What Happens If You Add A Dry Towel To A Dryer Full Of Wet Clothes?

Sometimes, it feels like the dryer takes an eternity to finish drying your wet laundry, but some claim that throwing a clean, dry towel in with the load is a dryer hack you'll wish you learned in school. Several cleaning blogs and even appliance brands say that adding a dry towel to your wet clothes will shave off drying time, making the endless chore of laundry a bit quicker. The idea is that the dry towel will soak up some of the water from your clothes, which helps them to dry faster. The bulk of the towel may also help to make sheets balling up in the dryer a thing of the past and separate clumped-together clothing to decrease drying time. While there is likely some merit to this laundry hack, it's not as simple as it seems and there may be some downsides.

For this trick to work properly, the towel must be removed from the dryer after approximately five to 15 minutes. The size of the load and what's inside the dryer will change how long the towel should stay in the dryer with your laundry. When the towel remains in the dryer for the whole cycle, the machine is still dealing with the same amount of moisture. If you tend to start the dryer, walk away, and forget about it, this probably isn't the hack for you.

Though some people online say adding a dry towel to their laundry cuts off 15 or more minutes of drying time, this likely won't be the case with every dryer or every load of laundry. Others claim that the towel hack only takes off a few minutes of drying time but requires you to pay more attention to your laundry. After the dry towel has been tumbling with wet laundry for a while, it'll start to absorb water and end up damp, leaving you with a wet towel to hang dry.

While removing it from the load partway through the cycle will take some of the moisture out and possibly speed up drying time, it's not a magic trick. Ron Shimek, president of Mr. Appliance, told Family Handyman, "[This method] might have a slight effect on drying time, but it's unlikely to be a significant reduction." Unfortunately, this method could also over-dry your towel and give it a rougher texture, so if you want to keep your towels soft and fluffy, you should avoid this laundry hack or use an old towel. While it may be worth it to experiment with this method and test if your clothes dry faster with a dry towel, it might not make enough of a difference for this hack to become a common practice in your home.