When I started making Rockin’ Green cloth diaper detergent, I knew that there would be a hard rock version. It was the trilogy that I had in my head from day 1. There was Soft Rock, Classic Rock, and there had to be a Hard Rock.

Unfortunately, seeing my vision come to life was more challenging than I ever dreamed.

You see in many ways, the “green” cleaning industry is still in it’s infancy. Many in the detergent world, are still mourning the loss of phosphate based ingredients, and as such there is little out there in the way of effective cleaners that don’t have a negative impact on our planet. I have spent months testing different ingredients, researching any and all options, to come up with something that would clean the way that I wanted it to clean for the most challenging of situations. I researched what was currently being done, and found that nothing really addressed the needs of the cloth diaper market.

As most of you know, when it comes to making a cloth diaper safe detergent it is a whole new ball game. Mainstream detergents like Seventh Generation, work fine for clothing but cleaning a t-shirt or a pair of jeans is much simpler than today’s modern cloth diapers. To effectively wash cloth diapers, you need something that:

• disinfects
• neutralizes ammonia and odors
• rinses clean
• brightens clothes, without optical brighteners
• dissolves minerals (that can cause buildup and repelling)
• gentle enough on the most sensitive of skin types (which means no enzymes)
• and keeps working wash after wash

And we also  threw in economical and yummy smelling, because that was important to us as well.

I have spent months talking to chemical suppliers all over the country, looking for ways to address these problems. And it was not an easy road! (Especially, when you have a 4 year old asking you to play bubbles and a one year old who wants to nurse 24/7   I chased down patents, looking for companies that were creating new and safe ingredients to include in cleaning products. We have worked with companies who have research grants, helping them test their products in detergent formulas. I have even gone so far as to get ingredients milled specifically for Rockin’ Green formulations.

It’s a good thing I am hard headed, because anyone else would have thrown a few not-so-earth-friendly chemicals into the mix just to get the job done.

But as a mom of 2 little boys, and an avid cloth diaperer, I know that it is something worth fighting for. All of our amazing customers deserve the very best and I am really excited to bring it to you.

Hard rock is coming very soon to a store near you, and I am excited about the prospects. We will be the first eco-friendly detergent ever to incorporate some of these new ingredients (and you will find them in all our formulas soon), and I am proud of what it means for the industry as a whole. I hope that we will set the bar a little higher and prove that just because something is “green” doesn’t make it inferior. It just makes it better for everyone!

Tags: cloth diaper detergent, cloth diaper safe detergents

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 9:25 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.