Been given grey-brown nappies - anything I can do to whiten them?

[littlefrog]

A really kind person has just given me a big supply of motherease one-size nappies - only trouble is that they're almost beige with age and washing with coloureds. They look more like floor cloths than tea towels, if you see what I mean.

What can I do to make them whiter, without wrecking the fabric? (and, ideally, the environment, though since I'll only do this once perhaps that's not quite so important)

Any ideas/suggestions??

Maybe they are the unbleached or organic ones and are supposed to be that colour?!

They'll not show up the poo stains so badly - keep them as they are!! Any bleaching you do will damage the fibres and TBH what's the point, it's just putting chemicals into the environment that noone needs.

A better option is to dye them some DC appropriate colour - at least they'll be funky!

Emma

something else, motherease nappies would never have been bright white, even as new.
might be good idea to dye them funky colours like makesachage suggested instead

motherease are creamy coloured when new, so they would never come up white.

I agree with others - bleach will damage fabrics - should never really use napisan or milton on nappies - try a gentler mor env version like mio fresh or onelife pure - or just leave them on the line for a week and let the sun work its miracles!

I got some seconds that were also very dingy and what i did was to soak them in napisan overnight, then ran them through a normal wash but using bio, then another with non bio to get rid of any of the bio traces (or maybe i did a wash without any detergent at all-i can't remember now) and hung them on the line everyday until they looked brighter-it took about a week but it depends just how dingy they are! It wont make them white (cos they arent supposed to be) but will make them look brighter and fresher. I avoid Napisan as a general rule but every now and then when my nappies are in need of freshening up i soak a load of them for a couple of hours before washing. Be especially careful with any that have applix though as napisan tends to eat it!

Oh and if we get any frosty weather again it's really good for brightening nappies-leave them out overnight to catch the best of it.

Leave them on the line for a couple of days so that they get frost and sunlight - it will help brighten them... if not, dye em - but remember if you are tiedying to make sure that most of the inside stays inside the ties... i have a sky blue tie dyed meos but the pretty blue ended up inside and the outside is mainly white stil!!

Thanks everyone - I can well imagine these nappies might once have been creamy, but seriously, they're way beyond that now! Sounds like the consensus is that the best thing to do is just hang them on the line for ages - I'll try that before resorting to more drastic measures! (Does napisan hurt nappies with poppers not aplix? And do any of the 'sanitisers' really whiten - I'm sure the nappies are clean, they're just dingy!)

Napisan attacks all the elastic, fibres n everything really. I don't think the other sanitisers tend to brighten tbh.

Just another thought,

I would use this as an excuse to invest in some reeeeeally cute new wraps to cover them

Emma

Dye them red. Very cute.

Hi there folks, well the nappies have been on the line since I last wrote, and, well, they might be a little whiter than they were, but it's all relative! Still a tasteful shade of grey, which I think we'll just live with.

Though I did wonder, why do people think that dyeing them is better for the environment than bleaching them? I'd have thought that both were pretty dubious (dyes are often seriously unpleasant chemicals, after all!) Just wondering...

Thanks for everyone's advice.

Well you'd be making your own dye from onion skins and woad, surely?

I wasn't thinking very environmentally

littlefrog - I think it's more that dyeing them will be better for the nappies than bleaching them.

Its not the environment with the bleach, it eats away at the elastic and fibres, dye doesn't.