Another blogger loves Rockin' Green and tells us why!

I had the pleasure of meeting Adam, the owner of Happy Baby Company, (formerly Pittsburgh Cloth Diapers) last week. He and his wife own the natural baby products store in Pittsburgh, where you can not only buy a wide array of safe and healthy goods for your baby, you can also go there for classes, such as the Cloth Diapering Orientation held on alternate Saturday afternoons.

Adam took the time to talk to me about a variety of things and even went so far as to check to see if my car seat was installed correctly. It wasn't. He removed it (despite the tether buckle burning his fingers in the 95 degree weather), re-threaded the strap and then reinstalled the seat, kneeling on top of it in order to ensure a solid, tight fit. That's what I call going above and beyond the call of duty. Awesome.

As we talked about my blog, he offered to give me a bag of Rockin' Green Cloth Diaper and Laundry Detergent to use as a giveaway for you, my readers. He also introduced me to another Pittsburgh-based blog, imanimama.com, singing the praises of Jen, who pours her heart and soul into it.

I discovered Jen's blog was worthy of his praise. I also discovered a wonderful post she did with a thorough review of Rockin' Green and she has graciously allowed me to repost it here. For all of you who like reading about common sense parenting, you have to check out her blog!

So, here it is, with all the reasons why you want to try Rockin' Green. In honor of Happy Baby Company earning the prestigious Rockin' Green Retailer of the Year award, Jen is hosting a Rockin' Green giveaway on her blog as well.

Rockin’ Green Cloth Diaper Detergent :: Review

You’ve seen plenty of posts now of me raving about Rockin’ Green, the amazing little cleaner that could. About a month or so ago, I reached out to the owner and asked if she’d be interested in doing a review/giveaway on imanimama.com. She sent me a few packets of Classic Rock in several scents and I went about putting it to the test.

sorry for all the flash photography. we blew a breaker in the basement, of course the same day as i needed to take these pics.

*Note: Rockin’ Green produces 3 different formulas of their detergent. Classic Rock is for normal water. Hard Rock is for hard water, and Soft Rock is for…you guessed it…soft water.

It was hard for me to try to approach this objectively, I confess, because I was already in love with the product and its marketing (as a marketer myself, I tend to be very loyal to those who put a solid effort forth for their brands). But I did eventually jump that hurdle and was able to get some good review material.

I evaluated in three main areas: removal of diaper stinkies, quality of scent and stain removal.

Removal of Diaper Stinkies

We use bumGenius 3.0 One-Size diapers (RIP 3.0) almost exclusively, which have a little pocket into which you stuff a microfiber insert. After a while, the inserts really start to stink. I don’t mean after being worn all night, or after a big meal. I mean perfectly clean inserts smell downright funky. And if you use a clean but funky insert overnight, the thing could double as a smelling salt come morning.

Gross.

Enter “rockin’ a soak”. Two-three tablespoons of Rockin’ Green and a washer full of dipes and hot water. That’s all you need. Let it sit there for 30-60 minutes. Heck, if they’re really bad, let them sit overnight. Check out how my clean clothes looked after only 30 minutes soaking in Classic Rock.

nasty, right?

Then wash as usual.

I can’t even tell you how marvelous it was when I removed the formerly stinky inserts and stuck my face right in them with incredible confidence. Clean as clean can be, and there was absolutely ZERO trace of smell.

Test #1: Rockin’ Green passes with flying colors.

Quality of Scent

I can make this one short and sweet. The scents, or flavors, of Rockin’ Green really are delicious. I tried several of them and found them all to be very nice. Despite the fact that Rage Against the Raspberries and Smashing Watermelons seem to be the most popular, I personally really liked The Plain Green Teas the best right out of the package. My least favorite was Lavender Mint, which reminded me too much of Vick’s Vapo Rub. I was really stoked about Mötley Cleän from the description, and even though I liked it when it arrived, to me it smelled more like Sweet-Tarts than anything else.

Not that I’m hatin’ on Sweet-Tarts.

As for this family, we use Bare Naked Babies, the unscented one. While the scents are yummy, the fact is, I couldn’t smell any of them by the time the dryer was done with them.

Test #2: Eh. Nice coming out of the package, but I wish they stuck around on the actual fabric after the wash was over.

And finally,

Stain Removal

This one is pretty darn remarkable, and I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. I did two main tests here, both involving rockin’ a soak with existing stains. I’m not sure why one turned out better than the other. Maybe it was the fabric. Who knows. But both results will still make your jaw drop.

First one: Gro-Baby cotton diaper inserts. Check out the top ones, which are perfectly clean, and with baked-in stains. The ones underneath have been soaked and washed in Rockin’ Green. All four looked exactly the same originally.

'nuff said.

With this next one, we had a cotton sheet that suffered a great big nasty poo-splosion. It got washed and dried before I even had time to think through using Rockin’ Green (we use Purex for our regular laundry). When it came out of the dryer looking just as nasty as when it went in, I was bummed out.

I decided to try rockin’ a soak with it, allowing it to steep for several hours. In the end, you can see that the stain is significantly diminished, but there are still obvious traces left.

This isn’t camera tricky, folks. It’s real-life examples of this stuff at work.



So am I a fan? You betcha.


A convert? You better believe it.


A believer? For life.

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Thanks for letting me post this, Jen!

Keeping it Rockin' Green,

Hana