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Easy tips for keeping your line dried clothes soft and comfy! Yes, you can save money air-drying clothes and not have them stiff too.
Do you love the idea of line drying your clothes but just hate how stiff they feel after drying?
I totally understand! Drying clothes on a line will save you a lot of money over time and gives you a great fresh scent that you just can’t get using a clothes dryer.
But clothes dried on a clothesline can often end up being so stiff they can almost stand up on their own.
No one really wants to wear clothes that stiff!
We’ve dried our clothes on a clothesline for years, only using a dryer when it’s raining or in the middle of winter. I’ve learned some tricks that really do help to keep your clothes soft when drying outdoors.
How To Keep Line Dried Clothes From Getting Stiff
Use White Vinegar
One of the easiest ways to keep your line dried clothes from getting stiff is to use white vinegar as a natural fabric softener. Just add about half a cup of it in the final rinse cycle instead of your normal fabric softener.
Don’t worry your clothes won’t smell like vinegar the smell disappears as the clothes dry.
This has an added bonus of not having all the chemicals and artificial scents commonly found in commercial fabric softeners.
Shake Your Clothes
As you are hanging up your clothes on the line give them a good shake. This is similar to how your dryer tumbles the clothes around inside.
Ok, it’s not quite as effective as tumbling the clothes for half an hour but giving them a good snap before having up really does help to keep them softer.
Hang Laundry On Windy Days
Just like shaking your clothes, even a light breeze will help to keep your clothes soft.
So while it might feel a little harder to hang laundry up on a clothesline when it’s windy, it’s actually something that will help to keep the clothes from getting stiff.
Use Less Detergent
Laundry detergent builds up on our clothes and this can cause them to feel stiffer than normal too.
Using more laundry soap is not always a good thing and it won’t help to clean your clothes any better than using the recommended amount. You are really just wasting money by using more soap.
If your clothes are always drying stiff try cutting back on the amount of soap you use or try a homemade laundry soap.
Use Homemade Laundry Soap
When I started using homemade laundry soap years ago one of the first things I noticed was how much softer my clothes felt after air drying.
When you make your own laundry soap you can choose what goes into it a bonus for those with sensitive skin. It’s also a lot cheaper than buying laundry detergent.
Fluff In The Dryer
If you want to line dry your clothes to save money but really want them to be as soft as clothes dried in a dryer.
Then you can take the clothes off the line when they are just slightly damp and finish them off in the dryer for about 10 minutes.
Doing this really cuts back on the cost of drying clothes but keeps them nice and soft.
Is It Worth It To Line Dry Clothes?
Whether your dryer is electric or gas it’s one of the largest expenses in your home, especially if you have a large family like mine.
If you are trying to save money switching from using your dryer to hanging clothes up on a clothesline it will really add up over time.
But clothes dried outdoors will never be as perfectly fluffy as when dried inside a dryer. That doesn’t mean they have to be stiff though, you can have soft air dried clothes.
The trade-off between saving money and having fluffy clothes is up to you! But using vinegar in the rinse cycle, and giving them a good shake before hanging them up really do help a lot.
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Kim Mills is a homeschooling mom of 6 and lives on an urban homestead in Ontario, Canada. Blogging at Homestead Acres she enjoys sharing tips to help you save money, grow and preserve your own food.
Moriya
Thursday 22nd of February 2024
I am so excited to have sunshine to be able to line dry my clothes this year. I really got sick of emptying that lint tray in my dryer over the winter, realizing it was just part of my clothing, adding up because of the tumbling in the heat. I think my clothes are gonna last a lot longer now that I’m going to be line drying them and my whites are going to get naturally white without using bleach.
Zoe
Thursday 11th of March 2021
I use Charlie’s Soap. It leaves no residue, that makes a huge difference! I throw my towels, sheets and some dress shirts in the dryer for just 5-10 minutes and then hang them. Win win. They are softer and still smell great. It bothered me to finish something in the dryer and lose the wonderful smell of line dried laundry, so I reversed it.
Missy
Thursday 10th of September 2020
thank you so much Kim! i was just trying to find out how to make my line dried clothes softer & as an added bonus i found out how to make my own homemade laundry soap! Thanks a bunch!!