Cloth Diaper Detergent?

I use Arm & Hammer Essentials Free and Clear. It's one of the highly recommended for cloth and easily found. You only use a tablespoon or so for an entire load so a bottle lasts a long time! Be wary of using bleach for every wash. Bleach destroys your diapers and makes them wear out faster. I use bleach maybe once a month or so but that's it.

I believe the site is diaperjungle.com that has a list of diaper detergents and their ratings.

You will want to do a cold wash/rinse with no detergent, hot wash with the touch of detergent/hot rinse (if you have it. my washer will only do cold rinse) and then a final hot wash/rinse cycle.

You will also need to prep your diapers if you bought prefolds. They have to be prepped correctly or they won't absorb/work well.

Rocking Green is the best cloth diaper detergent - designed specifically for cloth diapers. I can send you a sample for free if you would like!

It is the only detergent I have ever used (and I have gone through MANY) that completely strips the ammonia smell out of the diapers and rinses clean so no detergent build up happens. With all the other detergents I have used, eventually you get a powerful ammonia smell the instant they pee in the diaper. Rockin Green eliminates that odor. My son can pee GALLONS in one diaper and there is no small at all.

Here is the company link. http://rockingreensoap.com/
Let me know if you want a sample!!! Try it once and you will never go back to anything else!

:)K.

Do NOT use bleach or any detergent from the store that has a scent, and don't use any thing with optical brighteners (will say 'brighter colors and whiter whites') these things are too harsh, and regular detergents will build up on the diapers, making them repel water! I would avoid Tide, and we used Cheer for a short time and it was awful, the smell and they built up bad.

We used Charlies Soap, and still use it. It is washing soda and coconut oil. No scent, washes clean, and its $13 for a bag of powder, and it will last you months. You DO have to get it online (www.charliesoap.com) but its worth it, there is no extra shipping ,the price you see is the price you pay. And for what its worth, we only use Charlies soap, and Iv'e never ran out, they ship fast, and its not a big deal if you go out of town and forget yoru detergent, just use whatever until you get back.

Rockin' green is good too, but I would really avoid anything at the regular grocery store. I would do a warm rinse, warm or hot wash, and then every fe wloads do a rinse after the wash.

I used cloth diapers with 3 kids, and I used regular (Cheer) detergent with all three. With #3, I did use Dreft at first on all his clothes because he had sensitive skin, but it didn't last long.
For me the main thing was bleach. I liked using bleach because it made the diapers look so much better, so I did an extra rinse cycle to make sure all the bleach and soap were out.
I'd like to add, if you have access to a clothes line, nothing gets diapers as white as sunshine, and on a sunny windy day, the diapers are soooo soft.

I use BumGenius, and the dye/fragrance free Costco brand detergent. I have a frontloader, so it is HE, and I used about 1/2 the recommended amount. The diapers are almost 2 years old now, and still doing great.

Check out 7th Generation detergent (you can buy it at Target!) It's a great natural non-petroleum-based detergent with natural fragrances (or you can get it fragrance-free) and really easy to find. I think it's a good detergent, although it's not strong enough for EXTREMELY dirty diapers or stained clothing. I personally do not wash my cloth diapers every day (more like every 3 days), and so I use Arm & Hammer Fragrance-Free detergent (also sold at Target) for my cloth diapers, and then 7th Generation for all of my other clothes. If you decide to use a regular detergent (such as Tide), PLEASE use fragrance-free, as the perfumes used in those detergents have been shown to mimic estrogen in the body (as well as other nasty side-effects) and you just don't want to put those chemicals against your baby's body. I think it's great that you are cloth-diapering (what brands are you trying out? I LOVE BumGenius) and I hope that, if you find something doesn't work, you will try something else instead of giving up. Cloth diapering may take a couple tries to get right, but then it's so easy! Good luck!

ALL Free and Clear. It is safe for your diapers (no colors, bleach, whiteners, softners,ect) and CHEAP! Just use 1/4 the recommended amount on the jug. Too much will leave the diapers soapy and they will not be as absorbent.