Rockin' Green: Rock a Soak

Just how do you Rock a Soak? Follow these directions found on the Rockin' Green website:

1. Fill your washer with hot water and 3 Tbsp of Rockin’ Green, along with your diapers or clothing.
2. Let it soak for approximately 30-60 minutes. Then launder several times skipping the soap. If you have a HE machine, you may have to consult your manual but you can usually do a soak by pressing the start or pause button.
*Tip: Repeat this process anytime you need a good deep-cleaning.
Disclaimer: Items like PUL or TPU need to be washed with care, so please refer to the manufacturers washing instructions for more details. Avoid excessive soaking of PUL/TPU and natural fibers to extend their life span.



The water left after my Rock a Soak. The picture doesn't do it justice, the water was a lovely shade of greyish yellow.

   
Recently I purchased some used Softbums inserts for a great price. I wasn't expecting them to be perfect, considering they were used. When I received them they were kind of dingy, but I needed more inserts and they looked like they would do the trick.

I am kind of paranoid when it comes to germs and cooties and whatever else may be on used items (especially diapers!) so I wanted to make sure I washed them very well. In addition to the bacteria concerns, there are other issues such as soap build up that can effect the performance of cloth diapers.

So, I started by washing the inserts on hot with about a quarter cup of bleach. I know bleach isn't really recommended for cloth diapers, but considering these diapers were cheap, used and I had little history on them, I figured it was worth the risk. The problem was a soon as I started washing the diapers a TON of suds started coming out.

So, after my bleach wash I decided the do a "strip" with Blue Dawn. I don't really know what makes Blue Dawn so magical, but I am pretty new to the cloth diapering thing and I was told my some other CD'ing moms that even though Blue Dawn is soap it somehow counteracts other soaps. So, I did a wash cycle with a little squirt of Blue Dawn. Then I washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed, and still the suds were frothing up in each cycle. So I washed and rinsed over and over about a total of 10 cycles. The suds were still coming out.

Upon another recommendation, I tried boiling a couple of the inserts. When I boiled the inserts a strange smell came out. I don't even know how to describe it, it definitely wasn't a pee/ammonia smell, but it wasn't exactly pleasant and it stunk up my whole house. I didn't want to go through this with ten more inserts, so I decided to just throw the inserts through the wash as many times as needed to get the soap out. Well after a few more cycles I gave up and threw them in the dryer. After drying the entire batch stunk of that funny smell.

I was ready to give up...but I received my package of Rockin' Green Soft Rock (purchased from the lovely Michelle at Green Diaper Demos) in the mail and saw the instructions for a Rock a Soak on the back. I decided to give it a try before throwing out these inserts and shelling out a pile of cash on some brand new ones.

Well, less than three hours later my inserts had been soaked, washed and out of the dryer, and guess what? They smelled fine! They had even lost the greyish hue they had when I received them! So, long story short, I am impressed with Rockin' Green and I will probably be adding Rock a Soak to my routine every so often to freshen up my diapers.