Popular Laundry Products That Aren't Worth Buying

Doing your laundry has never felt more complicated. A quick stroll down the laundry aisle shows the shelves packed with products, like detergents that promise to smash stains away or candy-colored bottles that swear they'll make your sheets smell like a midnight rose garden. The plethora of products leaves many consumers overwhelmed, wondering which products are actually worth their cleaning dollars.

According to Statista, consumers in the U.S. spent $170 on average on laundry and cleaning supplies in 2022. Accounting for the average 2.55% per year increase in inflation, that means the average American household spends upwards of $180 today on laundry. But the truth is that while many products claim to make laundry simpler, fresher, or brighter, you don't actually need a shelf jammed full of laundry products to create the laundry routine of your dreams. Here are some popular laundry products to skip adding to your cart the next time you walk down the cleaning aisle.

If reaching for your trusty pack of dryer sheets before starting a load is muscle memory at this point, it might be time to think again. While dryer sheets may add a nice scent to laundry loads, they might be making it harder to get your laundry truly clean. "The ingredients of the dryer sheets will coat the fibers, and water will bead off of them, making them non-absorbent," Jill Koch, founder of Jill Comes Clean, told Real Simple. When a fabric's fibers are coated, it creates buildup, making it harder for the water and detergent to get in there and do their thing. This means you may spend more money in the long run on detergent and your water bill trying to get your clothes to feel clean again.

There are a few budget- and environmentally-friendly options you can use instead of dryer sheets: wool dryer balls or vinegar. One reason why you should be using wool dryer balls is that they are known to cut down on static and drying time while helping your clothes stay soft. If you love scent, try adding a few drops of your favorite essential oil to each before you toss them in the dryer. Another option is adding half a cup of apple cider vinegar to your washer during the wash cycle. Don't worry, the smell of vinegar washes away in the rinse cycle, and you're left with soft, static-free clothes.

Scent beads may claim to leave your laundry perfectly scented, but that smell may be hiding a dirty secret: If your clothes still smell bad after a wash, chances are your detergent isn't working properly. "Your detergent should be focused on doing one thing and doing it well: clean effectively and rinse away. If your product is leaving behind a scent, then it's likely the dirt is still there," Taylor Sutherland, President of Charlie's Soap, told Homes and Gardens. If you pull load after load out of the washer and it still smells dirty, it may be time to look for a new laundry detergent or try adding half a cup of baking soda to the wash cycle to help cancel out any odors and boost cleaning power. 

You also might want to think twice before using scent booster beads on laundry day because some have been found to get stuck in the washing machine itself. Jason Carter, an appliance technician and the founder of Simply Swider, had firsthand experience when he discovered scent beads clogged a customer's drain pump. "After I removed the blockage and cleaned the affected parts, the machine functioned properly again. However, the customer chose to stop using the scent beads to prevent future issues," he said to Homes and Gardens. In short, the cost to make your laundry smell pretty might not be worth the potential damage to your machine.

Fabric softeners use lubricants to make your clothes feel softer and more pliable. Sounds great, right? But those softening ingredients can also cause buildup on your clothes, making it hard to get your clothes clean (and potentially raising your laundry bill if you have to wash that sweater multiple times until it finally feels clean). This residue can damage clothes in different ways, from inhibiting fabric's absorption — like towels or your favorite workout leggings — to making kids' pajamas less flame-resistant. And that's not to mention the potential damage to your washing machine. "Overuse of fabric softeners over time starts to build a film and deposits [that] start to slow down drain time. It can actually start to fill the drain lines, and then you get other dirt, debris, grime and things from the clothes that we pick up from the environment [that] start to cling even more," James Copeland, director of technical services for Prism Specialties, told Today.

If this is a laundry product that's hard to give up, DIY your own fabric softener with common cleaning ingredients you already have. It's budget-friendly, clothes-friendly, and poses less of a risk of damage to your expensive washing machine. Talk about a win.

If you're walking down the laundry aisle and wondering what a laundry detergent booster is and if you need it, let's break it down. These products — also sometimes called "laundry additives" — say they'll remove odors and residues, freshen your laundry, and deep clean the fabric. If this sounds familiar, you're right: This is the job of your detergent. Now, there may be special circumstances where detergent boosters may help, such has having hard water buildup on your clothes, stains that refuse to budge, or a workout shirt that cannot get the smell out. But a little borax can help your laundry detergent clean dirty clothes and cut through those stains. While it's not as cute as the detergent booster bottle on social media, it's a lot more budget-friendly and can be used to help whiten clothes, strip away buildup, or even remove stains. Like most cleaning products, borax is not safe to eat or inhale, so keep it safely out of reach and use it mindfully.