DIY: Fabric Softener and Fluff Your Towels

We now make our own laundry soap so I was thinking what about fabric softener too?

So I searched and started reading ingredients and walla I found a recipe for that too.

What you Need:
6 cups hot water {I used hot tap water, but you can boil the water as well}
2 cups white vinegar
1 bottle of conditioner {any conditioner will do. I picked one that smells great &
that’s cheap!}

The recipe:

In a bowl mix the hot water and full bottle of conditioner. Stir until completely

mixed & dissolved. After that pour in the vinegar and mix it all together. After that

pour your laundry softener into the container of your choice. I chose a mason jar

because I already had one & this large one is easy to pour or scoop the product out

of. I use about 6 table spoons, but you can use the amount that works for you.

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another fabric softener recipe

First of all you should know that the use of vinegar in laundry is good for fluffing it up, softening and essential being a good replacement for regular fabric softener or dryer sheets Well, since then, we have taken this concept much further and made our own fabric softener, fabric refresher and much more from this idea to use in every single load!

Here’s what it does:
Makes the laundry soft and fluffy
Removes odors
Removes even more bacteria than just washing alone
Makes them actually smell good (yes, the vinegar really does this…..)
And it can also help to lessen the amount of color “bleeding” between fabrics (similar to a Shout Color Catcher)

So that is what we have done! You can make your own fabric softener with 2 ingredients and with 4 different variations! Let me share these easy ways:

What you need:
White Vinegar

Your choice of Essential Oil

1. make your own fabric softener by soaking your old dryer sheets in vinegar that has several drops of lavender essential oil. You will be able to do this several times before the dryer sheets break down and need to be thrown away.
2. Make reusable dryer sheets by cutting up an old t-shirt into squares, then put them into a baby wipes or cleaning wipes tub, cover with the mixture of vinegar and lavender essential oil and throw in your dry for each drying load. Make a new batch after you use them all! These will last forever!!
3. Make a pre-mixed liquid version for the wash cycle by mixing vinegar with several drops of lavender essential oil and store in a container to use in your washing machine.
4. The fourth and final way to do this is actually what I do! Pour your vinegar in your softener slot on your front loader or top loader washing machine, then add a drop of lavender essential oil! This is the easiest way for me to do this and so that is just how I have been doing it!

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Some information on using Vinegar in your laundry

Have you ever thought about using white vinegar in your laundry? I hadn't until a while ago when I heard that you can add vinegar to your towel loads to fluff them up instead of using liquid fabric softener! Who wouldn't want fluffy towels?

So, we started to put 1/2 cup of vinegar in a full load and a 1/4 cup in a smaller load of towels. You just pour it in at the beginning in the fabric softener slot or during your rinse cycle when you would normally put in your liquid fabric softener. We have found this to be immensely beneficial to our laundry and to our budget! And it is a natural alternative!
Not only does the vinegar “fluff” the towels, it actually takes smells out too! So you can have fluffier, fresher smelling towels.
We also use it with our sheet and blanket loads for the same reasons.
We also use it in our white loads.
Vinegar is very cheap especially in bulk or gallon size bottles. This will save you an incredible amount of money not needing to use liquid softener. You will not need to purchase special or expensive odor removing laundry products.
We still use dryer sheets as needed to reduce the static – but we use the sheets in the dryer. The vinegar does help to reduce some static.
We also read somewhere that the harsh chemicals in fabric softener actually breakdown the threads whereas vinegar will not break the towel threads hardly at all – so your towels may last longer as well and save you money on towel replacement.
It is also gentler on the skin and perfect for those with sensitivities to the ingredients in common household laundry products.

Have you ever used vinegar in your laundry? It was a weird concept when I first heard about it – but it really works and hardly costs anything!