Cloth Diapering Laundry

[shawnandangel]

My husband and I decided we wanted to cloth diaper, and after researching decided on bumgenius AIO 3.0. The website we bought them from recommends that we use certain detergents. I was wondering if any of you had any experiences with the following detergents:


http://www.cottonbabies.com/clothdiaperdetergents.pdf

All Free and Clear
Allen's Naturally
Country Save
Mountain Green
Planet Ultra Liquid

Note: we want to use a liquid detergent

I am especially interested in Allen's Naturally. It seems to have good reviews on the website for these particular diapers. However, it is also the most expensive :32: at $20 for 32 oz (or $51.95 for a gallon)

Now comparing this to Planet Ultra Liquid which is $9.79 for 50oz, I wonder what the difference can actually be for baby laundry detergents! I want to use a good detergent on my diapers! Please help

[LBW]

The key with cloth diapers is getting all of the soap and additive residue OUT after each wash. So, you need to use as little detergent as possible, and rinse like crazy! I personally use Charlie's Soap. My routine is to prerinse the dipes without detergent. Then I run a super hot wash cycle with about a tablespoon of detergent and an extra added rinse at the end.

Of the detergents you listed, can you get a small sample of the cheapest one? See if that works for you. If it does, great! If not, move on to the next one. A detergent can work really well for someone and terribly for another person - the hardness of your water, for instance, is one thing that will really influence how well your detergent works.

Good luck!

[calv]

if i remember correctly the mamas on diaper swapper who are very knowledgable swear by plain tide. I think powder over liquid. Just like the PP said, an extra rinse is a must and some (very few) kids might have a reaction to tide.

[kimberley-k]

I tried Mountain Green and wasn't satisfied with how clean my diapers got, and it didn't work very well for pre-treating stains on baby clothes either.

Are you military? Because only the military version of All F&C is acceptable for cloth diapers. The supermarket version will ruin them!

I preferred liquid too, but ended up trying Charlie's Soap and love it!!!

-Kim



My husband and I decided we wanted to cloth diaper, and after researching decided on bumgenius AIO 3.0. The website we bought them from recommends that we use certain detergents. I was wondering if any of you had any experiences with the following detergents:


http://www.cottonbabies.com/clothdiaperdetergents.pdf

All Free and Clear
Allen's Naturally
Country Save
Mountain Green
Planet Ultra Liquid

Note: we want to use a liquid detergent

I am especially interested in Allen's Naturally. It seems to have good reviews on the website for these particular diapers. However, it is also the most expensive :32: at $20 for 32 oz (or $51.95 for a gallon)

Now comparing this to Planet Ultra Liquid which is $9.79 for 50oz, I wonder what the difference can actually be for baby laundry detergents! I want to use a good detergent on my diapers! Please help

[MommyAllison]

We use plain old Tide powder and have no issues. A frend uses Country Save and is pretty happy with it.

[tylersmama]

Another plain ol' Tide user. We have an HE washer, so I use the HE version from Costco.

[CAM7]

We use Tide original too! Cold water wash first with just a bit of Dawn. Then hot water with Tide. Then warm water wash.

Occasionally I'll use white vinegar to 'strip'.

[maestramommy]

Hi there! I've been researching recently as we decided to switch to cloth as well. We decided on prefolds and bought ours from Cottonbabies too! I did ask around about the detergent, and a lot of mommies I know use and love Charlie's soap: http://www.charliesoap.com/products.asp

One mom I know is using Allens (she also uses bum genius) and she's not happy with it so she's switching to Charlie's. It looks like a good option for us because we have private septic with an older leach field, so we don't want to strain it with the additional loads of laundry.

[CAM7]

I should add that if you'd like to sample diapers first to find out which type is best for your baby go to http://jilliansdrawers.com/ and try their trail offer.

I'm glad we did because I ended up buying a completely different type of diaper for our two babies than I had orignally planned on.

[maestramommy]

We use Tide Coldwater for now. For a full load of dipes (say 20-24 prefolds) how much of the capful of detergent is needed?

For those who use Charlie's liquid, is one tbsp the same as 1/8 of a cup? My weights and measures knowledge is a little sketchy:)

[CAM7]

We use Tide Coldwater for now. For a full load of dipes (say 20-24 prefolds) how much of the capful of detergent is needed?


Is that Tide type the ultra concentrated one? I use Tide original and I just use about a 1/4 (even less) of what they recommend for a full load.

But I have an older top loader type machine which uses a lot of water...also then do a final wash of just warm water nothing else.

If you have a frontloader type machine I'd use a lot less since the water level isn't as high.

[tylersmama]

I have an HE washer and use the concentrated Tide HE. I use about 1/4-1/3 of a capful, but I usually do a FULL load of dipes. I also add about a 1/3 capful of Calgon and that keeps any buildup/stink issues under control. Also, a bit of vinegar in the fabric softener dispenser (I don't really measure, just splash it in) for static.

[alirebco]

I have a lot of the Bumgenius diapers and have been using the Planet liquid with no issues. I also found it at my local Safeway, so no shipping costs.

[Momof3Labs]

I use Tide Free HE in my front-loader for dipes. We have very hard water.

I tried Charlie's soap and hated it. I felt like I wasn't using any soap at all, so back to Tide I went.

[katydid1971]

This may be TMI but it might be helpful.
http://www.diaperjungle.com/detergent-chart.html
I use Country Save which I can buy locally and I love it. I use it for all our laundry. It washes out really well.

[shawnandangel]

Thank you so much for posting that website katy! It was really helpful. Thanks to everyone else also who put in their input! We bought a small bottle of Allen's to see how we like that. If we decide we hate it, we discovered that Wild Oats sells the Charlie's soap so we can run there and get some!

[kellyd]

I actually use plain tide powder version. The number of rinses I had to do to fully rinse the liquid 2X concentrate out was REDICULOUS! And that's all I can find around here anymore. Also, I use up to the 2 line on the scoop. I do a cold rinse to rinse all the yuckies out. Then a cycle that is a hot wash cold double rinse. Then dry. It seems to work very well for us. I know a lot of the people who were having stinky issues stopped when they started using full amounts of detergent.