I did 100 loads of laundry and found the 10 best fabric conditioners

Ecover gardenia and vanilla fabric conditioner is the best fabric conditioner you can buy. I knew I was in for a treat from the second I opened the bottle.

Gentle, fluffy florals of gardenia and warm vanilla created a fresh and comforting fragrance. Unlike other overpowered, pungent synthetic perfumes, I found this delicate scent lingered lightly on clothing without being overwhelming.

But what really made this conditioner unique was its ability to soften. Clothes and sheets emerged from the wash feeling smooth and clean. There was no sticky or heavy residue left behind, unlike other fabric conditioners.

It was especially impressive on shirts and blouses; it reduced static and made them much easier to iron, saving hours of work across the 10 loads of laundry we tested. A further bonus is its eco credentials – Ecover uses biodegradable ingredients and the bottle is made from recycled plastic.

However, this fabric conditioner won’t work on silk, so be careful with silk sheets or dressing gowns. While more eco-friendly than some brands, it uses cationic surfactants that have been known to harm marine life. It’s also one of the more expensive fabric conditioners on the market, so it may not work if you’re on a budget.

I didn’t have high hopes for Morrisons own brand fabric conditioner. The garish yellow packaging screamed “budget” rather than “luxury”, so I wasn’t sure if it would perform as well as the pricier conditioners I tested.

However, I found that I’d massively underestimated it. My tests across multiple washes found that this fabric conditioner effectively reduced static and wrinkles. This not only made ironing easier but it even meant there were times I didn’t need to iron at all. It’s an exceptional performance for little more than £1.

However, the scent is a bold, floral fragrance with a synthetic undertone that many will find too pungent. While I found it pleasant and liked that it lingers on clothes for a decent amount of time, it doesn’t have the natural botanical aroma I found in more premium or eco-friendly options.

If eco-credentials are a top priority, you may want to look elsewhere. The ingredients list contains cationic surfactants that can build up in the environment and harm marine life. But for an effective, affordable fabric softener that delivers on reducing ironing time, it’s a solid choice.

If you struggle with sleep, you might have tried fragranced pillow sprays and room diffusers in a bid to calm your mind and body. The Lab Co relaxing fabric conditioner takes this up another level by leaving an utterly blissful blend of lavender and jasmine on laundry.

I found that the scent lasted almost a week on my sheets, making bedtime a real treat. Cocooning ourselves in this sleep-inducing scent meant I consistently drifted off within a couple of minutes of my face hitting the pillow.

While it worked on clothes, I was particularly impressed at how soft this fabric conditioner left my sheets and duvet covers, further adding to the soporific effect. It’s also eco-friendly – this conditioner has a plant-based, biodegradable formula.

However, the list price at the time of writing is £9 for a litre. This means a bottle works out at 23p per wash, four times more expensive than the Morrisons conditioner above. It’s a high-quality fabric conditioner, but it might be a treat for washing bedding rather than a daily laundry liquid.

In an era where you can’t get a cup of coffee for £3, I was impressed that the Smol starter pack came with enough fabric conditioner to last 62 washes and a refillable bottle. Smol claims the conditioner is designed to be kind to the planet, using fewer chemicals than traditional conditioners, while the packaging is 100 per cent recyclable. While the conditioner certainly uses lots of chemicals (the company lists more than any we’ve tested), it does not use animal products or cationic surfactants that can harm marine life).

However, that £3 fee is only to get you started. Smol is only available via subscription on its website, so you’ll need to commit to regular deliveries. This comes at a cost of £11.50 for two refills, which last 124 washes, working out at around 9p a wash. It’s not a bad price, and we found the flexibility to pause or adjust the subscription easy enough to manage. The brand sent an email before a shipment was due and we could pause it if we weren't running low.

There are three fragrance options, including a fresh outdoorsy scent, a floral fragrance and vanilla. The outdoorsy scent of apple, orange blossom and jasmine was pleasant but a little weak. I found that I had to use more conditioner in the machine for a longer-lasting effect on my laundry.

British brand Wilton London is all about natural scents. Founders Sam Higham and Mike Perry started making their own cleaning products at home because they didn't like the smell of other products. I was impressed with the summery jasmine scent, which I thought smelled a little like Michael Kors glam jasmine eau de parfum (£43.50, Thefragranceshop.co.uk).

More important than scent, however, is colour. Wilton London claims that this fabric conditioner protects colours and I found that it kept my brighter fabrics striking and made whites a little more vibrant than other fabric conditioners.

Sustainability is a big win here, too. The brand is a certified B-Corp, which is hard to achieve and only awarded to businesses that meet high standards for social and environmental performance. Everything is manufactured in the UK and the brand claims to be carbon neutral.

I loved opening the laundry machine drum door after a spin with this Method fabric conditioner. With a rich, tropical coconut fragrance, it instantly transported us to a sun-soaked holiday. Unlike some artificial coconut scents, this one felt fresh and natural and cheered me up when it was grey and cold outside.

In addition to its inviting scent, this fabric conditioner impressed in a few other areas, too. It made clothes feel noticeably soft and smooth, giving fabrics a fresh, just-washed feel. It also performed well on all kinds of materials, from everyday cotton to delicate fabrics, helping to fight static and make ironing easier.

One thing that makes Method’s range unique is that its fabric conditioners and detergents work well when mixed and matched. Unlike other brands where competing scents can clash, I found that I could make my own bespoke laundry scent. I paired the coconut conditioner with Method’s peony blush detergent and it felt like summer in Ibiza.

However, while it did well across the board, I noticed the softness didn’t last quite as long on heavier fabrics like towels and king-size duvets. I also found that the bottle is a little bulky, so it’s not the easiest to store.

Kit & Kin aims to create products designed for babies and children’s sensitive skin. Its unscented fabric conditioner stands out in a market where nostrils are bombarded with powerful synthetic fragrances.

My tests found that Kit & Kin’s fabric conditioner is a solid option for anyone with a sensitive sense of smell – it’s also accredited by Allergy UK, so it’s a good choice for those with sensitive skin.

While there’s no smell to test, I was impressed by how this conditioner left clothes softer without any stickiness. Refill pouches were easy to squish into a packed cleaning cupboard and I imagine they’d be easy to use for elderly people or anyone who struggles to lift a heavy bottle of fabric conditioner. When I was done with a pouch, I returned it free of charge to Kit & Kin so it could be recycled.

However, it’s not the best value. At the time of writing, 1l costs £4.99, which puts it at around average for a fabric conditioner, but it only lasts 33 washes, which is much lower than the competition, especially Ecover.

The name Daylesford instantly conjures up premium spas, so I had high hopes for this fabric conditioner. While it didn’t quite transform me (a frazzled mum of four who lives in jeans) into a serene earth mother brave enough to wear white, it did take the edge off our stress levels with its luxury lavender scent. I also enjoyed looking at the classy bottle on my shelf, with its minimalist design and sleek screw cap.

Lavender-scented fabric conditioners are everywhere, but I found that Daylesford’s smelt better than the rest. The fragrance is made with lavender oil, so it smells like a real lavender plant rather than a synthetic imitation. Like The Lab Co’s relaxing fabric conditioner, we found that our children consistently slept well when I added a dose of this to a wash of their bedding and pyjamas.

However, like Kit & Kin’s unscented fabric conditioner, I found that this conditioner has a very low yield. You get just 28 washes per bottle, the lowest yield I tested. The screw cap can’t be recycled, either, so this isn’t as eco-friendly as the other fabric conditioners I tried.

Products catering to people with sensitive skin tend to sell at a premium price point, so it was refreshing to find that M&S had an option for just £3.50. One bottle yields 50 loads, so it works out at just 7p per wash. This makes it one of the most affordable options we tested.

One of the most surprising benefits is that this conditioner works well at low temperatures. It was excellent at softening clothes on low-temperature washes, which other conditioners found harder to achieve.

Like Kit & Kin’s sensitive fabric conditioner, this product is approved by Allergy UK. I didn’t have any issues with my skin or my family’s while testing it. However, it’s thick and hard to pour, so it’s surprisingly hard to use.

Most laundry experts advise against using traditional fabric softener on towels. This is because the ingredients used for softening can create a waxy coating on the towels’ fibres and make them less effective at soaking up water.

However, Lakeland claims to have developed a solution to this problem with a fabric conditioner designed just for towels. The solution doesn't contain anything in it to make fabrics water-repellent, so your towels should dry you off effectively.

While I wasn’t testing it for long enough to be able to compare long-term effects on towel absorbency, I found that it left towels softer and fluffier. When I dry towels on the radiator or heated clothes airer, they can become very stiff. A dose of this in the laundry significantly reduced that crunchy feeling, giving an outdoor line-dried feel. I approved of the gentle lavender scent, even if it felt a tiny bit more synthetic than other scents I tested.

However, this conditioner also has the worst yield of any of the fabric conditioners I tested: 1l only washes 25 loads. The brand does not list if this product has been tested on animals, so vegans may want to steer clear to keep on the safe side.