Wool Dryer Balls: How to Make Them and Whether They Work

A wool dryer ball is a hard felted ball of wool, about the size of a tennis ball, that you throw in the tumble dryer. Six of them replace fabric softener, cut drying time and last for years. They are also the most useful thing a beginner can make, because the technique is exactly making felt balls at a larger scale.

How they work

Two mechanisms, both mechanical.

• Separation. Wet laundry clumps into a mass that warm air cannot get through. The balls bounce between the layers and keep them apart, so drying is faster and more even.
• Softening by beating. They pummel the fabric as it tumbles, breaking up the stiffness that makes air-dried laundry feel like cardboard. This is what fabric softener does chemically.

Wool is the right material because it is heavy enough to move laundry, soft enough not to damage it, and absorbs a little moisture rather than adding heat.

Making them

What you need

• Undyed core wool or wool roving — about 60 g per ball, so 400 g makes six
• A pair of old tights or a leg cut from them
• String or elastic bands
• A washing machine and a tumble dryer

Use untreated wool. Superwash will simply come apart in the machine. Cheap coarse core wool is ideal — nobody sees it and coarse wool felts hardest.

Method

1. Wind a tight ball. Start by wrapping wool around two fingers a dozen times, slide it off, then wind around that in every direction, keeping the tension high. Build to about 8 cm — larger than a tennis ball, because it will shrink.
2. Tuck the end in with a crochet hook or your fingers so it cannot unravel.
3. Bag them. Push each ball into the toe of the tights and tie a knot behind it, then add the next. You end up with a string of separated balls.
4. Wash hot. 60 °C, longest cycle, a little detergent, and a couple of towels or jeans for abrasion.
5. Tumble dry hot in the tights.
6. Check. Cut one free — it should be hard, with no visible strands and no give under thumb pressure. If it is soft, put it back and repeat the whole cycle.
7. Repeat if needed. Two cycles is normal, three is not unusual.

A hand-rolled version works too — hot soapy water and fifteen minutes of rolling per ball — but at this size the machine does a harder, more even job for no effort.

Using them

• Three balls for a small load, six for a normal one, nine for bulky bedding.
• Leave them in the drum permanently. There is no reason to take them out.
• They can go in with everything, including towels, bedding and delicates.
• Expect roughly 10 to 25% less drying time. Bulky loads benefit most.

Honest limitations

• They are not silent. Six wool balls in a metal drum make a noise. It is a dull thudding rather than a rattle, but it is not nothing.
• They do not remove pet hair. They agitate it loose so more reaches the lint filter, which helps a little. Nothing more.
• They shed slightly for the first few loads. Wool fluff on dark clothes, briefly.
• Static can get worse if you over-dry, particularly with synthetics.

Static

Over-drying is the cause. Take the load out while very slightly damp and the problem disappears. If it persists, push a large safety pin into each ball — the metal discharges static build-up, and it is a genuinely effective trick.

Scent

Essential oils on dryer balls work, with caveats about quantity, timing and flammability that are worth reading before you start: see wool dryer balls and essential oils.

Maintenance

They need almost none. If they start looking grubby, run them through a hot wash on their own — it cleans and refelts them at the same time. If one begins to unravel, wind a fresh layer of wool over it and run it through the felting cycle again.

Expect around 1,000 loads. They will look progressively fuzzier and work identically.

Making them as a gift

A set of six in graded natural colours, in a paper bag or a small box with instructions, is a good present — useful, handmade, and it costs the price of half a kilo of core wool. Dyed wool works but colours can transfer slightly on the first few loads, so felt a plain core and wrap a coloured surface layer over it, then run an extra cycle.

How they compare with the alternative is covered in wool dryer balls vs dryer sheets.