Detergent.

[Jupiter]

Does anyone know a detergent I can use on cloth diapers, adult and baby clothes?

I have been treating formula spit up with shout and then washing in ecos but they aren't getting clean.

[mikala]

Country Save is an option.

[Melaine]

I like Charlie's for everything.

[BunnyBee]

I gave up and went back to Tide for diapers and towels. We use Method for clothes. Zout works better for me than Shout.

[AnnieW625]

I didn't think Country Save got our clothes clean, same with Charlie's, although we have been using Charlie's for the diapers for the last 18 months since I started cloth diapering again. IME it worked better than the Country Save, and BioKleen I was using prior. I actually might try Allen's when I am finally done with the Charlie's.

Right now I use either All Free & Clear, Tide Free, or Costco's Kirkland Free & Clear for our regular clothes. Once I am done with cloth diapers I plan on switching back to Gain HE powder which is amazing at getting stains out (I had diaper service when DD2 was an infant and then we switched to disposables so I believe I was using either Tide Free or Gain when I needed to get spit up stains out of our clothes). If you can handle regular Tide lots of people use good old regular Tide on their cloth diapers on the Diaper Swappers board. All of us have sensitive skin issues so regular Tide doesn't work for us.

A lot will depend on what kind of machine (HE vs. non HE) and what kind of water you have as well, but this is a great question for the posters on Diaper Swappers if you feel your diapers aren't getting clean enough.

For pre treating I use Resolve Spray N Wash (the green bottle one), Baby Oxi Clean (I prefer to the original for some reason) or Fels Naptha. I spray the polyester diapers with Bio Kleen's Bac Out. Before finding the Spray N Wash for a great deal at Costco (it works out to be about $1-1.50 per 32 oz. spray bottle when they have the coupon for the 1 full bottle, and a gallon refill IIRC for $6 or $7) I was using either Zout, Shout gel, or Oxi Clean spray, but found that Spray N Wash does just as well and it's much cheaper.

[minnie-zb]

I really like Tide and when I have stained or really dirty items, I use a Tide Boost. They seem to work really well.

[BunnyBee]

Oh, and are you treating stains right before you wash? I keep a bottle by the hamper and try to get stains as we take off clothes. That seems to work much better than the ones the bigger kids (and DH) forget to spray ahead of time.

[JBaxter]

I've been using Charlies soap for 6+ yrs. on everything.

[kaharris83]

We've been using Rockin Green on everything. But I realized it wasn't taking care of the milk stains either so we switched to Method for everything else and still use Rockin Green on diapers.

[fedoragirl]

country save is my go to for all laundry. We used Charlie's before and got a lot of build-up on the diapers. I switched to Rockin Green for diapers only.

[bostonsmama]

All Free and Clear Military version (without optical brighteners) works well on everything.

DH, who did our diaper laundry, said that it's really not so much about what you wash your diaper laundry with, rather it's how well you rinse them after you wash them. Front loaders are notorious for leaving soap residue, no matter how little you use or how "safe" it is. We used Planet for a long time, but it never got stains out.

[Jupiter]

So if I'm hearing correctly,

Resolve spray and wash for pretreating

Any free & clear for laundry as long as I make sure to rinse real well.

I had been contemplating a color safe bleach to brighten and get some stains out. Thoughts?

Before giving birth 9 weeks ago, I threw everything in together, never pretreated and to be honest my husband did the wash. It's kind of amazing we were clean. Lol

[mmommy]

I use whatever detergent is on sale that I'm not allergic to for our clothing and for our diapers. I haven't found any need for something special for the diapers. The only difference in how I wash the diapers is that I put a squeeze of Biokleen Bac Out in the diaper loads, wash with cold, rinse with hot, and then rinse again with hot. YMMV. Oh, and putting items outside to get some sun is the best way to get rid of stains. It's pretty incredible what the sun can get out.

[kep]

I have tried a ton of detergents, and eventually just switched back to Tide Free & Clear. It just seems to work the best. I have heard that the old, original blue Tide works great for CD's, although I just use the Free & Clear on ours. :)

[ladysoapmaker]

I use Mountain Green. (I used it for diapers and regular clothes).

Jen

[queenmama]

I thought F&C detergents were a no-no for CD?

We don't use one thing for all because it would be cost prohibitive. I would probably pick original Tide if I had to.

Lara

[AnnieW625]

I thought F&C detergents were a no-no for CD?

We don't use one thing for all because it would be cost prohibitive. I would probably pick original Tide if I had to.

Lara

It really depends on the type, the kind of diaper you are using, the kind of water, and the type of machine. I have friends who have used Seventh Generation F&C detergent for the Bum Genius diapers and have had no issues with it. This list from Pin Stripes & Polka Dots (http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm) is how I chose my detergent. I initially was just cloth diapering DD1 at night and used only Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers. I used Country Save first and I feel like I had some repelling issues even though a lot of people really like it. I then switched to the Bio Kleen (again and used it with the Fuzzi Bunz pockets) because it was the first detergent I could find locally that was all green circles and there was no note about it causing repelling in pocket diapers, but by the time I started again (started at night with DD2 in Sept., 2011 and then went full time in November, 2011 and did that until around June, 2012, now we are back to cloth at home on weekends and at night....and I hope to be back to just nights here really soon:praying:) there was so that is when I chose the Charlies, although I also considered Allen's Naturally, and Rockin Green, but I could get the Charlie's quickly from Amazon and it finally cleaned my diapers well so I went that route. I do use Charlie's powder when we travel to my ILs in Wyoming and they have soft water and it works fine there and because our only other alternative is Tide regular which MIL swears by we just have to use it.

Every so often I run my cloth prefolds in a regular load with F&C detergent and not the Charlie's to make sure they are getting clean enough. I tried it once with my pockets, but I still had a lot of left over soap in my wash even after an extra rinse so I went back to the tsp. of Charlies. That is one nice thing about prefolds and covers you can wash them in anything. My mom used to use regular All on them when we were kids.

[queenmama]

It really depends on the type, the kind of diaper you are using, the kind of water, and the type of machine.

True. We have a top-loader with hard water and use fitteds or bamboo flats. We have mostly used Rockin Green Hard Rock with great success (she started getting rashes around 7mo but in retrospect it was more likely due to teething/diarrhea). We've also liked Eco Sprouts, but unlike RnG, we can't get it with Amazon Prime. I tried a few things on the P&P list you linked. We hated Bum Genius, Nellie's is just okay and Ecos did nothing. Tide original works well but I'm afraid of it so I only use it if I'm waiting on a "safe" detergent in the mail. ;)

I also use Bac-out stain & odor remover and ecover fabric softener, but only for diapers. Stuff's too expensive for regular laundry.

Lara

[AnnieW625]

......I also use Bac-out stain & odor remover and ecover fabric softener, but only for diapers. Stuff's too expensive for regular laundry.

Lara

I get a gallon of Bac Out from Diapers.com for $24 or so. It lasts a long time, and I don't dilute it at all. I bought my last gallon in December when yoyo.com was having their promo so I was able to get it for free shipping as well because I was buying Legos for DD2. I wish it was sold on Amazon though.

[edurnemk]

Allen's Naturally is our fave, super concentrated so it lasts forever.

Regular Tide also works.

[rin]

We use All Free & Clear, or Arm & Hammer dye/perfume free.

[daisymommy]

Yeah, most Free and Clear detergents leave a film on your diapers. Look at the chart Annie posted (Pinstripes and Polkadots website).


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[legaleagle]

Tide he powder original scent is the best. I use biokleen powder for our less dirty clothes but tide for everything gross including diapers. It's definitely about the rinsing with diapers - I have hard water and a front loader so I do an additional wash cycle with washing soda to get them completely rinsed out and I never have stains, odors or repelling with 4.5 straight years of cloth diapering. The oxobrite powder bleach is amazing - very highly concentrated and unscented, I use it fairly frequently. The tide and oxobrite combo gets out Un pretreated blueberry stains, among others.