My old washer just let the smoke out of the control board in the middle of a load of laundry the other day but luckily I had my moms old washing machine (still newer than mine was) laying around to hook up instead. Except now I realized that my mom aparently loves fabric softner and every compartment on the thing needed a waxy fabric softner buildup scrubbed out of it.
I can’t exactly complain about a free appliance but damn do I hate fabric softner. It makes my fabrics water repelant and it gums up washers. Awful stuff.
Folks have already explained that the fabric softener compartment gets added at the rinse cycle and is where vinegar should be added, but I wanted to add that if you’d like to remove fabric softener from your clothes or other fabric items, vinegar does a wonderful job and will make things absorbent again :)
Its great for microfibers, or towels ☺️