The Ball of Aluminum Foil
Hi, everybody. Today, I thought it'd be fun to talk about the ball of aluminum foil. If you've read my book Laundry Love or you've seen me on TV, or you've read about me in newspapers, magazines, whatever, the aluminum foil ball pops up often. And the reason I love the ball of aluminum foil is it is the very best way to remove static from your laundry.
Watch: How to Reduce Static in the Dryer | The Ball of Aluminum Foil
How To Remove Static In The Dryer
The aluminum foil ball is better than fabric softener. It's better than dryer sheets. You toss this in the dryer. And for the next 30 to 60 trips to the dryer, this is going to absorb static better than anything you've ever used. And I'm going to tell you why, how it works, what to do, etc.. But the first thing I'm going to tell you is how to make one.
How To Make an Aluminum Foil Ball For Your Dryer
And I know it seems pretty self-explanatory, but I've kind of figured out a trick to make it a little better.
1. The first thing you do is take your aluminum foil and you want about a yard of aluminum foil.
2. Next, you want to crumple the ends toward the middle.
3. Finally, you want to form it into a ball about the size of a softball.
You want it a little bit bigger than like a baseball. And then you just toss this in the dryer. It's going to collect static from all the air pockets that are in the ball!
How The Ball Works
You can imagine when we crumple it, there's all these little air pockets in there and there they are going to collect the static. That's the reason you can only use one. If for some reason you have two and you put them in the dryer together and they touch each other, they discharge all of the static back into the clothes. So you only put one ball in the dryer.
Will The Ball of Aluminum Foil Harm Your Fabric?
It will not harm your fabric. That's a question that comes up often when you put it in the dryer for like 10 seconds. It's going to get really kind of smooth and there's not going to be any little rough points or whatever. If it worries you, you can actually roll it on the table or something and knock those little corners off.
When to Throw Out The Old Ball and Make a New One
You put in the dryer and what it'll do is it will continue to sort of crumple on top of itself and it'll keep getting smaller and smaller. When it finally gets about the size of like a walnut, then it's basically compressed to the point that it no longer has air pockets.
When you get to that point. Just toss this in recycling and make yourself a new one. When you use it the first time, you may think I'm crazy, which people do. It's fine. But once you use it a couple of times, you'll be amazed at how much ends up in your lint trap. And that's because all of our clothes have a little bit of a static charge and they're holding lint and it all ends up the track.
If you have a pet, I mean, you'll almost have a new pet in there. There's so much pet hair in the lint trap.
Time To Make Your First Ball of Aluminum Foil!
Super easy to use. Super economical. Totally green. It's great. It's one of those things that I think is just a really wonderful trick.