this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fabric softener kills elastic and lots of clothes (including even jeans) have elastic in them. Yeah, you can do separate washes, but ain’t nobody got time for that.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not heard of that one. The main one I know is it makes towels less absorbent, my partner's mum uses it and it's like trying to soak up water with a plastic bag.

[–] mycelium_underground@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah when you coat all the fibers of the towel with slightly modified rendered animal fat, then they won't absorb water. The long hydrophobic tail on the tallow dimethyl ammonium chloride molocule really doesn't want to mix with water. It's almost completely insoluble in polar solvents like water.

Why make things soft by addressing the initial problem(residues and hard water salts in deposited in the fibers when the clothes dry) when you can just coat the whole thing in fat and call it "clean" and "soft"

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

probably uses too much. it has that effect, but it also makes them more fluffy