There’s nothing like the soft, comforting feel of freshly-dried clothes, especially when you’ve used lots of fabric softener either in the wash or the drier. It’s like conditioner for your clothes, cutting down on static cling and making your jeans soft and wearable. But is it really as safe as you think?
Fabric softeners contain oils that reduce free electrons and cut down on static, which also reduces the stiffness of clothes. Since it’s left in the clothes after washing, or even added while drying, the oil residue remains next to your skin and is absorbed into your body through your pores.
Consider the following problems:
Fabric softener perfumes often contain ethyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, camphor, ethanol (which is on the EPA Hazardous Waste list), limonene, linalool, and a-Terpineol. These chemicals cause respiratory irritation and even failure, headache, nausea, dizziness, anemia, liver and kidney damage, CNS disorders, and respiratory edema – and many of them have the EPA warning to wash hands after handling!
Most of the dangerous chemicals in fabric softeners are most dangerous when inhaled – what’s the first thing you do when you take your fluffy, sweet-scented clothes out of the dryer?
Fabric softeners used on fluffy materials like your child’s fleece pajamas or your terrycloth robe and towels can increase flammability.
Rather than making your family comfortable, your fabric softener may be putting them at risk!
Instead of using toxic commercial fabric softener, try adding a quarter-cup of baking soda to your wash cycle to soften fabrics, and a quarter cup of white vinegar to soften and eliminate cling. Or you can look online or at a local health food store for a natural fabric softener. You’ll be doing your
