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After washing all my diapers numerous times, I keep finding that a few of them have a very strange scent. They almost smell like wet dog! my diapers are only 1 month old and were bought new. I couldn't imagine that they needed to be stripped already but... I ran a hot wash without soap yesterday to start the stripping process except there were no bubbles? After thinking about the issue I think it may be one of two things 1.) I am not using enough soap (only the poopy or nighttime diapers seem to smell) 2.) I use a bit of vinegar in every rinse (maybe I shouldn't be)
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I use Bio Vert laundry soap and i have unbleached cotton onesize and sandies small cotton that this is effecting. |
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I very much doubt that the vinegar is causing problems. Many people use vinegar as a rinse aid and fabric softener, and it really shouldn't do anything negative to your diapers (and should, in theory, help the detergent rinse out better).
Although I am am not familiar with your detergent, its name makes me wonder if it's not part of the problem, especially as you are seeing this with only poopy and night diapers. Environmentally-friendly detergents, while often fine for normal clothes, do tend to act more like soaps, and thus can cause problems with build-up, and sometimes just don't have quite enough "oomph." That being said, it seems that eco detergents have made good progress in the past few years, and many people are able to make them work (but so much can depend on water type).
Okay, I just looked up your detergent, and it looks like it's plant-based. Personally, I've been disappointed with the plant-based detergents I've tried (for diapers), but have tried only a few (some of which others had success with). It might be worth upping the amount you use, but if that doesn't seem to work, it might be time to try another detergent.
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I would second the previous post, but another thing to consider would be rinsing the night diapers if you don't already do that. I'm not sure how old your baby is, but I found that when my son started sleeping through the night I had to rinse his night diapers or else they would still smell a bit after a wash.
Also, I don't know if you flush the poop or if you're still at the exclusively BF stage where you can just wash it off in the washer, but if you are not rinsing poopies maybe you could try doing that as well. |
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| I liked Bio-Vert, except the slight fragrance. My favourite is Nature Clean. (Both Canadian, I think) |
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i use dreft detergent and i've had our diapers for the past month and i've noticed a musty smell too! i have a different detergent so i don't know what to do. i have the diaper dekor plus diaper pail that i store the soiled diapers in. i wash the diapers every other day. i have about 9-11 diapers that i wash. i use 1/2 the amount of dreft detergent required for a single load per the marker on the cap of detergent. i read that you need less detergent for cloth diapers so i don't want build up to occur. however, after a little over a month the diapers stink! i prefer ME over other brands. we tried out some others and i chose ME because of the fact that there is no leakage. any ideas how to get rid of the odor?
i rinse of the poopy diapers with a diaper sprayer that's attached to our toilet. i then set them in the pail until i wash them all. the pee diapers just go into the pail without getting sprayed.
thanks! |
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| If you haven't already, put them in the sun!! Sunlight is the best natural bleacher/de-odorizer. I try to wash first thing in the morning and set my diapers out so that the inside of the diaper faces sunshine as long as possible. This will work even if it's freezing outside! You could put them out and then throw them in the dryer to warm them and make sure they got dry. |
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Dreft has a bit of a bad reputation in the cloth diaper world and 1/2 the amount is still perhaps a bit too much. Usually 1/2 the 'recomended' amount is about the higher end of what you should use with cloth so I'd consider either using less or perhaps switching detergents.
Although, that said, usually you'll get more of a ammonia smell when the problem is detergent build-up. And only a month of use is really a short amount of time to encounter detergent build-up. Were the diapers new or used? If they were used perhaps the problem is a combination of a pre-existing build-up that's just been aggravated over the past few weeks.
Other than that your routine sounds fine. There could be issues with water temp if your water isn't hot enough or maybe if you have hard water. Although even then the hard water shouldn't show up that quickly either. Of course, it could also be just as simple as maybe the last couple of washes you didn't take them out of the washer fast enough? Depending on the washer, even just half a day in there can leave clothing and diapers smelling musty... A long time in the pail would do the same thing but washing every other day should be just fine.
You could also play around with sunlight, it is indeed pretty cool stuff. Or maybe play around with detergent type, detergent amount, an extra rinse at the end of the cycle or maybe additives like vinegar or baking soda...
Karen. |
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i bought the diapers brand new from ME.com i bought two starter packs so i have 12 diapers. i'm washing my diapers in the washer on hot water only and it's the third time. there was a significant amount of bubbles in the water. i'm amazed at how many suds there are! maybe the odor is from the build up of dreft? i'll also try using less dreft and see what happens. i do wash the diapers every other day as i don't have that many diapers. plus the diaper pail fills up fast. i have on occasion forgotten that the diapers were in the washer and they were left to sit. i'll try to be more aware.
i would like to continue using dreft because charlie's soap is quite expensive. although it would be interesting to see how well it works as there is so much hype about it. 
i wouldn't mind hanging my clothes out to dry but it's quite chilly here already in Chicago. i'll try it once it warms up again next year.
lots of things to try! i hope that i can get rid of the odor completely! thanks everyone!
kristy |
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| kristy - I only had a few outdoor hanging days. It seemed like we never really had a hot summer this year. It's already snowing here so I have to hang my diapers indoors but I have a rack in my dining area in front of my patio doors that are south facing so there is lots of warm sun in there and I also make sure I wash and hang at night so they are dry by the next night. I wash nightly - I have 24 diapers. |
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I washed the diapers 4 times on the hot water cycle and the smell was gone. I washed and after each cycle noticed that the smell diminished. By the third time it was gone, but I washed it again anyway. I didn't even use any Dreft because there were so many bubbles in first two cycles. Crazy! I'll definitely cut down on the amount of Dreft I use and hopefully that will prevent the musty smell from returning. It truly does smell like a wet dog. Thanks everyone!
Kristy |
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Glad to hear the smell is gone. Yeah, it's quite eye opening to see the amount of detergent that can build-up from even a reduced amount.
To prevent it from coming back, in addition to using less detergent you can also try adding an extra rinse at the end of the cycle. Some also add 1/2 cup of vinegar at some point in the cycle to help the detergent rinse out better. Some with severe build-up problems also run an extra no-detergent wash cycle (almost like a mini-stripping) every month or whatever...
You wouldn't necessarily need to use Charlies if you decided to switch. Many use 'mainstream' detergents with no problems. There's also other options like soap nuts as well... Here's a chart with many mainstream detergents listed and rated for use in cloth diapers. It's not the be all and end all of which detergents to use, many successfully use detergents that are listed as 'avoid', but it's a good place to start should you decide to switch.
<A href="http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm">http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm</A>
Karen. |
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