Cold Wash Week 2

For those of you who have been following, I decided to test out cold water wash routines for the month. Cold washing is not the norm for cloth diapers but many families do not have the option to wash on hot. There is very limited information on the net about cloth diapers and cold water washing. Most sites and discussion groups will tell you that you have to wash on hot to sanitise diapers. Well based on the research that I did before I started, the average home wash machine does not get hot enough to sanitise. If your machine has a sanitise setting you may get hot enough but it will melt your PUL.  My hot water comes out at 50 degrees Celsius and that is not hot enough.

I have been washing on cold for 2 weeks now and so far so good. I have a mixed stash of pockets and fitteds. I am finding that straight cold water washer are OK for my pockets, I have no smell issues and no staining. My fitteds are mostly OK also, the only ones that seem to need more TLC are the fitteds I use for overnight.

This week I tried out a combination of a wet and a dry pail. I normally use a dry pail only. I used a wet bag for my covers and pocket shells and a wet pail for my inserts and fitteds.  I had the wet pail in the bathroom with some water and 1 tbsp of detergent. It worked well and even my overnight fitteds came out clean and fresh. It was a pain to deal with though. It was heavy, and if it wasn't in the bathroom I would have dropped it after day 1.

This week I also ran out of Tide, so I switched to Charlie Banana Laundry Detergent.

This is relatively new on the market. Charlie Banana introduced it in September 2012 and currently it is only available off the Charlie Banana website. The tub says that it does 80 loads but with hard water and an old style top loader I need 2 scoops per load so a tub is about 40 loads. It does not list its ingredients all it says is that it is made of coconut oil based cleaners, natural washing soda and sodium silicate. It does not contain phosphates, dyes and fragrances. It is hypoallergenic, safe for sensitive skin and completely biodegradable. It is formulated to dissolve well in cold and warm water as it is made for Charlie Banana diapers. I was surprised that this did not give my son rashes because normally he is super sensitive to all things made with coconuts. Well , I gave it a go. I was very impressed that it got all the stinkies out and my diapers came out smelling clean and fresh. I did find that it was not as great on stains as some of the other detergents that I have tried, but that really was not a big deal because I can sun them out easily enough. I used 2 scoops ( 2 tbsp) in my long cold wash.

So far things are going well overall. I am thinking that I will wash my pockets on cold and my fitteds on warm since I am not 100% impressed with how they come out after cold washes.

Stay tuned for next week...