How to Remove Static from a Blanket: Step by Step

While minding your own business, you’ve picked up a random blanket and have been rudely jolted by an electric shock. Well, not as bad as sticking your finger into an outlet or touching exposed live wires, but startling all the same. While it’s been an ongoing issue, it’s now come to mind that you can benefit from learning how to remove static from a blanket.

There are scientific and unorthodox methods that will help you rid of static from your blanket. Some solutions will involve modifying your laundering practices, while others deal with the environment within your house. Certain products act as shock absorbers, scooping up the electric charge from your bedding.  

When dry air comes together with your blanket, a sea of static electricity, also known as St. Elmo’s fire, can get generated. But there are simple solutions to combat the little stinging shocks and keep discomfort at bay for good. Here’s how you can remove static from the blanket and make sure it doesn’t come back.

What’s Static, and Why Does It Prefer My Beddings or Blanket?

Static isn’t particularly dangerous unless it ignites something highly flammable. But it’s a nuisance, especially when your blankets give out a repeated staccato of shocks. It’s a result of electric charge accumulation on your blanket’s surface, a situation exacerbated by dry air and cold temperatures.

Ions or charged particles of ordinary matter contain positive protons, negative electrons, and neutral neutrons. Electrons are easily displaced by friction, such as rubbing your hands or hair on a cold day. That means your body becomes positively charged, creating an imbalance that nature abhors, which corrects itself in the discharge that produces a spark and shock.

When you rub wet feet on the carpet, friction serves to attract charged electrons that distribute all over your body. If you touch a ground-isolated object that’s oppositely charged, like another person, electrons find a way of escape, discharging in the form of a tiny lightning jolt.

You can’t altogether remove the static charge, but there are ways to dissipate and lessen the impact of shock discharge. Your blanket, which the positive ions have naturally settled on due to dry air and low temperatures, becomes the recipient of your body’s electrons. That’s what you feel like a sharp jolt.

How Can I Remove Static from Blankets and Beddings?

There are materials such as fleece in many blankets that are especially prone to static buildup. That’s the reason you get a shock every time you’ve been walking on a carpet, and you reach for a doorknob. Your hair becomes frizzy, or your clothes stick together while it’s a literal pain when everywhere on your blanket.

Static becomes more bothersome when the air is dry, and the weather is cold, particularly in wintertime. The overall method that can get rid of this electrical charge in your house is introducing moisture. Most often, however, it’s in the electric dryer that blankets collect charges, but there are additives to your wash that can counter this.

Besides that, other techniques that offer lasting solutions to removing St. Elmo’s fire from your blanket include;

Rolling Blanket with Dryer Sheets to Restrict Static

The main ingredient in dryer sheets reduces the buildup in fabrics that are prone to static. That includes your woolen or fleece blanket. It also makes your blankets feel soft and smell nice, but you can use it out of the wash to get rid of electrical discharge in your bedding. If you’re allergic to certain laundry detergents, ensure you’ve read the packaging label before using the product.

Take several dryer sheets and wrap them around a cylindrical item such as a rolling pin or paper towel’s dinner roll. You can use rubber bands to secure each sheet before running through your blanket like a lint remover. You’ll essentially pick up all the positively charged protons from your blanket, balancing the surface ecosystem such that it won’t discharge static.

Washing Blanket with Vinegar and Baking Soda

These kitchen essentials are also active combatants of static on your blanket. Baking powder, also called Bicarbonate of soda, is a natural cleaner. It not only removes strong scents and stains, but you can use this condiment as part of your wash to reduce static. Once you put your blankets in the dryer, positive ions won’t be able to attach themselves to the fabric.

Put white vinegar in the rinse cycle also does the same trick. Your blanket will become static resistant despite the dryer’s hot air and zero moisture. However, it would be best never to use the two natural ingredients together, as it can trigger a highly volatile reaction.

Absorbing Shock with Aluminum Foil and Wet Towels

If the only way you can dry your blanket after washing is by a dryer, you can these tried and tested tips, however unorthodox they may appear. To remove static from blankets, use either rolled-up aluminum foil balls or throw in a couple of wet towels.

Crump aluminum sheets that you wrap your grilled ribs with into balls. Toss these into the dryer with your blanket. Do this is during the last 20 minutes of drying. You can also throw in wet towels during this final phase of the dry cycle, which lowers the static level on the blanket’s fabric material.

Adding Moisture with Plants and Pebbles

Moisture in the air will lessen static from your blanket. One of the most efficient ways to approach this is with a humidifier. Other than that, you can use a bowl of hot water with pebbles inside to raise humidity levels next to your bed. House plants such as climbers add water vapor to your house from their respiration.

It would help if you also moisturized yourself, seeing that it’s your body that’s collecting electrons from dry air. Apply lotion on your skin, especially on your hands and body, before stepping into your bed or handling your blanket.

Conclusion

One timeless way to remove static from your blanket is by air drying outside in the sunshine. It’s electric drying that leaves clothes rubbing together to create friction charges that promote static shocks. If that’s not possible, neutralize your blankets using shock absorbers like rolling a wireframe hanger across the surface.

A light hair spray will make your blanket’s fibers stiff, eliminating static. You can also collect charges from your blanket with a thimble, safety pin, or a damp washcloth that works like the dryer sheets.