There’s nothing quite like the warm smell of fresh laundry. I grew up with that scent, and was taught early on that when doing a load you put the soap in the washer and the dryer sheet in the dryer—I simply couldn’t think about doing one without the other. But because of allergies and asthma in my household, I stopped using dryer sheets about a decade ago. And you know what? My clothes are just as soft. Now new research shows my laundry is safer, too, because of dryer sheet air pollution.