Bounce Sheets - Oh The Stench

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launderess

launderess

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Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage
As mentioned in a previous thread a new full box of Bounce FS sheets recently entered my stash. Problem is they are scented and their whiff is stinking up the place!

Box is closed and encased in *TWO* plastic bags, one of them a heavy Ziploc and still the scent is wafting through the house. This I cannot have so a solution must be found.

Thankfully weather this week has been cool and dry so windows are all open. Hate to think what it would be like if the place was closed up and AC running.

Methinks someone is going to get a *gift* of these things at upcoming Labour Day family events.
 
A Bad, Bad Memory

My first Maytag dryer (an A608) had been owned by a Bounce fiend.

The erm, "scent" was evident while the dryer was still out in the yard being manhandled by the guy delivering it; it hadn't even been in the house yet.

Once it was inside, it was like Perfume Hell. It was eye-watering in its intensity.

Investigation showed why El Stinko Grande was so intense - there was a heavy, grey, waxy, greasy buildup of the softening agent all over the inside of the drum and the inside of the door; it had to be removed with mineral spirits and straight ammonia. Once this was accomplished, the odorific odor abated only slightly, generating further investigation....

The lint filter had a largish hole in it, allowing sheets to blow through the hole and into the interior of the dryer. Why this beauty (well, it was Almond, but it was my first Maytag, so I was willing to make allowances) had not caught fire is beyond me. On top of that, the lint buildup was also holding the "scent," and trust me, there was plenty of it.

A great deal of careful cleaning later, I got the stink down to a level that no longer made me wonder if I should call the Environmental Protection Agency, but I was in for a surprise....

As long as I owned that dryer, it was still a bit whiffy with Bounce - the smell never went completely away. Nothing I tried ever killed it; nothing I ever tried even impacted on it all that much.

Launderess, you need to get those things out of your home before Eau de Bounce forces you to move!
 
From what one has read all fabric softeners are to some extent bad for automatic clothes dryers. Both liquid, bar and sheet contain waxes and oils that are deposited on internal dryer surfaces including sensors as treated loads are dried.

I've seen persons put two, three, or more FS sheets into Laundromat dryers. It is no wonder all interiors are badly discoloured and so much maintenance.
 
I Don't See....

....Buildup from my own use of a liquid softener. I have a pair of Maytag 806's, and I use Sun's Cuddle Soft "Mountain Breeze" formulation, the least odorific softener I can find.

The trick, I find, is paying attention to the dosing instructions and not using too much. I use the softener dispenser cup on the washer, keeping it clean, and I end up with neither overly heady laundry nor dryer-drum buildup.

An 806 dryer is a fully automatic-shutoff machine, with sensors, and I would not want to have softener-related issues with it. And I haven't so far, knock wood.
 
Smelly Bounce

Laundress: Google "Smelly Bag" you will find plastic bags that will not let anything out.
 
We once had a box of the UK version of Persil Bio powder. Same thing. It stunk up the house so bad our eyes were watering. We put it out in the garage for a few months to let it "cool down". The garage even reeked of it for months.

But after about 6 months the odor was a lot less intrusive so we used it and were very happy with the results. Must have been a real fresh batch.
 
Dear

Is it possible that the person that left them there, found them to be too overly scented, maybe just set them out, as to not waste, and for someone to come along that wouldn't mind them over scented?
 
Ariel (P&G's premium detergent in this part of the world) went through a phase of being super-whiffy too. It seems to be toned down a bit again, however it was really strongly scented for a while.

Ariel's scent is a little hard to describe. It's not floral and it's not pine. It's just "ariel".

Persil (Unilever) also has quite a pungent and distinctive scent which tends to last for a long time.

In the past, Persil had very little scent, or at least a mild scent, but that was replaced by the current version which is a lot stronger.

I quite like the scent of Persil's Small and Mighty liquids. They're again, not a floral scent, but just a detergent scent.

Bounce or Lenor Dryer Sheets as they're now branded over here, are pretty strong smelling.

We've a Bosch heatpump dryer, so they won't be going anywhere near it though. I don't think wax build up in the heat-pump components would be particularly good for the machine.

Bounce definitely used to be more popular here when I was a kid. I distinctly remember the scent of it wafting around from neighbour's dryer exhaust vents when I was a kid.

You have to remember that these products are designed to leave lingering scents too, so they're very hard to get rid of.

The only detergents around here that seem to leave no trace of a lingering scent are SureCare (which is deliberately scent free) or some of the ecological ones like Ecover which will just leave a very slight lingering trace of some kind of essential oil that disappears after a short time.
 
While waiting for my SQ to be repaired I am using a laundromat. And I have been amazed at what I see people doing and using. The place has 30 lb Maytag front loaders which actually wash fairly well - average cycle time for "whites" is 45 minutes and wonder of wonders, that setting actually provides a hot wash. I have used several laundromats over the years where the "hot" wash is merely warm at best.
Anyway, 30 lbs or not, yesterday was the one that nearly did me in. Someone came in with a huge duffel bag, literally stuffed the machine to the point where the door would almost not close and proceeded to add 5 scoops of regular Gain powder to the pre wash cycle and then another 5 as the main wash began. The clothes were packed so tightly that even once everything got wet, nothing could move. And of course she chose a cold water wash for her enormous mixed load - whites (some of the dingiest I have ever seen), colors, towels, jeans, athletic clothes. That is probably the reason there wasn't a fountain of suds coming out of the top of the machine. We get to the final rinse and almost half a bottle of Gain fabric softener was poured in the dispenser as the water was entering the machine. But wait, we are not through. Now it is time to dry, and what happened? You guessed it, two Gain dryer sheets were added to each load. I almost said something but decided most laundry advice is not welcomed. The smell of Gain was heavy in the air to say the least. Are people really that disinterested in how their clothes look?
 
Stench

I agree, Launderess and Danemodsandy, about the stench from 'Bounce'. My former partner used it in my English Electric dryer, which unfortunately is too fragile to dismantle and clean, and so sits with the door shut to contain the stink, as it is no longer my 'daily drive'.

I used to cut the sheets into quarters for her (a quarter sheet is more than enough - even if you do like that sort of thing!!) in order to limit the stench on clothes, and hopefully damage to a classic machine.

Only time will tell.....

All best

Dave T
 
Bounce

I actually used to really like the scent of original bounce, when it used to come on a roll, ofcourse back then I didn't know about the problems it could cause in the dryer, and probably wouldn't have used it if I did! Can't remember the last time I used the dryer though anyway, so it wouldn't really be worth my while buying them anymore!

 

No one really seems to use it these days over here, mind you, liquid softner scents have become so overpowering and long lasting that there really is no point!

 

As for Persil Bio powder, I wouldn't have said it had a particularly strong scent, just leaves a mild fresh scent after washing I find.

 

Matt
 
I too liked the scent

and it was really nice on a winters day to smell the dryer all warm and scented now I have trouble finding bounce sheets we seem to have " Lenor " ones instead but no where near as nice as original bounce.
Ah well no good to me any more as heat pump dryers do not get hot enough to make the scent for the clothes so mine are in the back of the cupboard waiting to be gifted.

Austin
 
Waved bye-bye to fabric softeners with the acquisition of the 2010 Frigidaire front-loading pair. Don't miss the stuff at all, and as is often the case with former smokers, wondered why I'd used it for all those years. No build-up in washer, dryer, or fabrics.

frigilux++8-17-2013-07-09-17.jpg
 
Frigilux:

"Don't miss the stuff at all"

Did you grow up with softener being used on your clothes, by any chance?

I did not - Mom was too, erm, "thrifty" to use it. I vastly preferred the feel of my clothes when they'd been washed at my paternal grandmother's.

Once, I worked up my courage to suggest that since my clothes felt and smelled so nice when back from my grandmother's, that our family might also possibly benefit from the use of softener.

I was basically told it was "sissy" to have any desire whatsoever for towels that could not be used to grate Parmesan cheese.

Later, of course, Mom discovered Bounce, and started a love affair with softener. Her main objection seems to have been that she would have had to put liquid softener in at the right time, and she was notoriously absent-minded about that sort of thing.

Much simpler to warp your kids than to say you weren't so hot at remembering stuff like that.
 

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