Preparing Bleached Chinese Prefolds

[Kelly1101]

Getting conflicting information...

How many times do I need to wash these, and how many times do I need to dry, and do I use detergent or not, and I have Dawn soap but it's green apple scented, not the blue stuff.

They are bleached (with a "whitening agent" not actual bleach) Chinese prefolds from softclothbunz.com.

[michelle123]

Prefolds need to be washed and dried at least several times before they reach maximum absorbency. You can use whatever detergent you were planning on using with your cloth diapers. Dawn is usually used if you need to strip the diapers of build up. Some people use it every time, but I would stick with regular detergent unless you find you need to use Dawn all the time.

When I am prepping, I usually only use detergent the first or second time then just run them through cycles without detergent, but that's just my preference!

[juliav]

It's sort of up to you!! You definitely have to wash them a bunch of times before they are ready to absorb well. I think they're all different...some of mine were ready after 2 washing/drying cycles and some were more like 4.

You know they're ready when they go from being bigger and flatter to being smaller and all quilty looking, like they get puckered.

You can use detergent each time if you want or just the first time and then just keep running them in hot water. I use these soapnuts cause I think they're super cool, but you can use lots of different detergents. Here's a helpful chart.

HTH