Do Dryer Balls Work
If your laundry often emerges from the dryer still damp or looks wrinkled, you may be searching for a quick fix. Consider wool dryer balls. The soft spheres are an easy way to soften clothes, speed up drying times, and reduce static cling.
Since dryer balls go in dry, when bouncing around inside the drum, they can give false positives and end the cycle prematurely. When you find damp clothes, youll run an entire second cycle. Find out if dryer balls can reduce drying time, eliminate static cling, and soften clothes based on a controlled experiment.
See the data, learn how dryer balls work, and compare them with dryer sheets. All this to say, Im always looking for great laundry hacks that mean I can more effectively use the dryer function. Recently, I decided to find out if either dryer balls or laundry sheets would improve my life.
As it turns out, yesone of these items has officially changed my laundry game. Dryer balls are considered an eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to dryer sheets and fabric softeners, but they actually serve different purposes. Often made from wool, rubber, or plastic, dryer balls reduce wrinkling, static cling, and drying time.
Dryer balls and dryer sheets work differently. Learn how each affects softness, static, and fragrance to determine which is better for your laundry. How do dryer balls work? Dryer balls separate wet clumps of clothes as they tumble around.
This allows hot air to circulate more freely between garments in your dryer, reducing the time it takes to dry your load. When you're washing bed pillows, comforters, or anything down-filled, adding a few new, clean wool balls or tennis balls to the dryer helps fluff them up. If you've ever pulled a freshly washed pillow out of the dryer to find it lumpy and misshapen, a dryer ball can fix it.
If youre trying to reduce waste, avoid chemicals, save money, or get slightly (very slight) faster drying times, wool dryer balls are reasonable. They work, just not dramatically. You bought a pack of dryer balls, tossed them in the dryer, and you are not sure if they are actually doing anything.
The good news is that dryer balls do work, but how many you use, what type you choose, and what you do with them between loads all affect the results.