Vinegar is an acid so it will soften the fibers. Too much will damage fabric. Remember "acid washed" jeans? I wonder if vinegar was used to soften the denim. Vinegar can power through various substances by breaking things down, so be careful to use sparingly.

Reminds me of when we cleared out my mother in law’s house after she passed away. She was a lover of a popular liquid fabric softener and used it liberally. I took home her fluffy bath towels and quickly discovered they wouldn’t absorb even a teaspoon of water! It took me 12 months to get all that softener gunk out of them before they were useable. I used white vinegar, over and over and over.

Liquid softener products contain oily or waxy fabric lubricants. Vinegar does not. Detergents are alkaline, vinegar is acidic. Vinegar can function as a laundry sour and counteracts detergent alkalinity toward a more neutral pH, and can reduce fabric harshness that may occur from residual detergent alkalinity but it does not lubricate fabric fibers as does softener.

I keep a half gallon of 50/50 vinegar and water for use in the dispenser. My repair guy suggested this years ago when I had a front loader. I use it in a SQ top loader now.

Thanks for all the inputs. My wife never uses FS on towels, just our clothes. We're going to try vinegar out, at the very least I see no reason that we couldn't alternate between that blue commercial stuff and vinegar.

For the past two weeks, I've been putting white vinegar into the FS dispenser. One thing I notice is the lack of linty residue on the glass inside the door.

I’ve used white vinegar for years. It does soften the fabrics some, but won’t help with winter static. I use it anyway.

Yes and No. It never will be a full fabric softener replacement. BUT, I have been using 9 Elements Purifying Softener for a while now, and I can tell you that it does make a difference in hard water conditions. Loads that I do not use fabric softener on definitely feel much better.