Our goal

When being eco-friendly, our goal is to clean diapers to the point where they smell clean; poop stains are completely normal and do not pose health risks. If you wish to resell your diapers in the future, you will be able to remove the stains at that point with a one-time deep clean.

If your diapers are not smelling clean, try our troubleshooting page.

Storing dirty diapers before washing

The first trick to avoiding smells is to keep your diapers as dry and aerated as possible while they are waiting to be washed. Good options include using a laundry basket which allows airflow or hanging them up when removed from your baby, or by keeping the lid to your diaper pail/bag open to permit airflow.

 Wet diapers and all diapers from solely breastfed babies can go straight in the hamper (breastfed baby poop is water soluble). Poopy diapers from babies fed with formula or who are eating solid foods need to have the poop scraped, flicked, or sprayed into the toilet before being allowed to dry. Options to help get the poop off the diaper:

• A diaper sprayer 

• One-piece kitchen spatula 

• Reusable fleece liners which encourage the poop tends to plop off easily.

Note: Do not put dirty diapers in a soaker pail with a cleaner like bleach or Borax. While this was standard practice for the flat diapers used in the past, continuous soaking in harsh cleaning products will damage the PUL materials and elastics used in today’s diapers.

Regular wash routine

We recommend starting with a basic routine and making adjustments (more detergent, longer wash time, higher temperature) if you find this is not working as well as you’d like.

Timing: Wash your diapers at least every 3-4 days. Leaving dirty diapers for longer can result in smells that require extra steps and cleaning products to remove.

Temperature: Use a cold or warm water cycle. Lower water temperatures use less electricity, and will still result in clean diapers. 

Detergent: Use a detergent that does not contain fabric softener. The original Tide powdered detergent that comes in an orange box is a good option. Note that eco-friendly detergents may require additional pre-rinsing or a longer wash time to get the diapers clean.

Settings: We suggest starting with a regular wash setting (normal soil level, normal rinse) and then adjusting as needed. If your diapers don’t smell clean or still have bits of poop on them when they come out of the washing machine, try adding a pre-rinse (by hand or by machine) or/and increasing the duration of the wash (on some machines, this means increasing the “soil level” setting.  

Drying: Do what works for your family. While it is more environmentally-friendly to allow your diapers to air dry, you’re already helping the planet just by using cloth diapers. If the dryer is what makes cloth diapering possible for you, use the dryer!  When air drying, hang any elasticized parts in the direction that allows the elastic to rest*. Note that All-in-One style diapers will take longer to dry than other styles.

That’s it! You do not need to use bleach.

For diapers with Velcro closures, there is normally a laundry “tab” that allows you to stick the velcro out of the way while leaving the diaper open for washing. This will prevent the velcro from catching on other fabric in your load.

*To allow the elastics to rest, hang the cover/pocket shell/diaper so it forms a "U” (i.e. do not clip it so it hangs from one end).