Improvements to our cloth nappy routine builder 🛠

We launched the detergent dosage calculator in early 2024 as a quick-reference tool to tailor your detergent amounts to your machine size and water hardness. In late 2024, we added the washing machine cycle generator. This combination realised a long-held dream: a simple way to generate a starting routine for washing your cloth nappies. 

We are all about continuous improvement here at Clean Cloth Nappies. That includes making small improvements wherever we can. After our bleach calculator revamp last month, we’ve turned our attention to the cloth nappy routine builder. 

The current situation

Behind the scenes, each detergent entry includes a field for a standard main wash dose in either millilitres (for liquids) or grams (for powders). This hidden field powers the magic that allows us to scale up and down for machine size and water hardness. 

Over the last decade, we have reviewed 143 Australian and New Zealand detergents, and 75 detergents from other countries. We personally tested each one on cloth nappy laundry and grimey kids’ clothing.

Out of the Australian and New Zealand detergents, 64 meet our standards for cleaning cloth nappies effectively. The problem is we only had metric measurements for around 50 of these. This meant a whole lot of recommended but measurement-less detergents were not shown in the detergent dosage dropdown.

The existing logic also permanently excluded laundry capsules, as it’s too hard to use half or a third of a capsule. 

At launch, the detergent dosage calculator was intended to supplement the detergent index. In its simplicity, it omitted information about enzyme inclusion, wash temperature recommendations, and our testing summary. We realised adding this information to the detergent calculator would make the tool even more useful. 

The updates

This update removes those limitations and brings in several key features.

• Testing notes: our testing insights and observations now display directly on the page; no need to navigate back and forth with the detergent index.
• Temperature recommendations: another overdue addition. Our guidance on which detergents require a hot wash and which ones perform well on warm now show after you select a detergent.
• Added top loader advice: using a top loader with a detergent that requires a 60°C wash to be effective? We now alert top loader users when they should add chlorine bleach or a laundry booster to offset their machine’s lower temperature.
• Details regarding enzymes: quickly check which products contain active enzymes so you can choose the right fit for your wash routine.
• Water hardness advice: we’ve added tailored advice for different water hardness levels.
• Complete detergent visibility: you can now see dosage notes even when a specific millilitre or gram measurement isn’t known. This gives you a starting point to dose with, alongside tips for your water hardness.
• Better capsule support: laundry capsules don’t map easily to metric units, so we excluded them initially. Now, recommended capsules are listed, along with their dosage notes.

🙋‍♀️ It’s a recommendation, not a fixed target

Remember that our detergent dosage assumes a standard level of soiling. If you are running half-full main loads in a large front loader, you probably won’t need as much detergent as the calculator recommends. Conversely, if you have multiple children in cloth or are washing a lot of extra-dirty clothes, you might need more. 

How you can help

If you are using a detergent where we don’t currently know the measurements and are able to measure it for us, we’d love to hear from you. Either post a comment here or submit a post in our Facebook group so that others can benefit from your findings.

One update leads to another

The cloth nappy routine builder’s sibling tool, the cloth nappy cost calculator, has received a matching upgrade! 💁‍♀️ It now lists every single recommended detergent from Australia and New Zealand in our database. We still face the same issue of being able to accurately scale a measurement-less detergent up or down, but we have subbed in Biozet powder (at its standard sale price of $12/2kg) for when detergent dose scaling isn’t possible. 

This makes it possible to compare the cost of other wash routine variables like wash temperature and main wash frequency.

A note on how we list detergents

You might be thinking, only 64 recommended detergents? OMO alone makes at least 20 detergents when you count each powder, liquid and capsule variety! 

This is because we amalgamate different product lines of the same detergent into a single entry. For example, all OMO powders containing enzymes are grouped together, and so are all OMO liquids with enzymes. This makes comparing your options much simpler without forcing you to dig through multiple repetitive entries. It also makes the detergent index easier for us to manage. 😅

If a detergent isn’t on our list, it doesn’t mean it isn’t workable; it might just be one that we haven’t tested yet. Almost any detergent can work (especially in the short term) if you wash on 60°C, use chlorine bleach, pretreat stains, and babysit the machine.

If the detergent you want isn’t in the detergent dosage dropdown, check the detergent index to see if it is one we haven’t tested, or just as likely, one we tested and found it too unreliable to effectively clean cloth nappies.