Is your laundry truly coming out clean?
I switched from dryer sheets to dryer balls a long time ago … fabric softeners and dryer sheets contain some not-so snuggly ingredients that are doing a lot of harm to our health and our planet. Although these products are marketed to make us believe that the warm fuzzy bunnies, teddy bears, or babies are safe and comforting, we often overlook the fine print telling us that they contain hazardous chemicals. Using dryer balls means you can ditch the softeners and dryer sheets. Dryer balls reduce drying time by pulling apart clothing to increase surface area during the drying process, and they reduce static cling. But…
Not all dryer balls are created equal.
Unfortunately, some dryer balls are made of PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) – a plastic that’s toxic in production and environmentally tricky to dispose of. To soften PVC, companies add chemical additives. So, maybe we shouldn’t be heating them up in the dryer and letting them roll around our clothing, towels, and bedding (and into our air/environment)! Microplastics are a growing concern … we’ve even had a Conversation in Wellness Intelligence about this with Rick Smith here and will carry this conversation on.
Wool dryer balls can present a PVC-free option, but even wool is often cleaned with harsh chemicals, and may come from sheep raised in industrial farming conditions. To our extreme disappointment/horror, the more we searched for “good wool”, the more learned about how awful/cruel conventional wool is, and how extremely rare ethical wool products really are.
A few months into the production of our wool dryer BaaLLS, we were thrilled to have met an amazing sheep farmer who truly loves and cares for her animals, and didn’t treat any of their wool with chemicals. We knew from the beginning that her supply was limited, and that we wouldn’t be able to grow this brand to achieve enormous global sales, but that wasn’t the goal in the first place, so we knew what we had to do. We we’re going to keep making our BaaLLS by hand with organic wool from our new friend and her fuzzy friends.
We are dedicated to delivering the best we can, with all we know, and continuing to improve as we learn how to do better. Our BaaLLS were sold on store shelves next to conventional wool dryer balls that were a fraction of the cost, but we were out to prove that people will go for what’s right, and truly valuable, especially once they know the truth. That’s Empathy Economics in play. We’re proud that we lovingly hand made every one of our BaaLLS with certified organic, cruelty-free wool, and felted them with a 100% plant based kind soap, in energy star appliances, and packaged them in 100% Organic Cotton drawstring bags devotedly handcrafted in Canada. Our goal for everything we do is simple – to provide solutions while offering superior service, and outstanding quality.
Choose dryer balls made by kind humans with organic, ethically sourced wool.
They do exist! You’re looking for chemical-free dryer balls, made from the wool of happy sheep, that can help reduce static cling and drying time, and soften your clothes.
While we no longer produce or sell our own BaaLLS, we found other organic options have since entered the market.
Discover our favourite Kind Dryer Balls and Clean Laundry Solutions in The Wellness Intelligence Collective.
For more of our lessons in Empathy Economics click here.
