Beware dryer sheets and fabric softeners
I skip dryer sheets and fabric softeners in testing because they can build up on textiles and affect absorbency. Anything you add to your laundry to make it softer is going to leave a residue behind. Youre essentially coating your textiles in conditioners, which is fine for a favorite T-shirt or worn-in blanket you want to soften. Manufacturers do it, too.
Almost any home textile or piece of clothing you buy comes with finishes to make the item soft and appealing, and it takes a few washes to rinse away. Adding softeners back in can make your favorite items feel like they did when they were new. But Id avoid these additives at home for performance fabrics, towels, cloth diapersanything that needs to be absorbent. Id also skip them if you have sensitive skin.
Use the dryer to destroy pathogens
I used to think that hot water was enough to completely disinfect my laundry, but the dryer is actually a crucial step in the process. Some allergens and pathogens can linger after a wash cycle, and it takes a blast of high heat from the dryer to completely destroy them. The dryer kills dust mites, too, if you have allergies.
This is tough for delicate fabrics because you dont want to cook them or shrink them with hot air. Jack Sukelac, one of the down experts we interviewed during our research on comforters, suggests running your dryer on hot for 20 minutes (to destroy anything lingering on fabrics) and then lowering the heat for the rest of the drying cycle (to protect the fibers). Its also important to get your fabrics completely drywith no damp spotsto eliminate any breeding grounds for grody stuff.
Consider what needs to be dried
Not everything belongs in your dryer. Many wools will shrink dramatically, so I air-dry them, unless the care label says otherwise. The heat of the dryer can fry delicate fabrics like silk, and bras should be air-dried to protect the elastic. Even when air-drying things, however, I make sure the items are bone-dry before using them.
It can take hours to dry bulky things like blankets and comforters at home. So if youre short on time, it might be more efficient to take them to the dry cleaner or use a laundromats industrial-size machines. But if you choose to dry bulky items (like down comforters) at home, make sure to dry them really, really well. Oddly enough, weve come across lots of advice that says to throw clean tennis balls into the dryer to help fluff and soften bulky items, and we have no idea where this tip originated. But Sukelac said it doesnt really do anything. You would need 20 or 30 tennis balls to be effective, he told me.
To avoid any leftover damp spots that can cause mold or mildew, we do recommend drying big items on low and removing them from the dryer several times to fluff and redistribute.read more
How to Do Your Laundry Better
