Mystery Diaper Cream - Now What?

[Mama_of_1]

Our DD is in a home daycare with a lady who doesn't speak much English while our regular lady is out of the country for the month. Last night, I went to change K into her nighttime dipe after we got home only to discover, much to my horror, that there was a mystery white diaper cream all over her. (She had 4 nasty poops so the lady was trying to protect her skin which had reacted to the BMs. I really can't be mad at her, just incredibly frustrated.) We have just fought and fought to get our GroBaby dipes clean after the attrocious build-up issue (could have been from another mystery cream incident from our old daycare center arrangement) and I was just crushed and wanted to cry. I don't know exactly how many dipes were affected - it was probably 6 or 7 including the one for overnight since there would have still been residue on her skin.

We use a frontload HE washer and soaked all our dipes in the tub for 18 hours with Rockin Green to try to get the build-up out. This was AFTER we boiled everything, with no luck. I had hubby crank up the water heater so the water would be super hot.

We use a combo of GroBaby for daycare and pf at home.

I don't know exactly how many of our GB dipes got the cream on them.

Oh, and we have super hard water in Texas so getting our dipes clean is a challenge anyway combined with our HE washer.

Our regular detergent up until last weekend, was Nellie's. We tried Rockin Green to try to save the dipes.

Any suggestions? Similar experiences? I REALLY don't want to use sposie's but with those DD's skin clears up and stays clear... waaaaaaaaaaa

[luv-my-boys]

hmmm...not sure perhaps using a little liquid detergent like dawn to strip the oils (which I assume would be the problem) and then lots of repeated hot cycle washes?

[Mama_of_1]

I'm up to 4 super hot washes on the "extra soil" setting which gives extra agitation. I ran another one last night... The dipes that I thought were safe and are sitting dirty in the dipe pail are reeking to high heaven so I'm totally frustrated with the whole thing right now...

How much Dawn is safe in an HE washer? I know that the mechanisms are relatively sensitive in those things and I really don't want to kill the machine by accidentally putting in too much foaming detergent... (I probably have 12-16 GroBaby dipes and 6 or so PF in there right now.)

[Mama_of_1]

bump

Anyone else have problems getting their dipes clean in their hardwater, FL machine or is it just me???

DH doesn't want to use Dawn in the machine because he's worried about the sudsing causing problems. I can understand that considering how much the machine cost. We got Calgon this weekend and ran the clean dipes through a 2 sterilizer washes (with the machine heating the water on top of the hot water coming out of the tank) and they still smelled when she peed. The smell is better but it's still there.

Then we ran a completely full load of totally clean dipes with 2/3 cup of bleach and a 1/4 cup of Calgon only, no detergent of any kind on "whitest whites." That's the setting on our machine that will use the bleach - the Sterilize setting doesn't pull down the bleach. Ran 5 rinses and this morning sent them off to day care.

I guess we'll see what happens when I pick up DD this afternoon. Keeping my fingers crossed!

[Addie]

Since you're using Rockin' Green, have you tried emailing Kim, the owner, for advice? If you're on Facebook they have a very active fan page. I see her reaching out all the time to help customers, and she's probably seen it all (and lives in TX, so would know about the hard water issue). You can find her contact info on Facebook or on the company website.

[Ola_]

How about doing something outside of the machine with Dawn? Maybe in the tub or laundry sink if you have one? Just dump in the diapers, a bunch of hot water (maybe add a couple of pots of boiling water?), and some Dawn and agitate (with a clean toilet plunger or something since it will be too hot for your hands. Let it sit and poke it some more then drain and stick them into the machine for a regular hot cycle with some vinegar to rinse out all the suds?

[mambera]

I second the suggestion to use Dawn in the bathtub.

Rockin' Green is not designed to remove hard-core water-resistant creams. You definitely need a grease cutter for that. I understand not wanting to put it in your washer but if that's the case I think you should hand wash with plenty of Dawn in the bathtub using very very hot water and possibly a toothbrush to scrub the surface of each dipe.

[MommaShark]

i just used tide it worked...

[JTA Mom]

This got Desitin out of my BG pocket diapers:

Take undiluted dawn or palmolive or some other 'grease busting' dish detergent. Scrub in liberally with toothbrush onto creamed areas. LET SIT 24 HRS!!!

Then, wash in HOT water. You can also rinse in hot water in the tub. Let air dry. Repeat until gone.

Took 3 cycles but it was all gone. And Desitin has a stinky fish smell if 'old'. Got rid of it all. It's a pain, but it works.

Ami

[sara_m]

I regularly use Dawn in my HE front loader. Never had a problem with it.