Detergent Test Report: Crunchy Clean

Some of my reports on the detergent are kind of funny and I'll want to access the information later so I figured I'd pull them for the blog but without background it's a little bit confusing. Here it is incredibly simplified.

Cloth diapers require a detergent that cleans the hell out of them and then rinses out very well. Not enough cleaning and your baby is sitting in old poop. If soap is stuck in the diaper there's no room for pee and the clothes get wet.


Test round one is complete. Crunchy Clean rates about even with Tide and All on regular clothes and a bit worse on diapers.
Positives: It doesn't have the build up feel of the major brands. It gets out surface dirt. The gardenia scent is wonderful. The clothes are soft.
Cons: It doesn't get out the smells. Ug. I openned the door to the basement when the diapers were almost done in the dryer and it smelled like a port-a-potty on a hot day. DH's shirts were mostly clean but one armpit was somehow missed in the washing and when I sniffed it I gagged. This could be an unfortunate twist in the washer or a product problem.
Other issues: There was still a bit of gardenia scent on one load as it came out of the washer. Some say that means there's still residue on the diapers and some say it's a positive.
Test method: For regular laundry I followed the directions on the bag for regular / heavy soiling and used 2T. For diapers I ran a prewash without detergent on perm press (this gets off all solids all the time in my machine) and then a hot wash with the 2T suggested on the bag. I did not do an extra rinse. I never do. We can start another thread on water attitudes if you like. :)
My diapers in current rotation are a combo of bamboo and cotton fitteds and microfiber pockets and AI2s. I have a few bits of organic cotton, hemp, and wool backed doublers in there too.
Since my fluff is now funky smelling my next step is to decide if I'm going to strip or Rock the Soak. I've used Rocking Green before and it does at least as good a job as Dawn at taking out the funk and doesn't require 7,000 rinses.