Essential oils are great cleaners and room-refershers. But sometimes you can get oil on clothing or a towel, which you want to run through the dryer. Is that dangerous?
Are essential oils flammable in the dryer? Should you be worried about drying materials with oil on them?
- Essential oils can catch fire inside dryers if the heat exceeds the flashpoint rate
- You should be careful when drying oil-soaked rags and clothing.
We’ll explain it below.
Essential Oils and Laundry
Essential oils remain one of nature’s greatest gifts to humankind, and many uses have been found for them.
Today, there are essential oils for cleaning, calming the senses, improving the air profile of homes, soothing aches and pains, and more. They are super useful, and we love them!
But they are oil, and oils can burn!
This has become important because it is becoming a common practice for people to add a few drops of essential oils to their laundry in order to give their clothes a nice smell.
Besides diffusing these oils with carrier oils, some users add them to laundry. The scent of the oil will really freshen their clothes in a wonderful way.
The use of essential oils in the dryer using dryer balls or any other method is understandable. But, is it a wise thing to add essential oils to clothes in the dryer?
Maybe not.
Are Essential Oils Flammable In The Dryer?
Essential oils are indeed flammable in dryers, even if you use dryer balls. You only need to go online to watch video evidence of them catching fire inside a dryer laundry basket once the heat reaches a certain degree.
This is because oils are flammable by nature.
Putting a few drops in your dryer may seem like a harmless thing to do. It will make your clothes smell nice.
But on the flip side, oils tend to cause a fire hazard once they cross a flashpoint. For even the best essential oils, their flash point is close to 90 degrees, which is not that hot!
But on the flip side, oils tend to cause a fire hazard once they cross a flashpoint. For even the best essential oils, their flash point is close to 90 degrees, which is not that hot!
The risk remains if you add clothes that can be in contact with essential oils in your dryer. Under intense heat, the oil deposits in the fabric may interact with detergent. Washing your clothes after applying essential oils at a hot temperature can cause an adverse reaction that will ruin the clothes.
But if you do so at low temperatures, the oil may not react as much or at all. But even this is a risk because you probably don’t have a great sense of what the temperature of your dryer is, even on cool.
Then some don’t even know that it is a flammable material and continue to use it at any temperature regardless. People who do are actually at risk of causing a fire in their homes.
Adding more essential oils to your clothes may lead to a buildup of compounds that may result in a fire in the future.
Adding Essential Oils To Woolen Balls And Dryer
Sheets
Another practice is that of people adding a few drops to their dryer sheets or woolen dryer balls before washing.
This practice is as dangerous as adding oil to clothes.
The best call is not to use essential oil in your dryer at all due to the risk of a fire outbreak. Adding a few drops to make your clothes smell nice is not worth the risk, in our opinion.
The best call is not to use essential oil in your dryer at all due to the risk of a fire outbreak. Adding a few drops to make your clothes smell nice is not worth the risk, in our opinion.
But what about fragrance oils? Can you use fragrance oils in place of essential oils?
You shouldn’t use them either, as they may also be flammable in the dryer.
The Flashpoint and What It Means
Throughout this article, we have talked about Flashpoint and how the closer the heat in the dryer gets to the flashpoint, the higher the danger.
But what does flashpoint mean?
Flashpoint is the lowest level of temperature a substance must reach to become flammable. When using any substance with flammable materials or compounds, it is important to know the flashpoint, so you don’t cause it to ignite!
When you add essential oils to your clothes inside your dryer, as the dryer heats your clothes, brings them closer to the flashpoint.
This can set the clothes on fire, and if care is not taken to check the fire, it can spread to other parts of the house.
Essential Oil Flashpoint
All essential oils have flashpoints, but they differ by material. Some manufacturers provide this on the bottles or on the marketing information, but not all do.
The average essential oil has a flashpoint below the 100 degrees Celsius mark. They are highly flammable. This is why they are stored in glass, not plastic bottles.
Also, you will notice that they evaporate and spread when exposed to direct heat. This goes to show that they are very volatile substances.
For your safety and everyone around you, check the flashpoint of any essential oil you want to use beforehand and take safe steps to handle them accordingly.
For your safety and everyone around you, check the flashpoint of any essential oil you want to use beforehand and take safe steps to handle them accordingly.
How To Use Essential Oils For Laundry
Despite the risks, you can still use essential oils for your laundry. The safest way to do it is to add a few drops to the water in the washing machine. Adding the clothes afterward for washing will leave the fabric with the faint scent of the oil.
This practice is much safer than adding oil to the dryer.
Conclusion
Are essential oils flammable in the dryer? Yes, they are. You should not add them to your clothes in the dryer. You risk starting a fire.
Instead of doing that, you can add a few drops into the water you wash the clothes with to cause the fabric to smell nice.
