What’s the deal with dryer sheets?

How can they be bad when they smell so good? That’s part of the problem. How does the smell not fade away at all – on your clothes and on the dryer sheets themselves? With lots of chemicals, that’s how. Guess what, those chemicals are all over your clothes and linens and now they’re all over you too. Yes, these chemicals are sitting on your fabrics and they will eat away at them over time. Anytime you recognize that persistent “dryer sheet” smell, you just smell chemicals.

So, when you see fraying on your sheets, towels and clothes, now you have something to blame. It really isn’t your laundering skills after all!

These chemicals can do different things to different types of laundry. Of course eventually, they will do the same thing to all of it, fray and wear it out. They will make your towels less absorbent and these chemicals will also keep your athletic performance clothing from wicking moisture and performing at all. They will eat up silk and fragile fabrics the fastest. These chemicals can even make your clothing feel stiff.

If you aren’t using great detergent, like any of our Roux Maison detergents, you can also get additional chemical residue and buildup on your fabrics from your detergent. Yuck. Roux Maison detergents remove the chemical residue left behind on your fabrics from other detergents, fabric softeners and dryer sheets. Did you know that the fragrance in most detergents is mostly chemicals too? Yuck. Roux Maison’s scents are all made of 100% essential oils. Pure and natural and nothing else. The washing process and Roux Maison detergents remove oils from your laundry, so your clothes come out smelling fresh and clean without any lingering, artificial odors, because our products don’t contain them.

Our fragrance-free products are just that, fragrance free. Nothing else is ever added to them. Many products that say they are unscented can actually contain masking chemicals that cover up their real odors because they are so harsh. If the smells are too strong for you to smell, just think what they’re doing to your clothes.

The key is not to keep putting this residue back on your clothes. This means giving up the fabric softeners and dryer sheets. It’s not as hard to do as you think and it’s so worth it when everything lasts so much longer and looks so much better.

You don’t want to give up soft towels and we’ve got a solution for you. One of our favorite helpers all around the house and not just with laundry is trusty white vinegar. Add up to about a cup into the rinse cycle and do add an extra rinse cycle as well. This will work for softening much of your laundry. Don’t worry about the vinegar smell because it will neutralize in the second rinse cycle. We have loads – no pun intended – of cleaning tips and hacks like this on our website! Let us know if you have any questions we haven’t answered for you there or any tips we might have missed. We love your laundry!