Substitute for Dryer Sheets in a Pinch?

I’ve heard that you can use a sheet of tin foil.
I’ve never tried it, but supposedly it works. Worth a shot.

However, if you are drying something very prone to static like a sweater or a fleece jacket, I would just hang it and skip the dryer altogether.

If you have liquid fabric softener you can dilute it by about half with water and soak a washcloth in it. Then just toss it into the dryer with the rest of your wet clothes

You can also dry your clothes without dryer sheets. The static will make for an interesting experience, but it should work out. They are a relatively new invention, after all.

I’m going to vote with the camp that suggests that the best substitute for dryer sheets is… nothing. I never use them. Maybe it’s just me but… what exactly is it that creates the need for them? I don’t really get it. To paraphrase Bob Marley: No dryer sheets, no cry.

@lillycoyote I use them for everything. I stuff them between my sofa cushions, I carry one in my purse. If I am wearing fleece or something else prone to static.. I may even put it right in my pocket. They smell gorgeous, and they really do help with static. I hate being zapped!

If you have hair conditioner, thin it down a bit in a sink with some water, put a rag in the watered down hair conditioner, wring it out and throw it in the dryer with the wash. It’s effectively the same stuff. (I’m a cosmetics formulator and have looked this up…..)

@TheOnlyNeffie It might be that I am slightly sensitive to perfumes and additives. I’m not obsessed with it but I only used soaps and detergents, on my skin and for washing my clothes that are perfume and additive free, as best I can manage. Dryer sheets, to me at least, seem to be small pieces of synthetic “fabric-like material” that are completely saturated with god knows what. I’m not someone given to obsessing over such things but dryer sheets leave a residue on my skin when I touch them, they make me sneeze and cough and they smell like whatever it is that I imagine the inside of the American Amalgamated Manufacturers of Completely Synthetic, Toxic and Artificial Scents and Odors Factory might smell like, if such a place actually existed. That’s just me though. I just don’t like them, they irritate my mucous membranes and my skin and I’m function perfectly well, as far as I know, without them.

I generally don’t use them either. If it’s not winter/extremely dry where you are, you probably won’t even have static.

Couldn’t you hang your clothes out on a line to dry, as nature intended?

@meiosis hahaha…. did ‘nature’ intend clothes? But really…. you don’t need dryer sheets. I haven’t used a dryer in almost a decade.

People who are sensitive to fragrances and chemicals shouldn’t be using rinsing agents or dryer sheets. They both leave chemical residue on clothing that can irritate skin.

Back in the days when I wore stockings and skirts, we would rub hand lotion on our stockings to diffuse the static cling of the skirts. How about just drying the clothes as normal and having a bit of hand lotion on hand (no pun intended) in case you experience it.