that fabric conditioner is VILE?

[BrazenlyDefying]

We are staying in a (very nice and modern) holiday let this week. No complaints apart from one. The entire house REEKS of fabric conditioner. The owners have obviously splashed out on nice white cotton bedding and thick, expensive towels, but it's all ruined by the stench. You get into bed and all you can smell is the chemical reek. You can't dry yourself with the chemical reeking towels because they're so "conditioned" that they slip all over you without actually absorbing anything.

Why do people do this? It doesn't smell clean, or laundered. It smells artificial and nasty. Just don't. At home we don't use conditioner at all, the water is soft and it's totally unnecessary. Laundry straight in off the line smells wonderfully fresh, the fab con stuff doesn't.

Should be banned!

Yes, haven't used fabric conditioner for years and we have hard water here.
I hate the strong smells. I even mix the ecover scented laundry liquid with ecover unscented eco liquid as it's too strong for me.

And I hate how being in someone else's house makes you smell of their laundry.

I think it's like salt, the more you use the more you need to add to be able to detect it.

The stuff that was used in laundry products to keep washing soft was removed some years back because it was harming the waterways.

It has now been replaced with a selection of foul smelling toxins. I see no point. They may as well put back the stuff that actually wasn't damaging the waterways after all but no-one wants to admit it.

Rubbish Iam aware of the miniscule pieces of mainly polyesters, in the water ways. I wash my clothes within cotton pillow cases to hopefully avoid this.

@ppeatfruit

Doubley My theory is it's so strong because a number people have lost their sense of smell due to smoking, drinking and or eating high sugar and salt foods.

hahahahahaaaa!!!

@dazzlinghaze

Some of the replies on here are so dramatic they've actually given me a good laugh!

Who knew fabric conditioner could stir up such hatred

YANBU - the stuff is unnecessary, stinks and is a waste of money. If clothes, bedding etc are washed properly they shouldn’t need fabric conditioner at all.

@Rainn21
How can freshly washed clothes with or without conditioner stink?
You’d kind incredibly over sensitive, you went to HR about someone’s clothes not smelling good??

@dazzlinghaze

Some of the replies on here are so dramatic they've actually given me a good laugh!

Some people like to feel morally superior by not using conditioner. There also seems to be a lot of posters with extremely sensitive skin and precious posters with an even more sensitive sense of smell.

@Bowerbird5

They might be laundered by a company. If you booked it through an agency instead of the owner they stipulate white bedding and white towels then they replace, collect, launder and replace.

But hotel style laundry/sheets never smell so noxious. They whack everything through an industrial sized machine and it never has this overpowering scent after.

I wouldn't say I have a particularly sensitive nose either. I am allergic to feathers, cats, hayfever. Couldn't bear any perfume at all when pregnant. But this is a whole other level of "scent".

Oh dear some posters don't like they're habits being criticised !!!!!! A little politeness doesn't cost anything.

@dazzlinghaze

Protip: if you think everyone's being dramatic, it's because you don't realise how much you stink.

It's the same arguments that are made by smokers, over and over again.

Smokers are so drenched in their own smell that they don't realise until they give up.

People who use perfumed products, ditto.

@SBTLove YES! I do have quite a sensitive nose and I’m sorry but if I have to sit in an office all day I should be able to do so without my stomach churning literally all day I just couldn’t take it anymore. I did think about having a quiet word and asking if they wouldn’t mind adding some fabric softener to their next wash to see if it made a difference but I didn’t want to sound like a drama queen.

I'm lucky, live in Scotland, so soft water area no limescale etc, use smol and find it great. Some folk aren't half getting themselves in a right lather ( see what I did there) about other peoples laundry habits though!

@Doubleyikes

Skyla Ive just looked in the cupboard and my neighbour’s is Lenor Gold Orchid. It reeks. I’m not sure what neighbour two flats down is but I’d say it’s even stronger than this one.

You went round to your neighbours to look at her fabric conditioner?

That is dedication to the thread

yanbu
too much is vile.
I use softener (ecover) only for our bedding as I luke the smell. but the scent is subtle.
anything else is just washed with powder and line dried.
towels washed with softener just are not absorbant and feel weird.

It is absolutely VILE stuff! The REEK is DISGUSTING! It smells like ANN WIDECOMBE’S SWEATY BALL SACK! I know a woman who had so much softener on her clothes she slid into the road and was killed. Serves her right for sticking up the place!

@draughtycatflap

All this hate for fabric conditioner I live in a hard water area and have been complimented on how clothing smells I do only put a tiny bit in tho

I lent someone a load of climbing and mountaineering kit once as she was going on an expedition and every single thing that was washable came back smelling so strongly of blue Lenor - had to wash them several times to get the smell out. I use about a teaspoon of Fairy conditioner and the towels go in the dryer with a couple of tennis balls.

Some people like to feel morally superior by not using conditioner

That's as stupidly bonkers as the thread about takeaway coffee drinkers being smug

Who knew that finding a smell revolting made one morally superior

@draughtycatflap I don’t see how Ann Widecombe is relevant to this and there is really no need to tear other people down in trying to make your point.

Yanbu Agree! I stayed in an Airbnb recently and the bedding reeked if it. Really disgusting. I've smelled it on other people's clothes etc and it's so strong and fake. I use a little un-scented sensitive conditioner on some of my wash but mostly it doesn't need it.

Yanbu OP, I hate the smell. Second hand clothes from eBay always arrive stinking of the stuff (don't get me wrong, i'd rather that than dirty). I use white vinegar - works great for us and we are in a hard water area.

I hate washing powder/ liquid/ gel/ tablets that have a strong smell that lasts after the washing is dry. I hate fabric conditioner for the same reason. That's why I only use fairy as it doesn't leave a lingering smell after use

I had itchy years after bathing all my life until I left home in my late 20s and was too tight to buy FC. Turned out it was due to fabric conditioner. I just never made the connection as I had had it all my life. When I think of all those years I dreaded post-shower itch, argh................ It didn't happen on holiday and I thought it was because I lived in a hard water London.