Fels Naptha Bar Soap

One of the reasons cloth diapering is really making a resurgence is the money-saving aspect. While it seems expensive to pay $20 for one diaper, use that diaper three times a week for a whole year and you’re down to 13 cents per use. Add another six months of use and you’re down to 9 cents. The cheapest disposable diaper I could find on Amazon was 20 cents a piece.

Today’s moms are finding lots of ways to be frugal, it’s the “in” thing to find ways to save at home. Some moms have found that making their own detergent is a good cost-saving measure. The problem comes when thrifty moms mix their cloth diapers with homemade detergents. Unfortunately it’s a recipe for disaster!

There are many recipes for making detergent, most will call for washing soda and borax, and then the gratings of a bar of soap. Each of these ingredients is not recommended for cloth diapers for different reasons.

Washing Soda – Washing soda (sodium carbonate) is similar in nature to baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). Both are an alkali, meaning they help neutralize pH. Washing soda is a stronger alkali than baking soda, meaning it will neutralize odors, especially in acidic conditions, like baby’s urine. But the problem is this strength comes at a price. The stronger washing soda is harsh on fabrics, roughing up the fibers and prematurely aging elastic. While baking soda is a much less caustic form of the same chemical, we still don’t recommend it for regular use on your cloth diapers. It has the potential to change the pH in your diapers and eventually cause rashes. In excess it can also harm fabrics.

Borax – Borax is a safer but not completely non-toxic laundry additive. The main use of borax is to break up solids, remove stains and help detergent work better. Borax is also harsh on elastic and can cause it to break down.

Bar Soap – This is the most problematic ingredient in homemade detergents. Most recipes call for Fels-Naptha as the bar soap ingredient (pictured above). Fels-Naptha is an old product that your parents or grandparents probably remember. It was used as a stain remover, but it is also highly toxic and irritating to skin. The problem with a soap base, whether it be Fels-Naptha, Ivory or a castile soap, as some recipes recommend, is that there are strong oils in these soaps that do not wash away in the laundry. These oils will build up on your clothes, in your washing machine and on your diapers, eventually trapping stains or smells. On your diapers they will reduce the absorbency and can also cause some strong reactions in your baby’s skin as the chemicals get left behind with the oils and reactivated when wet.

Laundry Powder

There is no bar soap that is safe for using on cloth diapers. Period. Therefore most of the homemade detergent recipes are not safe for your diapers. Best-case senario you will need to strip your diapers to remove the oil buildup. Worst case your baby will break out from the exposure to these chemicals. This oily build-up will also stick around in your washing machine until you clean it out (with a non-residue detergent, plain dish soap or vinegar), we also strongly recommend against using a homemade detergent for your regular clothes during the time you are washing diapers. Even if you choose a diaper-safe detergent for just the diaper loads there can be transfer from the oils inside your washing machine.

This is a touchy subject for a retailer of cloth diaper-safe detergents. We do our best to support our customers with using things they already have instead of insisting they purchase new or even purchase from us! But detergent is one area where we feel we need to take a little bit stronger approach. We have had a handful of customers in just the last month coming to us with diaper problems which turned out to be due to homemade detergent. Some of those customers had horrible rashes on their babies, which is something we definitely want all of you to avoid! While making your own detergent is a frugal idea, the adverse affects can be costly. While many of our detergents are much less expensive per load than those you would buy at the grocery store, we do think peace of mind is worth paying extra for.

As always, we’re happy to discuss your specific situation and help you find a detergent that will work best for you! Feel free to post your comments here and we will respond so all can gain from your questions, or for more personal attention, contact us directly!

Sprout Soup is one of the many hosts around the globe for the Great Cloth Diaper Change. This event aims to bring awareness to reusable diapering choices by attempting a world record for the most cloth diapers changed at one time!

The date is April 23, 2011, 12pm Eastern Time

Sprout Soup
4310 N High Street
Columbus, OH 43214

Registration is now closed. Thanks for participating!

Danielle tried Thirsties Pre-Wash and Rockin’ Green Funk Rock and sized them up on her diaper stinkies. Here’s what she had to say.

I needed something to help with the stinkies in most of my diapers, some of them were getting pretty bad after one nights’ use and others were just beginning to have problems with stinks, and not looking as new. I split my loads in half since I have 2 kids worth of diapers, I felt that splitting them would give me the best results. And also was able to try out the Thirsties Pre-Wash for the first load and and Funk Rock for the second load.

Thirsties Pre-Wash

I came home and starting using this right away (the easy-measure dispenser was interesting, and I’m easily amused). The first load I did was all inserts, they are what needed it the most! I used the recommended 1/2 ounce but instead of doing them in cold I did hot (since they were already clean and I was doing a soak). I let them soak for about an hour and then did two rinses, followed by a hot rinse to make sure there were no suds.

I am PROUD to say that the stinkies are GONE! I love how easy it is to dispense with their own measuring area on the bottle, its like a two-in-one! I will be purchasing this again and would recommend it to others, too! The price is $15.95 for 32 ounces/64 loads. I thought it was a little high, but for as many washes it will do and the job it did, I think it is worth it.

Rockin’ Green Funk Rock

A couple days later I got out my second load of inserts. I will admit, most but not all of these are ones that I only use as doublers at night or for longer period of time when we are out and about. Still a lot were as bad as the first load and most have the older look to them from being used for so long.

I followed the directions on the Funk Rock package and used 4 tbs (using my handy green Rockin’ Green scoop) and again since they were already clean I used hot water to soak in, I soaked for a hour, rinsed 2 times and then a hot rinse to check for suds, and another rinse since there was signs of a little soap left. (Not much at all though, if I wasn’t looking hard, I wouldnt have noticed the little bit that I did see.) I was still having some stink issues with these though. I noticed it when I was getting them out of the dryer, so I put them back in the washer and rinsed with hot water another 2 times, and still the same thing.

I would recommend this to someone who has tried the Thirsties Pre Wash and did not have success, because there is a product for everyone and not everything works for everyone. But for me $12.95 for this small bag that I will not get as much use out of compared to the Thirsties is not worth it for me and I probably wont try it again unless they make a change. I do LOVE their detergent though, so I am bummed about the Funk Rock :(

Want to write a review? Contact Us and let us know! We love to get real customer reviews on any of our products, and there’s great perks in it for you, too!

There are so many options today for a greener diaper, but are cloth diapers really better for the environment? The Real Diaper Association estimates that 27.4 Billion disposables are used each year in the US alone. Cloth diapers will hold up to 75-200 washes or more. Recycling diapers just seems to make sense.

Disposable diapers also require more resources to manufacture than cloth diapers, even when you take into account the vast amounts of water and energy involved in cotton farming. One study estimated that producing a year’s supply of disposables, which are composed largely of plastic, consumes roughly 6,900 megajoules of energy, vs. around 1,400 megajoules for a year’s supply of cloth diapers. Yet the study concluded that cloth ended up being 39 percent more energy intensive overall, given the electricity needed to wash load after load of dirty diapers.

That conclusion is outdated, however, given the major advances that have occurred in machine washing technology. A study done in Britain took into account some of these technological advances. In making their calculations regarding
cloth diapers, the study’s authors used average energy-consumption figures for machines made in 1997. They concluded that there was “no significant difference” between the environmental impact of cloth and disposable diapers. Keeping
a child clad in home-laundered cloth diapers for 2.5 years emitted 1,232 pounds of carbon dioxide, vs. 1,380 pounds for disposable diapers.

Cloth is also better for the environment for a number of reasons including:
- Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.
-  The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.
- Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR.

So, if you are struggling with the question of how to diaper your babe. Think how lucky your kids will be to have a greener world to treasure. Maybe we can find it at the end of a rainbow of colorful, cute, cloth diapers.

Sprout Swap time is approaching quickly! This is your T-minus 8 Days Warning! You have 8 more days to register and drop off your items to sell in the February Sprout Swap!

New to the swap? You can read all about it on our Sprout Swap information page.

Remember there are a few new rules and differences for the swap this time around. Most of these refer to Cloth Diapers. Please take note:

• Pocket diapers should be sold with their insert stuffed inside. We recommend that you add extra inserts to pockets if you have them instead of selling inserts separately.
• We will not accept for sale any item priced under $2. You may donate items less than this amount to our discount/free bin.
• We will not accept heavily stained or extremely worn-out items for sale. These may also be donated to the discount/free bin.
• We will not accept the following brands for sale: Kushies, Bumkins. These may be donated to the discount/free bin.
• We do not accept clothing, baby gear, toys, or bedding.

We are so thrilled with how popular the Sprout Swap has become. Thank you for respecting our terms and helping us make this another successful swap!

One final NEW feature for the February 2011 Swap. DISCOUNTS will start at 1pm on Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday! For those of you who have attended the Swap in the past, you know that we are very busy on Friday and the crowd swoops in and gathers up the great items quickly. To reward those of you who come out on Saturday, we’ll honor the discounted price starting at 1pm!

• Here’s another rundown of the dates you need to know:
• Registration for Selling Items: Now through February 11, 2011
• Last Day to Drop Off Items for Sale: February 11, 2011
• Shopping Days: Friday, February 18 starting at 10am through Sunday, February 20 at closing. (Regular Store Hours are observed all weekend.)
• Discounts: Beginning Saturday at 1pm and lasting through the end of the swap
  (Remember the $1 Bin turns into the FREE BIN!
• Final Tallies Available and Unsold Item Pickup: Beginning Friday, March 4, 2011
• Last Day to Pick Up Credits and Unsold Items: Sunday, March 20, 2011

Following a few simple steps will ensure that you get the best return on your investment and will be able to sell a large percentage of your items at the swap.

First, make sure your items are clean. This seems like a no-brainer, but do your best to remove stains and smells. The sun is a great natural whitener! Wash and iron baby carriers. Make your diapers nice and presentable. How your diapers feel will also affect their draw. If your diapers feel sticky or crunchy, make sure there is no detergent build-up by doing a few hot washes and rinses with no detergent. You can fluff dry diapers in the dryer by adding tennis balls or specially designed dryer balls to the load.

Package like items together. If you have six or more similar diapers to sell, consider packaging them together in batches of 2-6 items. This will increase the likelihood that more of your items will sell. This is especially important for prefold diapers, which sell best in lots of 3 or 6. Tie diapers together with string or ribbon, stacked on top of each other so the insides can be inspected without taking the group apart.

If you have the original instructions for your carrier, secure them together with string or package in a clear bag. Original instructions and packaging increase the value of your carrier.

Finally, price reasonably. Even though you paid $20 for that adorable custom all-in-one, don’t expect someone else to pay that after you have used it for six months. Start with 60-70% of the purchase price, then look honestly at your items and deduct for stains and signs of wear. Most baby carriers can fetch 80% of purchase price if they are in good condition.

Start sifting through your diapers and slings–the Sprout Swap is on its way. Find a new home for your gently used baby gear. Accepting items from July 27th until August 13th. Please register your items on-line before bringing them in. Registration can be found at www.sproutsoup.com.
After the swap, which is from August 20 through the 22nd, you can pick up 100% store credit, or 80% cash for all items sold.
The Sprout Swap is also an excellent place to get an excellent deal on diapers and carriers!

Here’s a great way to pass on your used diapers (and baby blankets, burp cloths or towels) and help the wildlife of the Gulf of Mexico!

FuzziBunz, maker of the FuzziBunz One Size Diaper, is collecting and distributing microfiber towels, inserts, prefolds, contour diapers and other absorbent baby items like burp cloths, blankets and towels. Wildlife refuge organizations will use these donations to clean the oil off of birds and other animals in the Gulf region.

If you have cloth diapers or other items that you no longer need, consider donating. You can send your items to:
FuzziBunz Diapers
ATTN: CFC
315 Weeks St
New Iberia, LA 70560

If you are local to Sprout Soup, drop your items off at the store and we will handle shipping for you. We will take collections through the month of July. We’ll probably send a few packages down, as they fill, so your cloth can get to where they are needed quickly.

Exactly what can be used and what can’t? Any absorbent cloth is useful. Items with snaps and velcro cannot be used, it must be just cloth. Any fiber content is fine: microfiber, cotton, hemp, bamboo, etc. If you would like to send baby blankets or towels, they are most useful if first cut into 12″ squares.

We and the animals affected by the oil spill thank you!

GroBaby Diapers are on sale for 30% off at SproutSoup.com!

The GroBaby Cloth Diaper is a hybrid diaper, combining a reusable outer shell with snap-in organic cotton soaker pads. With this system you can save up to $600 diapering your baby, and still have something as easy as an all-in-one! This 30% off sale is huge and we hope you will take advantage of it!

There are lots of rumors going around as to why GroBaby diapers are on sale for such a deep discount. All we can say right now is there are big things coming! The reason we are clearing out our GroBaby stock because on May 5, 2010, all GroBaby and Natural Baby Company products will be rebranded as GroVia. Don’t worry, your GroBaby diapers won’t be outdated, they will still work with the new GroVia system, and when we introduce the new GroVia products on May 12, you can rest assured that your GroBaby shells and inserts will work with all of the great new additions GroVia will offer!

If you’re not already a GroBaby convert, now’s the time to get in! Scoop up a set of GroBaby diapers to give this awesome system a try, and check back with us on May 12 for more information about GroVia!

Please note that the 30% off sale price will show up once you add GroBaby cloth diapers to your cart!