Calgon, take me away!

I've been away for most of the summer at my family's cottage just north of Toronto, Ontario. It's a fabulous place for the kids to run around outside. Sadly, I have left my sewing machine and new serger at home, so I have not been able to sew for the past 5 weeks.

Meanwhile, I've been washing my diapers up here and I started noticing several things. First, my cotton and bamboo diapers started seriously fading. My orange gDiapers suddenly looked old and faded. My BSRBs started fading too. Second, we started getting a strong ammonia smell in the mornings. Then, the ammonia smell started happening throughout the day.

I added "blue Dawn" to the shopping list because I figured I just needed to strip my diaper. But before I went and got it, I consulted with my good friend Google. I told Google about our hard water up here at the cottage. We have well water, and that's about as hard as it gets. Google told me that all the minerals in the water are leaving a white filmy buildup on my diapers, thus making them appear to be old and faded. The hard water was also trapping in detergent and likely causing some serious detergent buildup in my diapers. The answer? I needed to get some Calgon water softener, not Dawn. So I crossed Dawn off the list and added on Calgon.

This Calgon is not to be confused with the "Calgon, take me away!" bubble bath stuff (despite my catchy title). This Calgon is specifically for use in washing machines to combat the problems of hard water. Calgon in hand, I put in the recommended half a cup into a load of diapers with NO soap and ran the wash on warm. I couldn't believe how many suds I saw! I repeated the wash on HOT with the tiniest bit of Tide Free (we're talking a teaspoon, if that) and there were so many suds that I was literally scooping them out of the washing machine and dumping them in the utility sink. The machine here is a 20 year old top loader that you can futz with during the wash. I'd never be able to do that at home with my fancy shmancy HE front loader. I've got pictures of this, so I'll add them tomorrow.

The end result is that Calgon is a MUST for anyone with hard water. My mom and I tried it with our clothes and noticed a huge difference. Everything just felt better, cleaner, even smelled fresher. My diapers have been fixed and the ammonia stink is gone. The powder works best on hot water because it helps to dissolve the powder - plus, warmer water helps get out more soap. I think that's why I noticed so much more sudsing on the hot wash.

Here is my box of Calgon powder:

Here is what I saw immediately when the wash first started:

And here's my second HOT wash (hot gets out more of the sudsy buildup) where I was literally scooping suds out and into the sink next to the washing machine!!! This was only about a months worth of detergent buildup in hard well water. And I was hardly using any detergent. Scary, right?