VEGAN DIY - Dryer Sheets

Last week I posted about making your own vegan liquid hand soap for a FRACTION of the cost of buying at the store.  Today we are moving on to laundry.  Back in the soap post I introduced you to an animal ingredient called tallow, again if you are not familiar with this ingredient PLEASE click on the link and take a few minutes to learn about it also check out this article. Tallow is in almost all big brand fabric softeners and dryer sheets, if you are using them you are coating your clothing in rendered animal fat... gross, I know. 

So what is the solution?  Well some people use vinegar in the rinse cycle as a natural softener but I have found that it does not make clothes anywhere near as soft as I like AND I can never remember to set a timer to add it during the rinse cycle.  Some vegan brands such as Mrs. Meyer's and Seventh Generation do make vegan dryer sheets but they are expensive and I have been making a big effort to stay away from single use items even if they are biodegradable.  I read something about someone soaking a HUGE towel with a whole bottle of fabric softener and then hanging it out to dry, once dry they used that softener soaked towel over and over again in their dryer... hmmm... THAT sounds like something worth looking into!  A little Pinteresting later I saw that a few people were making DIY dryer sheets in a way similar to what I am going to show you the important difference is mine are VEGAN :) Mrs. Meyer's fabric softener is about $10 a bottle, for 32 loads compared to other (non vegan) brands on the market it is expensive but not if you stretch the 32 loads the bottle says you get for 100-150 loads.  I save money and only have to recycle ONE bottle not 4 or 5!  I'm saving about $30-40 doing it this way vs. just buying the fabric softener needed to launder that many loads. 

150 loads would require about 5 bottles of softener at $10 a bottle your cost would be $50.  
 Getting 100-150 loads out of ONE bottle of softener saves you $30-$40!

You need 3 things:

1.  An old towel or t-shirts or sweats, whatever... just something you can cut up.  Or if you have some of those baby sized washcloths those are the perfect size already.
2.  An empty wipes container or similar sized Tupperware/Rubbermaid type container with a sealing lid
3.  A bottle of vegan fabric softener there are a few brands out there, I happen to like Mrs. Meyer's the lemon and lavender are my favorites for laundry!

Step 1:  Gather your supplies.

Step 2:  Measure your container and cut whatever fabric you are using to a size that will fit inside your container.

Step 3:  SHAKE, if you are using an old towel shake the heck out of your cut up pieces to get off all the loose little fibers from cutting it.  You could use pinking shears to cut it if you want, I didn't and I have not noticed much fraying and even if they did fray who cares, no one is looking at your dryer sheets :)

Step 4: Put your pieces of cloth into your container and pour just enough fabric softener into the container to get them all covered and wet.  

Step 5:  Close your container and put it in your laundry room until you are ready to do laundry :)

Are you ready to dry a load??  Ok...

Step 6:  Open your container and take out 1 cloth wring most of the liquid out of the cloth and back into the container.

Step 7:  Shake out the cloth.
 

Step 8:  Toss the cloth in with your clothes in the dryer and dry as usual.  *Yes you will have fabric softener all over your hand at this point. I am usually running another load anyway so I'll just rinse my hand in the water running into the washing machine.  If I'm not washing another load I'll just turn around and wash my hand in the sink, no big deal.

 

Step 9:  When pulling your dry clothes out of the dryer, take a second to hug a nice warm soft snuggly piece of fresh smelling laundry :)  When you are done with that unload the dryer and when you find the cloth set it aside to be used in the next load you toss in.  You can reuse the cloths about 3 times before having to resoak them in the container.

Step 10:  Once you have reused the cloth 2-4 times stick back in the container with it's buddies.  

You may be wondering why you even need multiple cloths... if you are single or don't have a large family you might be able to only use one small washcloth over and over again resoaking when needed.  But I have a largeish family and laundry does not always get folded and put away right when it's pulled out of the dryer... I know... the shame lol...  anyway having several in rotation helps keep me sane.  

Once you have been using them for a while you will start to be able to tell when they need to be soaked by the way they feel.  Have you ever accidentally put too many dryer sheets in the dryer and had overly "coated" clothes? I know I'm not the only one who can't remember from 30 seconds ago whether she threw in a dryer sheet before she put all the clothes in the dryer so then you throw in another just to make sure and the minute you pull the clothes out of the dryer you just know you put 2 in there, grrr!! Anyway that is how these cloths feel when they still have enough softener in them to reuse.  Once they start to feel like the rest of the laundry and not overly coated then it's time to resoak them.