If you’ve been reading my blog at all, specifically the posts about washing cloth diapers, then you will know that I have been a loyal Charlie’s Soap user for two years.
In my last post, I was talking about a Dawn dish soap buildup in my front loader that was taking a long time to go away. I would wash diapers in the washing machine, then rinse them in the bathtub until the water ran clear. This bathtub rinsing went on for just a few days when I noticed the diapers were no longer sudsy in the final rinse in the washing machine. For the week of the Dawn suds and bathtub rinses, my diapers came out perfectly rinsed, clean and smelled fine when they had been peed in.
Shortly after the suds went away, the ammonia smell returned. It wasn’t strong, and it wasn’t in every diaper. Mostly just nighttime and nap diapers, or if we were out and he was in a PUL cover. As soon as I smelled the ammonia again, I got a little upset. I’ve gone through a lot in the past month or more to get my diapers perfectly clean, and they’re already smelly!
Again, I tried changing my wash routine. At this point, I feel I have tried everything except one: changing laundry detergents. I’ve used Charlie’s Soap on all my clothes for the past two years. I don’t want to change detergents. It’s worked for us until we moved to our current home, so what’s different?
I know that Charlie’s Soap is controversial for cloth diapers. Shortly after I started cloth diapering, I began seeing testimonials from parents talking about severe burns caused by Charlie’s. I started reading about stink problems with it too. I didn’t understand why all the negative feedback since I had personally experienced such happy results with it. But now, we’re having stink issues too.
I am lucky enough to have a few cloth diaper shops in the area. Yesterday I went to one before my appointment with the midwives. I told the shop owner about my washing problems and everything I had gone through recently to get my diapers clean. She patiently let me finish my dramatic story, then simply said, “We don’t recommend using Charlie’s Soap on your diapers. It’s actually on our detergents to avoid list because of the burn reports from cloth diaper users. Since it’s different from most detergents, it doesn’t clean diapers well enough.”
I went in to the shop looking for a new detergent anyway so I wanted to know what she found worked best. The nice thing about talking to someone who lives in your same area is that they have the same water conditions. She recommended Country Save and said it was the best thing she’s ever tried. Being a cloth diaper shop owner, she’s tried everything. I know about Country Save and have done research about it, so I was happy to buy some. I was also interested in the Thristies Prewash and since she had some in her shop, I bought some too.
This morning I woke up kind of sad. I don’t know why, but I think I have an emotional attachment to Charlie’s. I don’t want to switch, but that’s what it’s come down to. That’s really the only thing I can do shy of buying a new washing machine. That doesn’t seem to be the answer since all the soap is rinsing out. The diapers just aren’t getting clean enough.
I reflected back on my experiences with the soap. About it being recommended by Green Mountain Diapers, how it was all the rage in the cloth diaper community two years ago, how I’ve used it successfully. I used it in top loaders, laundromat machines, my hand crank washer… we’ve used it happily until we moved here. So what is different?
The new front load washer, obviously. But then I got thinking harder. I originally bought Charlie’s at a Natural Foods Store in South Carolina. It used to come in these little brown sacks, like lunch sacks. Right before we moved from there, we saw that they were on clearance. We bought all they had (something like 6 bags for $8 each). We asked why they were on clearance and were told it’s because Charlie’s had come out with a new formula and they had to get all the old stuff off the shelf before they could put the new stuff up. We were more than happy to take the old stuff off their hands.
This stash of clearance Charlie’s Soap lasted us until we moved to our current house. We had been so happy with it that when we ran out, we ordered the 4 gal bucket from their website.
As I was thinking back about this, it occurred to me that was exactly what was different! We had been using Charlie’s old formula with no burns and no stinkies. When we started using the new stuff, the diapers haven’t been getting clean enough! It’s so simple now that I figured out what was happening.
Sorry Charlie – but it’s not working out and we have to switch. I wish they never changed their formula.
I’ll update with my results from new detergents.
I had the same problem. Including moving to a new home! Our old house was on a well. Our water was softened and filtered due to high iron. My new house has city water. My old well water had 2 grains of hardness after processing. My city water is near 30 grains of hardness and chlorinated. It was too much! I ordered some hard water booster from Charlie’s and it worked until we had a softner installed.