I *think* I've figured out my stink problem!!

[sstarfish]

I was having issues w/ stink, especially in my synthetics. I switched to Tide, but ended up getting the Ultra (didn't realize there was a difference at the time). I was using up to the -1- line, and the flats, etc were getting clean, but the synthetic pockets still stunk, as well as the Megaroos. So I started using a capful or 2 of bleach in every load, and that helped. I wasn't checking for bubbles (I was told not to!! )

Well, long story short, I realized that the rinse cycle was still FULL (and I mean FULL) of suds, so I decided to "strip" by doing tons of hot rinses, and then use less Tide.

And guess what? No more stink. So, in MY case (this won't work for everyone!), more detergent did not get my diapers cleaner. Now I use 3 TBs of Tide Ultra F&G in the hot wash, w/ a full warm/cold cycle afterwards to rinse, and everything is getting wonderfully clean. If any of the pocket inners still have a faint stink when it's all said and done, I do a small hot rinse or two w/ just the pockets, and the stink is gone. I've only had to do this occasionally.

I'm so excited to FINALLY have a wash routine that WORKS, is EASY, and (bonus!) uses much less detergent.


Oh, and I just wanted to add that I know that this won't work for everyone... I have softish water (naturally, no softener) and an old TL.

[FernHollow]

Good to know. I need to wash a big load of diapers in Ultra Tide free & gentle powder this afternoon because that is my only option. I'm almost out of diapers and I don't want to wake up napping toddlers to go to the store to try something else out. I think I'm going to do a warm wash w/ full amount detergent followed by a hot wash without and see how that goes for us. When I tried to wash with the Ultra before we had some staining and stinky covers which had never happened before with the original. Adding more detergent ended up with murky rinse water and a red bum

We have hard well water and I've found with playing around that the Ultra Tide powder *does* still get stains out of clothes, but only if I do the built in autosoak for each cycle. We had totally stain free clothing and diapers with the regular Tide f&g powder but when we switched to Ultra we weren't getting the same results. More detergent meant crunchy clothes, not less stains for us. Since we have a basic toploader (not HE) even with the 15 or 30 min. autosoak for each load it isn't really that time consuming. We live on a farm and my kids are really rough on their clothes so I had been so glad when we found that Tide worked for us. I just hope I can figure out a diaper routine!