system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How do dryer sheets work and how do they control static?
gpt
"Static," otherwise known as contact charging, happens when two different materials touch each other.  Wool on nylon, the nylon ends up negative, and the wool ends up equally positive.  This works best when all of the water has been baked out of the materials.  (Dampness is conductive, and it can short out the opposite charges as fast as they can be separated.)

Now suppose both of those materials are coated with oil?  It doesn't take much, just a molecules-thin layer.   Oil is now touching oil, not nylon touching wool.   No more contact-charging effect.   The oily dryer sheets can halt the buildup of high voltage.   But if it was already there, then the oil does nothing.

Trivia:  science teachers have to learn to never use WD40 spray lube on their classroom VandeGraaff electrostatic generators.   If just the tiniest, most microscopic bit should get on the belt and rollers, the whole thing stops working.  A "VDG" needs the nylon or the felt rollers to be touching the rubber belt, with no molecule-thin oil layers getting in the way.  Fortunately WD40 is actually a solvent, so given enough days will entirely dry up.   If non-WD40 oil such as greasy fingerprints should ever get on the belt/rollers, the whole thing has to be opened up and scrubbed well with flowing alcohol.