Wash me!

What detergent for my cloth diapers? I get asked that question ALL the time. And I don’t answer. I feel bad for wiffing on this one but the only answer I have is “It depends…..” There are so many variables (type of washer, hard water? soft water?, wash routine? skin sensitivity?) that there is no one size fits all algorithm.  I wish there was.  Then I would stock only that detergent and sell it far and wide and make lots of money.  Sadly, just doesn’t work that way.

Having said that, I wanted to share this article I read in the Wall Street Journal.  Who knew the Journal would prove helpful to us CDing parents?  The title of the article is “The Great American Soap Overdose” and the gist is that we use too much of the stuff. That we are ruining our clothes and our machines through detergent overkill.  We are operating under the typical American assumption of  ”If a little of something is good, then a lot of it is better.”  The problem is, with detergent, Super Sizing just causes problems.

Compounding an already bad situation, the detergents are becoming concentrated meaning we need even less than before. Additionally, the preponderance of HE washers using less water means we need even less than that. All of this combines to create a situation in which clothes look tired, machines start to smell and, important for us CDing parents, diapers lose absorbency and need to be stripped even more frequently than before.

Too much detergent causes too many suds which lifts all the dirt that has been washed out of the diapers up to the top of the machine (like high tide), above the water level, so it isn’t washed away. This leaves residue on the diapers which cause them to lose absorbency and softness and fades them. How many rinses do you do now to make sure there are no suds left in the machine and than your diapers are truly rinsed? Use less detergent and should be able to cut that down considerably. Not only making your wash routine easier but saving water for the planet and money for your pocketbook.

So, what can be done? First and foremost, use less. Much less. Pay attention to those little lines on the cap of your liquid detergent or the scoop on the dry. The manufacturers don’t make them easy to see as the more you use, the more they can sell. They are not in the business to make this easy for you. So, do it yourself.

The most interesting point of the article was that, really, unless the diapers or clothes are super soiled, you really don’t need to use detergent at all. That the agitation provided by the machine is sufficient to loosen dirt in almost every situation. Not sure if I am ready to go that far in my wash routine, but I am going to try. Detergent is expensive and with three little boys into mud and phenomenally messy eaters, I am ALWAYS doing laundry. ALWAYS.