A laundry ball has the potential to be a real game changer when it comes to your laundry routine.
Instead of buying detergent on a regular basis, all you’ll need is a single laundry ball that could be somewhere between 50 and 1,000 washes, depending on the brand.
What Does a Laundry Ball Look Like?
Laundry balls can come in various shapes and sizes, including disks, spheres, eggs, and doughnuts.
A laundry ball will generally be composed of plastic or rubber on the outside and then will have a number of bio-ceramic balls inside that contain minerals and magnets.
Manufacturers often claim that these balls have properties that help tackle microbes and remove chlorine.
How Do Laundry Balls Work?
These balls are designed to replace the use of laundry detergent in your wash cycle. They move around in the water alongside your clothes and increase the pH levels of the water, which helps to eradicate dirt, germs, and bacteria from your clothes.
In addition, they work to reduce the negative ions in the water, thus creating a natural effect similar to that of hydrogen peroxide.
They can be used in any cycle setting, although they are most efficient on a cold cycle as a very hot cycle could cause the plastic to melt.
Some laundry balls like Ecozone Ecoballs even come with the option to refill them with detergent or washing pellets when their original detergent begins to run low, but be sure to take note that bleach should never be mixed with or used alongside these balls.
If you find that the laundry ball is not as effective as you had hoped on its own, there is potentially an easy fix.
Adding bicarbonate of soda to the drum of your machine alongside the laundry ball will give the entire cycle the extra kick that it needs to ensure your clothes come out bright and clean.
This is particularly helpful if you live in a hard water area where it is often more challenging to easily and successfully keep your garments clean. This is because hard water means that the water in your machine doesn’t foam as easily when you add soap to it.
Why Use a Laundry Ball Instead of Regular Detergent?
If you are aiming toward a more environmentally friendly household, then laundry balls are highly recommended as a way to reduce the amount of detergent you use, as well as the packaging that detergent will come in every time you buy it.
It is likely that laundry balls are somewhat less effective than a detergent would be as you cannot alter the amount that is added to the machine with each cycle.
Laundry balls are also the most cost-effective option when it comes to laundry as they last much longer than regular detergent and the actual ball is often not too expensive to buy.
Conclusion
If you have been looking for an eco-friendly alternative to laundry detergent, then introducing laundry balls into your household could reduce your carbon footprint while simultaneously bringing down costs.
Laundry balls are convenient, incredibly easy to use, and last up to a thousand washes.
However, they are quite controversial, as manufacturers have made misleading claims about their seemingly magical properties in the past. Many users find that they aren’t particularly effective, and don’t clean clothes as well as regular laundry detergent.
An adventurous book lover with an animal obsession and a proclivity for travel and spontaneity. Used to passionately despise cleaning but has grown to enjoy it thanks to learning all the best tricks and shortcuts to guaranteeing a stress-free routine and a spotless home.
