Guest Author - Julie Renee Holland
Ok, I had to laugh when I read this press release from Proctor and Gamble (makers of Pampers). Pampers Dry Max Rash Denial.
Now, I have no idea what the truth is here. I have not talked to any of the parents involved. I have not seen the rashes. I do not know what specifically was changed in the new diapers.
I do know that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating, so there must be a fair amount of evidence. I have actually used DryMax diapers on my daughter and while they leaked like crazy, they did not give her a rash. (Life lesson, always pack more diapers than you think you’ll need so you don’t have to carry a soggy child into the drugstore for emergency diapers on a "2 hour outing" that lasted all day! Their “12 hour” diapers proceeded to leak through every 1 1/2 hours for the rest of our day – a properly stuffed pocket diaper lasts her 2 1/2 hours or more.)
But here is what I think is funny – not only is P&G is denying any possibility that there is a real problem – they are blaming cloth diaper “promoters” for the rumors. The problems are being reported by people who use disposables regularly – not by people who use cloth diapers. Duh! The Facebook page where parents are complaining and begging Pampers to return to their old diapers is certainly not populated by thousands of cloth diapering parents since we don’t care what Pampers does. All of those parents are sposie users.
It amazes me how politicians and big companies now blame “Mommy bloggers” when they take a public relations hit. Yes, we mommy bloggers write about many things, and it sucks to be you if you make a bunch of us mad. But come on! How can you blame Mommy bloggers when major news outlets like Reuters are covering the issue?
I do want to thank Pampers for one thing though. Many new cloth-diapering parents tell me that they had never considered cloth diapers since they did not “know that anyone still used those.” Well, Pampers just announced publicly that not only are cloth diapers still a choice, but they implied that cloth diaper users don’t have to worry about chemical burns from their diapers (the truth at last!). Not only that, they just publicly stated that we are a force to be reckoned with – even if they were trying to blame us for their current reputation nightmare.
Thanks, Pampers. We love you and your petroleum-based, landfill-clogging, wallet-skimming products too!
