While I am not a huge fan of powdered detergents in general, I do like being able to use exactly the amount that I need. This is easier with powders than it is with liquids, and less messy.  We have had no problems with the detergent clumping in the wash, as has happened with some other detergents we have tried.

While this is not the cheapest option for cleaning cloth diapers, I have gotten good results with it. We have extremely hard well water, so any detergent has to work pretty hard to just maintain the status quo here. Tiny Bubbles does a great job of helping to lift out stains. This is partly due to the sodium percarbonate. Sodium percarbonate is the stuff that makes Oxiclean work. It is natural and safe for cloth diapers. I have seen it take the color out of hand-dyed fabrics when over-used. At normal levels it has worked great on even my dyed diapers.

Tiny Bubbles is phosphate free and contains no dyes, brighteners or enzymes. It is completely biodegradable and rinses very cleanly. We have had no problems at all with detergent buildup or detergent rashes.

One box will clean about 30 loads in a top-loading machine or 60 loads in a front-loader. That comes to about 43 cents per load for toploaders like mine and 21 cents per load for a frontloading machine. That is a bit more expensive than some of the alternatives. What has worked well for us is using the much less expensive Allen’s Naturally (about 16 cents per load in a top loader) alternating with the Tiny Bubbles. This way we get the benefits of the oxygen bleach on every other load, while still keeping our costs down.

I am quite pleased with how the Tiny Bubbles detergent has worked for us. So, I added it to my store. You can purchase both Tiny Bubbles and Allen’s Naturally, as well as other cloth diaper detergents at Little for Now cloth diapers (and get low flat rate shipping).

I purchased two scented regular Rockin Green samples and one sensitive skin scented sample. Each sample lasted through several washloads and we only wash diapers 3 times per week, so it was more than 3 weeks worth of detergent. By week two, my daughter had started to develop a bright red rash everywhere the diaper touched her, worse in the front where there was more urine. She has sensitive skin, so I first looked at foods and other possibilities. Nothing new in her diet, and the redness was getting worse. I cut back on the detergent just to see if that was a possible cause. The redness continued. The third week I switched to the sensitive skin detergent. By the third day or so of the redness huge blisters started to form.

Suddenly she had about a dozen oozing sores. They were so deep that they left scars when they healed – which took over a week. I still had some diapers that had not been washed in Rockin Green, so I tried those. The redness went away.  So, I washed all of her diapers over again in our regular detergent. The redness came back, but lighter. The only thing that made the redness go away was using diapers that had never been washed in Rockin Green.

So, I stripped the load of diapers by washing the load  in hot water with our regular detergent then rinsing three times in hot water. That seemed to remove any residue and her skin started to clear up. I found some diapers that had been washed in the Rockin Green at least three weeks before – they still smelled strongly of the Rockin Green scents. I stripped all of those too.

That was about a month ago and we have not had the rash come back or the blisters. When someone on a retailer list I belong to asked about Rockin Green, I shared my experience. Three other cloth diaper retailer/moms shared that they had blistered babies and bad diaper burns from using scented Rockin Green.

Rockin Green works great for some people. I love the scents. However, for us it was a really bad experience and my little girl still has scars from the blisters. I am disappointed, since I had hoped that this detergent would live up to the many good things I have heard about it. Given our experience, and the similar stories I have heard from these other moms, I will not be carrying Rockin Green in my store. If you do have a sensitive skinned baby, I would suggest using unscented detergent.

Apparently the fragrance oils (and fragrances are added with an oil) either bind to the fabric too well, or add something that sensitive kids can’t handle. I did not try the unscented Rockin Green as I am not willing to put my daughter through potential burns again. Also, while the fragrance did linger on the diapers, the detergent did not remove stains or make the diapers smell as clean as our other detergents.