The Cloth Diaper Experience- What's that Smell?

I was only 2 weeks in, the whole cloth diapering thing was going great! I was LOVING it. Then one day, as I pulled an insert from the washer to place in the dryer, I noticed a faint smell. {Yes, I have a habit of smelling all of the dipes as they come out of the washer to ensure they're clean.} It smelled like...like wet dog actually. That's the closest thing I really can compare it to. It wasn't overwhelming, or a knock you over kind of odor, it was faint, but it was there, and I was nervous.

I put the load in the dryer determined to hit the interwebs and do some detective work. I googled "cloth diaper wet dog smell". It brought me into a world of stink and build up and residue and stripping and I was suddenly soooo overwhelmed. And so terrified my love affair with cloth was over. I honestly didn't know what to do. Some sites said I wasn't using enough detergent, some sites said I was using too much. Some sites said I needed to rinse more, some said I needed to strip. Some said to use Tide soap, some said Tide ruined their diapers.

I didn't know what to do.

Honestly, because I didn't know WHAT was causing the smell, I didn't know what to DO to fix it.

Luckily, I have been blessed by finding the most awesome cloth diaper store ever and decided to email them. In their typical AMAZING customer service fashion one of the owners called me. I told her what was going on. We talked about all of the things it could be, what she feared it was, and what I could do to fix it.

My original wash routine was this:
Cold rinse, no detergent.
Add 2 scoops of Crunchy Clean, heavy wash cycle on hot, cold rinse, extra rinse.

Sometimes after the cold rinse, there was still poo in the gussets, and I noticed that the diapers always smelled like the "Pink Sugar" scent of the Crunchy Clean before going into the dryer. Both of these things aren't good! It means that they weren't rinsing well enough in the original rinse, and then weren't rinsing well enough, or I was using too much detergent in the main wash.

No wonder I was having some stink!

I tweaked my wash routine and I am now doing the following:
Cold wash with 1 scoop of Crunchy Clean, extra rinse.
Hot wash with 1 scoop of Crunchy Clean, extra rinse.

SUCCESS! I no longer have any faint wet dog smell, or any faint Crunchy Clean smell for that matter either!

Moral of the story? Don't freak out! And even though it's hard, try not to become overwhelmed. Start at the bottom with little changes, like tweaking a wash routine, and then move onto the bigger things if that doesn't help. Maybe changing detergents, or stripping your diapers.

My love affair has gone on to live another day!

I will say this though, in all of the googling I was doing I did discover that with really hard water you can, over time, have a mineral build up on your diapers that can cause some repelling and stink issues. So I am prepared to strip my diapers. Probably once every few months. And I'm also debating on getting some Calgon water softener to add to the wash routine. I'm going to have to google more on the Calgon though.

I will, of course, continue to keep everyone posted. I'm hoping to help other new cloth diapering mama's out there that are in the same boat as me! Learning as we go.

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