June 28, 2018
5 Comments

Cloth Diaper Problem Solving

*This post was sponsored by Tide purclean and all opinions are my own—thanks for helping to support this blog and our family!

Most of you probably know by now that we use cloth diapers with Lola and have since she was about 2 months old. While it took a bit for us to figure out our favorite kinds of diapers and our wash routine we hit a pretty good stride where we really didn’t have any problems at all with our diapers until just a few months ago. All of the sudden Lola kept getting persistent rashes and we couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. We tried experiments with avoiding certain foods (especially more acidic ones) and switched to disposables for a bit and we finally concluded that it was something with the diapers (most likely our wash routine) that was bothering her all of the sudden. We never had any smell in our diapers, but we decided to strip them and start over with a different detergent (we were using a free-and-clear conventional brand at that point) to see if that would help—which it did! But only for a short amount of time. We started having stink issues with the new all-natural detergent and even though we tried to tweak more things like the temperatures we washed on or adding in towels to the load as well to trick the HE washer into adding more water (thinking that maybe all the detergent wasn’t rinsing out) but we are still having the ammonia smell issue.

Anyways, we’ve been in the thick of trying to figure our next move when Tide contacted me and asked if I wanted to partner with them to try their new Tide purclean detergent that is a 65% USDA certified plant-based detergent that still has the cleaning power of Tide even in cold water (you can purchase the detergent here). They have an unscented version (which is good since we try to avoid added fragrance whenever we can) that also is free of dyes, chlorine, and phosphates, and as an added bonus the purclean is made with 100% renewable wind power electricity at a site that sends zero manufacturing waste to a landfill. Needless to say, I love all those points about the product and we obviously need to find a solution to our problem in order to keep continuing the duration of diapering with cloth, so we’ve decided to give it a try!

We’ve only had the chance to do one full wash routine with the new detergent but so far the diapers look and smell clean so I think we are off to a good start (they have some tips for using purclean in your wash routine here)! It really can take a bit to know when you try a new detergent how well it’s working (and sometimes you have to tweak a few things before your wash routine clicks into place) so I’ll update my main post on diapering after we give the purclean a proper try but I’m hopeful this we’ll be a solution to our diaper problems!

I’m really happy to see large companies start to respond to consumers desires for more green and natural choices (with less waste in the process as well) so I hope that this is something that we will continue to see more of across the board in all areas. If you haven’t cloth diapered before, I promise that it’s not as scary as it sounds and it’s a great way to save lots of money and keep a pile of disposables out of landfills as well. Give it a try!

xo. Laura


5 thoughts on “Cloth Diaper Problem Solving

  1. Kelsee

    I’m excited to hear more about purclean once you use it… we do cloth diapers and have had great luck with bum genius detergent and nellies too. We do throw in 1/3 cup white vinegar in the rinse cycle to neutralize and soften. Also, when you hang your diapers outside, maybe put them white side out, so they can get bleached by the sun. Good luck!

    Reply
    1. thebandwifeblog Post author

      Yes, we do that as needed but her poop doesn’t seem to stain much now that she eats solids so we don’t have to very often!

      Laura 🙂

      Reply
  2. Justina

    I don’t have a baby and have no experience cloth diapering, but I have to say that I love seeing that drying rack full of diapers. After reading posts about your garage and patio, it’s fun to see it used in such a practical way.

    Reply
  3. Christy Smith

    Okay not tide related but I LOVE your hairstyle in this post so cute!! I had seen you complaining about “baby hairs” around hairline…. I have the same issue. Have you tried a side part? Would look so good on you. Any ways, I’m gonna have to try out this bobby pin hairstyle tomorrow ??‍♀️

    Reply
    1. thebandwifeblog Post author

      I have done it in the past but I tried it again to see if that would help and it kind of didn’t—oh brother! At least they are finally getting long enough to pin back!

      Laura 🙂

      Reply

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