Washing Your Cloth Pads

Cloth pads are easy to wash, and in many cases they can be thrown in with your regular washing without issue! If you have tricky stains or want to follow the recommended washing instructions, we have detailed instructions below.

Pre-soak to Remove Smells

We recommend pre-soaking your pads before washing especially if there are any stains or smells set in. Using a 5 gallon bucket works really well for us. Screw-in lids can be purchased for these buckets, but make sure that when you soak you do not seal the lid as many cleaners will create gasses like CO₂ and oxygen.

When soaking your pads before washing, there are a few good options for removing smells:

• Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate)
  • For stubborn smells, you can rub baking soda directly onto the area that has been stained before soaking.
  • Add at least 2-3 tablespoons of baking soda to the water. Mix the baking soda in with the diapers until dissolved. Agitate and let sit for about 30 minutes.
  • The baking soda will work to neutralize and bind to acidic compounds that create smell.
• Vinegar (Solution of 5-20% Acetic Acid)
  • If there are still stubborn stains and smells after rinsing the baking soda out, add about a cup of vinegar to a new bucket of water and let this soak for about 30 minutes.
  • Adding baking soda and vinegar together will just neutralize both chemicals and provide little benefit.
• Sodium Percarbonate: This is the active ingredient in “oxygen booster” cleaning agents like OxiClean™. We prefer to use pure sodium percarbonate as it has no additional scents or other added chemicals.
  • Simply add about 1/4 cup of the powder to your soak bucket, agitate, and let everything sit for about 10 minutes.
  • Sodium percarbonate will react with water to create hydrogen peroxide, sodium, CO₂, and oxygen. All of these compounds will attach to various smell-containing compounds and either neutralize them or carry them away.
  • Please note that hydrogen peroxide is also a bleaching agent. While soaking for short periods of time will not cause any harm to your pads, leaving them in a solution with hydrogen peroxide for long periods of time may bleach your pads or damage the fibers.
  • Sodium percabonate can be used with baking soda to combine their effects, but avoid combining with vinegar.
• Enzyme Cleaners
  • Enzyme cleaners are special cleaners that contain either enzymes or bio-engineered bacteria that produce enzymes that target specific types of substances and break them down. These cleaners are best used by themselves and work very well with stubborn stains.
  • Common enzymes you may see in cleaners go by the following names: Amylase, Protease, Subtilin, and Deoxyribonuclease. This is a non-exhaustive list.
  • We recommend using an enzyme cleaner with minimal additional ingredients. Dirty Labs has Bio Enzyme Laundry Booster that is very effective at removing urine and other biological stains. Adding a tablespoon to your soak bucket or laundry is all you need.
  • You can also spray a liquid based enzyme cleaner onto nearly any surface to spot clean or pre-treat any specific areas. Biokleen Bac-Out is a reliable and minimal scent liquid enzyme cleaner.
  • Most enzyme cleaners can be safely used with both Sodium percarbonate and baking soda.

Wash Your Pads

You can dump the whole pre-soak bucket right into your washing machine. We like to run a “rinse and spin” cycle before washing. This will rinse away any chemicals you used in your pre-soak as well as any gross water that remains. After this first rinse, you can add additional clothing items to wash with the pads. They should be mostly clean by this point.

Wash with cool or warm water using your favorite detergent. We prefer dye-free and scent-free detergents as these items come into contact with sensitive skin. You may bump the temperature up to a low “warm” setting. Adding sodium percarbonate (OxiClean™) during this cycle can be quite useful in breaking down residual smell and staining.

Drying

You may tumble dry your pads on air fluff or low heat settings. The bottom waterproof layer is made with polyurethane which can degrade when the heat is turned up too much on your dryer. We like to use the “Casuals” or “Delicates” setting when tumble drying. Heat should be set no higher than the lowest setting above air fluff.

Your pads may only be partially dry after this cycle. Other clothing should be completely dry. We recommend laying the pads out flat or hang drying to complete your the drying of your cloth pads.

It is normal for the bottom waterproof layer of PUL to stick to itself after the first few washes. Gently pull any parts that are sticking together apart. This is residual basting adhesive used in the construction of the pads and will naturally wash out over time and this stickiness will be reduced.