# My Fuzzi Bunz smell funky



## nova22 (Jun 26, 2004)

I always wash my FB diapers the same: All Free & Clear detergent, hot wash, cold rinse, tumble dry low or air dry. I wash them with the inserts. Usually that does the trick but lately they have been smelling funky (like urine). They LOOK clean - there are never any poop stains or anything like that. What's going on??


----------



## bethanyclaire (Dec 17, 2004)

Detergent build-up? We use FB's for overnight and I recently had the same problem. I threw them in for a full wash, all warm, with a warm extra rinse. All I used was baking soda (1/2-3/4 cup maybe?) and some (a cup?) vinegar. I dumped it under the running water and also filled the bleach dispenser thing with vinegar. Voila! No more smell! Good luck! (In fact, it worked so well I'm using it for all of my diaper washing, and most of my clothes, now.)


----------



## DreamsInDigital (Sep 18, 2003)

All Free and Clear has a brightening agent that tends to build up on fleece. My recommendation is to switch to a detergent without any additives. Sun, Allen's Naturally, Sportwash (also called Sensi-clean) are some of the only detergents left that don't have stain repellants and UV brighteners that build up on fleece and make them stink. And try adding a drop of Dawn liquid dish soap to your hot wash. How I wash my diapers is first I run the diapers on a cold wash cycle with no soap at all. Then I run a hot wash/cold rinse cycle with 1/4 of the capfull of Sun and a couple drops of Dawn. Then I run a cold wash with no soap to really rinse the diapers. It seems like a lot but it's the only way my Fuzzi Bunz don't stink.
HTH!


----------



## nichole (Feb 9, 2004)

oh man i had the same problem. i think it was easier to potty train than to fix it







i did all the the tricks for switching and changing detergent. i think my son's urine just got stinkier? so i now do a prerinse in cold and 2 hot washes and then a cold rinse. if there are no poopy diapers, then i would just do one hot wash. really really gotta make sure they get all prerinsed out, nice and clean, and all the soap rinsed out.

it was so much easier in the beginning.

i wonder why they start stinking all of a sudden? my son had recently weaned. also i was living with my inlaws and their water and washing machine was different.


----------



## iris0110 (Aug 26, 2003)

My dipes (fb, HH, and Bumgenius) have been smelling funky since I switched to sportswash. They are definately clean, but they don't smell good. I added some simple green to the second wash cycle on Warm/warm and added an extra rinse after and they smell better now. I am ordering some Allen's Naturally to see if that works better.


----------



## boscopup (Jul 15, 2005)

For urine stink, build-up is probably the problem. I had stinky urine diapers for a long time, and I too thought it was just toddler pee. Then I did a MEGA-strip of all my hemp, and started using only baking soda and vinegar to wash (vinegar in the bleach dispenser). My nighttime hemp doesn't even smell bad at all when DS wakes up, and that's 12+ hours of toddler pee!!! No ammonia smell, no skunk smell. Just very faint "pee" smell if I sniff really close.

All F&C can really cause a lot of buildup. And I too had stinky diapers when using Sportswash. The baking soda/vinegar thing is the only thing that seems to be working. I've used it 3-4 times so far since stripping, and everything is still stink-free!

Also, I used the salt trick for hard water, although I really don't know if I have hard water or not - doesn't hurt to add salt, right?


----------



## nova22 (Jun 26, 2004)

I tried the baking soda & vinegar wash and they still smell a little bad...I haven't finished drying them yet so maybe they'll be better (I hope!). Hopefully if I try it again it will work, and I am definately going to look into a different kind of detergent. Thank you all SO MUCH for your advice! I'm getting a new shipment of FB in a few days, and I'm going to wash them likethis from the start.


----------



## lrlittle (Nov 11, 2005)

what type of vinegar are you using? just the plain ol' white kind? i need to get some...thanks!


----------



## boscopup (Jul 15, 2005)

I use plain white vinegar.

Baking soda and vinegar by themselves won't take the buildup out without stripping. I had to strip first, THEN use baking soda and vinegar as my wash routine. I've been using this routine (no stripping - just bs/vin) for a couple weeks (I wash every other day), and my hemp still has NO SMELL when peed in. I can't believe it! And my FBs don't smell like poop. I usually put a big glug of vinegar in the prewash and let it soak for a bit if there are poopy microfleece diapers, just in case. Then I do the bs/vin wash as normal (vinegar in the bleach dispenser and in the fabric softener dispenser). I started to get a little smell back this week in just a couple diapers, so I did a good strip again, and sure enough, there were suds! I guess those diapers weren't part of the mega-strip I did initially. But as long as I don't see suds, my diapers come out smelling CLEAN - not like detergent, and not like skunk or ammonia or poop, but truly clean.

But STRIP FIRST. That's really really important.


----------



## lrlittle (Nov 11, 2005)

Sorry, what do you mean by 'strip'?


----------



## boscopup (Jul 15, 2005)

Stripping = run lots of super hot washes with no detergent so you can get the detergent buildup out. Basically, do hot washes until you see NO suds. If you have hard water, you may need to add some Calgon water softener, RLR, salt, vinegar, or any other item that will help soften and get the buildup out.


----------



## wawoof (Aug 17, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *boscopup*
Stripping = run lots of super hot washes with no detergent so you can get the detergent buildup out. Basically, do hot washes until you see NO suds. If you have hard water, you may need to add some Calgon water softener, RLR, salt, vinegar, or any other item that will help soften and get the buildup out.

A mama in another thread warned me not to use Calgon on pocket diapers because it will cause repelling fleece, so I'd strip with RLR or Dawn dish detergent


----------



## boscopup (Jul 15, 2005)

Ok, good info. I don't have hard water, so I can only suggest what I've read, and I've not been faithfully reading this board recently.


----------

