DIY Laundry Crystals: Fabric Softener Alternative

Are you looking for an affordable, natural fabric softener alternative? We’ll show you how to make your own DIY Laundry Crystals using two simple ingredients.

One of the first things we ditched when be began our natural living journey was fabric softener. Not only is it full of all sorts of icky ingredients, but it can really clog up your washing machine too.

Have you read the ingredients in Downy Ultra?

Water, Diethyl ester dimethyl ammonium chloride, Fragrance, Calcium Chloride, Formic acid, Hydrochloric acid, Dye, Polydimethylsiloxane, Methylisothiazolinone/ Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Cationic polymer and Diethylenetriamine pentaacetate sodium salt

In addition, a lot of people have started using things like Purex Crystals to boost the scent of their laundry.

Much like fabric softeners, the ingredients in Purex Crystals leave much to be desired:

Sodium Chloride, Sodium Silicate, Fragrance, Silica, Propylene Glycol, Liquitint Blue, Liquitint Red St, 3-Methyl-4-(2,6,6-Trimethyl-2-Cyclohexene-1-YL)-3-Buten-2-One, Benzyl Salicylate, Coumarin, D-Limonene, Eugenol, Geraniol, Linalool

What if I told you that you could replace both of these products with two simple ingredients – epsom salts and essential oils?

You can make your own DIY Laundry Crystals with a lovely scent using these two simple ingredients you may already have on hand. This combination works great as a natural fabric softener alternative and as a scent booster.

Epsom salts are essentially just salt, right? Salt is a great fabric softener and it has the added benefit of being a water softener too. We have extremely hard water where we live, so using these DIY laundry crystals is a huge benefit in getting our clothes cleaner and softer.

And I love that by making them myself, I can scent them however I like. Some of my favorites are lemon and peppermint, rosemary and spearmint or lavender and wild orange. Really, you can use any essential oils that strike your fancy.

The scent of the essential oils will linger a bit as long as you’re using good, quality essential oils. If you’re using fake or adulterated oils (the stuff you find at most stores), then you’re probably not going to get that nice, fresh scent, so I recommend using only quality essential oils.

However, it’s not necessary to add essential oils if you really want to soften your laundry on a budget. The epsom salt alone with do the trick. The essential oils are just a great added benefit.

Best of all, you can literally make your own DIY Laundry Crystals in just two minutes. That’s all it takes to make your own natural fabric softener alternative using two simple ingredients.