Grandma's clothesline gave way to a gas dryer in the 60s

My grandmother used to hang all our laundry on a line out back until the mid 1960s. She got a gas dryer from Sears in 1965 and I remember her saying it cut her chore time in half. The sheets never smelled the same after that though, that sunshine smell was gone. Anyone else miss that scent from line drying?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lucas9d ago

Oh man, that sunshine smell is REAL. I actually read a study a while back that said that fresh outdoor scent from line drying comes from a chemical reaction between sunlight and the water molecules on the fabric. Something about UV light breaking down the water into these tiny particles that smell like ozone or something. Cool right? But yeah, my mom switched to a dryer in the 70s and I swear towels and sheets NEVER felt as crisp or smelled as clean after that.

ruby5619d ago

wait is that why my clothes smell like that weird almost metallic fresh air thing? @the_lucas i never connected the uv part but that makes sense. my grandma still line dries everything and i swear her towels actually feel rough and crispy in a good way, not like the soft scratchy you get from dryer sheets. i tried hanging my workout shirts out last summer and they came back so stiff i could stand them up on the floor. but the smell? unbeatable. totally worth the crunch factor.