A winning trick for fragrant, stain-free laundry - easily and without chemicals!
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Essential oils for laundry: how to make every garment fragrant and stain-free
Laundry and essential oils might sound like a strange or unexpected combination, but you'll be amazed by their beneficial effects on your clothes. The two are an excellent combination for anyone who wants to enjoy unique, natural fragrances in their garments.
Essential oils are known for their pleasant scents and aromatherapy benefits, and now we'll learn how to incorporate them into your washing machine to enjoy all their properties. Adding essential oils to your laundry is a great natural way to give your clothes a pleasant scent; it's also a perfect solution for people who dislike artificial fragrances. But before you start adding essential oils to your laundry, there are a few things you need to know.
This article contains all the information you need on how to add essential oils to your laundry.
The Benefits of Adding Essential Oils to Laundry
The main benefit of adding them to your laundry is their wonderful natural fragrance. This is in addition to their well-known mood-boosting and stress-reducing effects, which evoke positive feelings of well-being.
Furthermore, essential oils have antimicrobial and antiseptic properties, which sanitize laundry and eliminate unpleasant odors. This makes them ideal for refreshing and cleaning sportswear and workout clothes. Lab studies have backed the antimicrobial properties of essential oils such as lavender, tea tree, peppermint, and eucalyptus. Many experts agree that tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil are among their favorites for sanitizing and removing unpleasant odors.
Which Essential Oils to Use—and Not Use—in Your Laundry
Some essential oils are more suitable for adding to laundry than others.
Recommended essential oils for laundry include:
- Lavender
- Lemon
- Tea Tree Oil
- Eucalyptus
- Peppermint Oil
These oils typically do not cause irritation and have pleasant scents. You might be surprised to learn that lemon essential oil is a natural stain remover. You can use it to remove stains from everything from various surfaces in your home to fabrics. Simply rub 2-3 drops of lemon oil onto the stain on your garment as a pre-treatment, then wash the item as usual.
Essential oils that are not recommended for laundry include:
- Cinnamon
- Clove
- Oregano
- Cedarwood
- Cypress
- Bergamot Oil
These oils can stain your clothes. In general, it's best not to add any essential oils that are not completely transparent, like orange essential oil, to avoid accidentally staining your clothes.
How to Add Essential Oils to Laundry
To prevent staining and ensure they disperse well in the washing machine, always dilute them with an eco-friendly fabric softener, an unscented laundry detergent, natural white vinegar, or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).
Add 5-10 drops of your chosen essential oil to the fabric softener or detergent dispenser. When adding essential oils to your washing machine, it's recommended to wash on a cold or eco-warm cycle. This is because every essential oil has a temperature threshold at which it begins to evaporate, and some are higher than others. This advice is especially relevant for use in the dryer, but it also applies to the washing machine to help the fragrance last longer on your laundry.
Can You Add Essential Oils to the Dryer?
Essential oils can be flammable, so you should never add them directly to the dryer. However, you can make a homemade dryer sheet by soaking a wool dryer ball or a washcloth in an essential oil and putting it in the dryer. It's also recommended that you make a homemade essential oil spray and spritz it on your dryer balls or homemade dryer sheets. This will dilute the oils further and minimize the risk of a potential fire.
Ultimately, the best way to preserve the fragrance of essential oils in your laundry is to skip the dryer altogether and air-dry your clothes. This is because of their evaporation point and the high chance that their scent will evaporate from the laundry while you're drying it in the machine.
