Goodbye Dryer Sheets, Hello Woolzies Dryer Balls!

Growing up we never had dryer sheets in our home because my mother insisted it was full of chemicals that set off allergies.  I can still remember the boardy feeling shirts and even worse the jeans that would get semi-permanent creases and never quite be the same.  Not knowing any better I just figured that's how clothes were.

In college my roommate introduced me to the world of fabric softener and it's safe to say my mind was blown.  I've never seen a college student who wanted to do laundry as much as I did.  There was no greater freshman thrill than pulling out a pile of warm fluffy clothes that I had guarded with my life in the communal laundry room.

Fast forward a bunch of years and lately those dryer sheets have started making me sneeze.  Perhaps I'm finally getting old or maybe my mom was actually right.  Don't tell her I said that!  I had been on the hunt for an alternative that would leave my clothes soft and my nose alone when I saw Woolzies.

Yes, dryer balls in general are not the newest thing on the planet.  I know some friends who used the plastic ones for their kids when they were little out of paranoia about dryer sheets but then of course they later found out that those plastic ones were actually made with BPA, getting heated up in the dryer and rubbing all over their children's clothes...awesome!

Woolzies sent me a set of their wool dryer balls so I could give them a whirl and see if they did the trick.  Woolzies are supposed to reduce drying time, minimize static and soften clothes, all without adding chemicals to your clothes.  Just looking at a wool sweater makes me itch and I can't even buy one unless it's 100% cashmere so I was a tad skeptical on the promise that they don't cause any wool allergies.

When I initially opened them up I immediately thought of the vase filler and decorative balls I buy at Target that my husband shakes his head at.  After marveling at their home decor possibilities and retrieving one that was snatched by the family dog I found new motivation to attack the white load...my least favorite load of them all (so many small socks!) and got to work.

I tossed all six balls in the package into the dryer with a pretty large white load and dried it on medium heat.  When the cycle was done the clothes were completely dry, which isn't always the case.  I didn't see any reduction in static, but that didn't really bother me.  They felt similar in softness to what I would expect from a dryer sheet and I threw on a long sleeve thermal shirt that had been in the load to see if it made me itch.  It definitely did not!

Most importantly, Kayla's favorite Little Giraffe blanket and her Dwell Studio birdie sheets came out soft, dry and ready to go before bedtime.

As it turned out, my bloggy bestie over at Horrible Housewife wound up checking out Woolzies at the same time as me so we could compare our thoughts.  If you'd like a little less PG take on montherhood and being a wife, she claims to be the laziest housewife on the block (I don't buy it) but you can see what she thought about Woolzies and enter to win a set of your own.