty and healthy cleaning product as part of our Spring Cleaning Challenge.
If you want even more ideas too, be sure to visit these links!
- Shopping list to be able to make 23 natural homemade cleaning products for a very low price tag of $12.
- And then if you wanted to make them anti-bacterial and anti-viral, we also shared the natural but effective add-ins for much less HERE.
Cindy
How much vinegar do you pour in the softener slot of the washer for each load?
shelleyrae
For a large load, which is equivalent to 8 bath towels, i would use 1/2 cup worth.
Teresa
Cindy, I have been utilizing vinegar for my fabric so center for over 2 years now. With that, I fill my rinse dispenser up to max for large loads & half for my small loads. Works great!
Christy
I’ve used a “Downy Ball” for years and add whatever laundry softener is on sale in the beginning of my wash cycle. That being said, our “fabric softener” slot is pretty much never been used and is unclean. Can I use the vinegar/essential oil in the Downy Ball? Once I start the load, I’m not watching for the rinse cycle and I’ll likely miss the appropriate time to add the vinegar/oil. I love just tossing in the ball and then moving on to other tasks I’m working on.
Tria
We have been using distilled white vinegar with baking soda and it makes our clothes fluffy and soft. I am horribly allergic to bleach so we scouted around on the internet and found this to be a safe and hypoallergenic alternative to bleach:)
Alison
Hello,
Can you possibly use something other then lavender to use? The smell of it makes me sick.
Tanya
In addition to lavender, I’ve used pink grapefruit oil and lemon oil. You can use any scent you like.
Jennifer
We ran out of dryer sheets and didn’t have time to buy them at the store so I tried just adding the vinegar (no essential oil) for the softner/rinse cycle – but my clothes came out with lots of static from the dryer – is it the essenital oil that prevents static or am I doing something wrong? I fill it to the fill line with the vingar for a full load.
Diana @ Red Delicious Life
I’ve been using vinegar in my fabric softener slot for a few years now. It never occurred to me to add essential oil to it! Thanks for the idea. Also, per the question of an earlier commenter – here’s a great way to deal with the static from the dryer: aluminum foil balls. Basically you take a large sheet of clean (unused) aluminum foil and crumple it up in a ball and throw it into your dryer. As it gets heated up, it shrinks and becomes very smooth. In addition to my wool dryer balls (6) I usually have 3-4 aluminum balls in the dryer to take care of the static. After a while the aluminum balls start to break apart and need to be replaced but it’s a great alternative to commercial dryer sheets.
Jennifer
is this safe to use in an he washer?
Alex
Yes! I have an HE washer. 🙂
alicia
Just an idea for the dryer sheets. I didn’t have any extra fabric or old dryer sheets laying around, so I recycled a few pairs of my unused socks.