For all the reasons I already love dryer balls, I bet using a tennis ball would be perfect on towels—and I am pleased to report it was. My towels were dry and crunch-free—I am officially a tennis ball convert.
One is aluminum balls, using your regular household foil, make balls about the size of or a little larger, than a golf ball. Make several, and as they start falling apart add more foil to them. You can find aluminum foil at the One Dollar store.
An extra tip: pop two clean tennis balls into the drum. They will help to circulate air flow in your garments and prevent the down feathers from clumping together.
Tennis balls are designed to bounce around a court, but having several bounce around in your dryer is a great way to optimize your laundry routine. That bouncing creates agitation, which helps to create air pockets, separate clothes, and promote better heat distribution.
The washing machine works really well for tennis balls. Be sure to use a detergent that is pet-friendly, and use about as much as you would for a small load of laundry. Choose the low spin cycle to get some of the water out and finish drying in the dryer on a low setting if needed.
Tennis balls can provide some benefits like separating clothes, softening fabrics, speeding up drying time, and reducing static electricity. However, tennis balls also have downsides like leaving lint/residue behind and causing potential damage to clothes and dryers long-term.
"While not perfect, we love dryer balls or tennis balls; [tennis balls] work especially well when drying down or feather-filled items like puffy jackets and pillows." However, they stress that it's important that the tennis balls be new and perfectly clean.
Tennis balls fluff up and separate the clothes, preventing them from clumping together and improving airflow. This results in faster and more efficient drying. The tennis balls create agitation, which helps to remove any wrinkles and soften the fabric.
To dry a comforter without ruining it, use a low heat setting. Also, make sure to add tennis balls or clean canvas shoes to the dryer to help fluff up the comforter.
The damp down will be clumpy from the wash, and completely drying it is critical. Use a low heat setting and toss one or two clean tennis balls in the dryer to break up the clumps. Be patient—drying the jacket may take one to three hours. Keep resetting the timer until your beloveds are lump-free and fully dry.
Aluminum foil is said to discharge the static buildup. Plus, the balls keep clothes separated so there's less rubbing action.
According to Masters, the true beauty of using a tennis ball is that they're made to bounce. “The ball will bounce inside the drum and essentially beat out the lumps in your pillow, returning them to their former, fluffy glory,” she explains.
Can You Use Too Many Dryer Balls? Wool dryer balls are safe for most types of fabric, so it's usually fine to use more than the suggested number of dryer balls per load. However, keep in mind that using extra dryer balls can make your clothes dry faster than normal.
Tennis balls bounce around in the dryer, separating the fibers and allowing more air to circulate, which helps the towels dry faster and fluff up. This also helps avoid the need for fabric softeners, which can reduce towels' absorbency over time.
We recommend investing in what's known as a “reverse action” tumble dryer, which switches the rotation of the dryer drum back and forth. The idea is that this back and forth movement helps prevent clothes and sheets from getting tangled, which also decreases the chance for your items to become creased in the dryer.
There are three primary materials that are typically used to make dryer balls: wool, plastic and rubber. Different materials can have different effects on your laundry, so you will want to choose which dryer ball to use based on the situation.
Most tennis balls are made out of nylon and/or wool and the material attracts foreign substances in the water. Drop a few tennis balls in your pool or skimmer basket and let them float around to do their job removing these products from your water's surface. Check back often for more of Tracy's Tips on our blog!
Using the spin cycle on tennis balls can cause them to warp, and it can also cause damage to your washing machine. Add laundry detergent. You can use your regular laundry detergent for washing tennis balls. You should use about the same amount you would if you were washing a small load of clothes.
Do dryer balls work? In short, not really. There are marginal differences, but in most cases dryer balls actually increase your costs by a very small amount. We tested with a conventional electric vented dryer and an upmarket condenser dryer both with and without the balls and compared the two.
Yes, that's right. One of the most creative hacks for laundry doers everywhere is to throw tennis balls in dryer machines. What does this do? It can prevent clumping of the filling of bulky items (like those mentioned above) AND create more fluff1.
It's true that golf balls marginally lift and separate clothes as they tumble, allowing a bit more air circulation for reduced drying time. In this, they underperform lint-producing tennis balls—but are a whole lot noisier.