Thursday, September 4, 2008

toxic dryer sheets and other fun stuff

I don't use fabric softener. I just never understood why it was necessary. I believe it was a marketing ploy by the detergent companies to get us to buy more stuff.

So my clothes aren't fluffy soft - big deal. Sometimes pieces stick together with the static when I take them out of the dryer. So what? I like the crackly noise when I pull them apart. And they don't smell like the chemically-generated equivalent of a field of lavender. That's actually good for me because I can't stand to be enveloped by a single smell.

It turns out there are very good reasons not to u
se fabric softener. Toxic chemicals galore and over time the dryer sheets can damage your dryer. Click here if you want to read more.

There is something called Dryer Balls that you can get at places like Target that helps you
r clothes come out soft without the chemicals. I haven't tried them, but they look cool. (It could just be a big marketing ploy by the dryer ball companies to get me to buy more stuff.)

When I started to write this I was searching on Google to try to find an article that I had read about dryer sheets. It was months ago so I didn't remember where I had found it. I looked up the phrase "toxic dryer sheets." And look what comes up on the search page:


Capitalism at its best. You want toxic dryer sheets? Someone, somewhere will try to sell them to you.

I tried some other interesting search phrases and here's what I got:
It's a little bit misleading of me. No one is really selling children's cigars or flammable toys. Those listings are for books and CD's. But I like how technology can still be so dumb sometimes.

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