Amount of detergent

[Eala]

Apparently for the longest time, even the amount for "soft" water areas, the machine manufacturers would say to half it again for Scottish water. Not sure if that's still true now, this was what the engineer who fixed my Mum's machine was telling her last year

 

[jessabella]

sort of of topic...but Eala I tried to wash some brand new nappies like you told me and they still didnt smell like yours! what did I do wrong...maybe the water here so close to London is different and causing it to be different!

 

[Eala]

Oh that's such a shame It might be the water then? I don't really know enough about how the differences in water affects things

Send your nappies to me and I'll wash them for you

 

[jms895]

I dont understadn this hard and soft water malarky

 

[jessabella]

Oh that's such a shame It might be the water then? I don't really know enough about how the differences in water affects things

Send your nappies to me and I'll wash them for you

Haha. Ok! I'm thinking maybe I need more powder than you? Also gunny said the smell was also probably concentrated by being wrapped up so tightly?

 

[Eala]

Maybe... I did wash them just before packaging them up!

Jms - the hard/soft water thing is to do with the minerals that leech into your water due to the rock that they filter through. Ones like calcium carbonate and other alkalines are most common in hard water areas. They are what cause that limescale build up (that makes your kettle fur up or washing machine clog!). The softer the water, the less minerals in it that cause build-up.

 

[Rachel_C]

Does anybody know if you're ok to use water softeners in with your nappy wash? At the moment I use them in everything else but not the nappies but I would like to be able to.

 

[Kaites]

Yep, water softeners are okay- the non-scientific explanation I read was that they just raise the pH of your water so that all the detergent rinses out better (those hard water minerals don't deposit at a higher pH either, I think). I've used Calgon a couple of times during strip washes and our nappies are fine and I know a lot of mums who swear by RLR which does pretty much the same thing. hth

 

[jms895]

Thank you ladies

 

[Eala]

OMG Kaites I remember RLR from when I lived in Canada! The adverts were on all the time.. I swear at one point there was one in each commercial break