Posts Tagged ‘biokleen’

Braden with Heather's daughter Natalie in their Drybee's diapers.

So I had my friend Heather and her husband for dinner late last year.  They came with their two beautiful daughters, one of whom is cloth diapered and a similar age to my youngest son.  She had called me earlier to ask if there was anything she could bring, wine, dessert etc.  I told her, just themselves.  Well she brought me a hostess gift anyway, a two pack of RLR that she had managed to find at her local supermarket.  I was thrilled, I wanted to try this stuff out, as I had heard great things about it.  I couldn’t find it locally at all!  Who needs a bottle of wine?? Not me :)

I stripped my diapers with it the very next day.  And wow it worked great.  Better than Dawn with far less rinsing afterwards.  So then I was on a mission to find where I could get it wholesale so I could stock it in the store.  I had already been asked to do so by a few loyal customers.  

Finally I got some in stock and I decided as it had been a couple of months since I had done that stripping with the RLR I would do ALL of my diapers.  They were getting that ammonia smell when I opened his pail, so it was time. Well it is at this point we find out just how many diapers Braden has, THREE loads worth!  So there I was with my friend Ashley (who also cloth diapers), hanging over the washing machine, taking photos for you all.  My husband was looking at us like we were mad women the way we were clucking over the washing machine.  Braden has been wearing said diapers for the last week, since I did the RLR strip and they all smell great again.  No more ammonia smell when I open the pail. 

So here is what I did.  Note that I have a top loading machine, but my friend Heather has a front loading machine and RLR works for her too.

The suds as the machine filled up with warm water. RLR is in there already.

I rinsed the diapers on cold first, to remove any poop debris, wash away the  pee etc.

I filled the machine with warm water.  While it was filling I added a whole packet of RLR.  At this point I observed a bit of bubbling up as the machine was filling.

I left the lid up on my machine.  My machine does not drain the water unless the lid is down.  I watched it agitate a heap of scum and suds to the top.  I was thinking OMG, this is going to take a huge amount of rinses to get rid of all of these suds!

I let it soak for around an hour or so before lowering the lid and letting the machine finish its cycle, which was a cold rinse.  I did note that the suds did settle while I let it soak, but the water was a gray murky colour.

The machine is agitating with its first warm water load. The suds are so thick you can barely see the diapers!

This is what it looked like after the diapers had soaked for an hour. The suds had settled but the water was gray!

The second cycle, there were far less suds.

I ran the machine again on a hot cycle.  I left the lid up because I wanted to check the status of the suds.  And I was amazed, because the huge suds had rinsed away in the previous cycle, and there was only a little bit of suds left.  My machine does a cold rinse with its hot cycle.  It was done.  It was winter, so I had to run the diapers through the dryer.  But if it was summer, I would have hung them out in the sun.

In conclusion, this is not the cheapest way to strip the diapers, Dawn is much cheaper.  However, it seems to me to be the most effective.  So if you have bad stinkies, then this is worth trying.

The final rinse. The water is clear!

Do you use a front loader?  Then check out this blog article by a fellow cloth diapering mum with a front loader on using RLR for her first time!

I am a great fan of Bac Out by Biokleen and I stock it in the store. I have reviewed it on my blog here and I try to keep it in stock for my customers who cannot find this wonder locally.

Well I needed to reorder some … but a little mistake occured. Biokleen uses similar packaging on several of their products, and I ordered All Purpose cleaner instead of Bac Out. Did I figure this out when the case of 12 bottles arrived? Umm no I did not! Did I figure it out when I carried a bottle I purchased for myself down the stairs to the laundry room on my cloth diapers? No! At what point did I figure it out? The point when I tried to squirt Bac Out into the washing machine which has the consistency of water and all that came out was a thicker substance.

After a few choice words at myself, and hastily running back upstairs to modify to the stock levels of Bac Out back down to 0, I decided to look at just what I had bought. Well thankfully it was a green cleaner, as I only use green cleaners. So I decided to try it out.

This stuff is magic! I put a tiny squirt of it in a spray bottle, fill it up with water, and I use it to clean pretty much anything in my kitchen and bathrooms. If I spray it on that horrid grape jelly splot my kids left after making school lunches on my cream laminate counters that stain easily and I watch it do it’s work right before my eyes.

I made this mistake 5 months ago, and I am still on my first bottle of this stuff and I use it all the time. In fact I am only about a quarter of the way through the bottle.  And I am more through it than I should be because other family members didn’t realise just how little they needed to use.

I have even used it in the swiffer wet jet mop. Just a tiny squirt and the rest water. It cleans the vinyl floors beautifully.  I had a sheet pan that I could not get the greasy baked on spots off, and I soaked it over night in this stuff (yes watered down, not neat) and I was able to clean up the pan!  When I tell my boys to clean their bathroom, that is what they get given to clean it.  It does the work, and it is SAFE for them to use, and it smells good!

So I made a mistake that I don’t regret!!!

Stripping Cloth Diapers at first brings to mind a toddler who keeps taking off his diaper. And yes each of mine have figured out how to do that at some point :)

But actually Stripping Cloth Diapers is process of cleaning them.

When do you need to strip your diapers?

• Build up of detergent. You actually should less detergent than recommended. Alot of diaper fabrics are chosen because of their ability to absorb. Not only do they absorb pee, but they will absorb detergents etc. When detergent builds up in the fibers of your diaper fabrics, you can get a chemical reaction with the pee and the detergent residue. This can cause a strong odour that many describe as amonia like. For some babies it can cause irritation to occur. I had one detergent build up within three washes (ironically it was one specifically made for diapers) and the result was my son’s little butt was essentially burned. In general build up takes much longer to happen.
• Diaper Cream Coating. Some diaper creams will leave a coating on your diapers which end up causing your diapers to REPEL pee rather than absorbing it. There are some diaper creams available that are considered ok to use with cloth diapers, but I personally never risk it. On the rare times I have to use diaper cream, I either lay an Imse Vimse flushable liner over the top of the diaper, use an old flannel liner over the top of the diaper, or use flushable inserts in my gDiapers.

How do you strip Cloth Diapers?

There are a few methods out there, and if you do a google search you are going to find quite a few suggestions that have worked for the mothers who post the method. So its just a matter of finding one that works for you, and these are ones that work well for me.

I use Dawn Classic Dishwashing Detergent. Yes for DISHES!!! When I first heard this I thought perhaps I was reading it wrong :) But there is something in the original version of Dawn that helps break down the build up. In fact, when there is an oil spill in the ocean, its what they use to clean off the affected wildlife. I have a top loading washing machine, so if you have a front loader, I suggest you find a recommendation for a front loader. (I have heard mothers say they use it in the front loader though). I use just a small squirt of dawn and I run my washing machine on hot. When I get to the final rinse of the washing machine’s cycle I take a look in the machine, and if there are suds, I run another rinse (Do not add anymore Dawn or any other detergent). Run rinses until the water runs clear. If you have a bad build up of detergent in your diapers this may take a few rinses.



The other thing that I have found to work for me is Bac Out by BioKleen. I love the products by this company. They are a green cleaning product company and I have used alot of them in my house, but one of the best products they make is the very versatile Bac Out. I had a friend tell me how she used it on a Koolaid stain in her carpet that nothing else would get out, and Bac Out did! I tend to use this method over the winter when I am stuck using the dryer. I will wash my diapers at night. I run a cold rinse to remove any traces of solids etc. And then I will fill my toploading washing machine again with cold or warm water (not hot, I read it kills the active enzymes in Bac Out). I put around half a cup or so of Bac Out into the machine, and then I leave the lid up on my machine. On my machine that stops the water from draining out. So I can now soak my diapers as long as need be. As I am doing this last thing at night, I generally soak my diapers over night in the Bac Out solution. In the morning, I put the lid down on my washing machine and let the water drain away. I then run a washing cycle to make sure that I totally rinse away the Bac Out. My diapers always smell great after this.

Incidently, I put some Bac Out in a spray bottle with some water, and that is what my 12 year old uses to clean the boys bathroom with. It is also great for spraying down diaper pails and rubbish bins with.

So if you get the diaper stinkies and need to strip your diapers, I hope you find one of these methods helpful. The Dawn method is definitely the cheaper of the two methods. I am still using the same bottle I bought over a year ago for this purpose.

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