Throw-away Fashion – On a Babies bum near you?
Over the past few months I’ve come across some baffling things in our nappy mad world. It would appear that the Disposable nappy giants seem to be trying to compete with Cloth nappies for the cuteness.
Not all of these ventures have been made available here in the UK but the USA seem to have had the lions share of ‘Designer’ Disposable nappies! Yep! the height of throw-away fashion has now reached our babies bottoms!
Throw-away Culture
Do we want denim or some other top notch design for a wear once and bin (2 dozen nappies) for the rough price of one cloth nappy that lasts a fair bit longer; definitely more than 2 dozen wash and wears.
Is it just me our has this just taken our throw away culture to new heights! not only are these nappies designed to be thrown away anyway but they’re now going to extremes to makes them more appealing. I couldn’t bare to think what else goes into the manufacturing process or even the nappy itself to accomplish this feat.
Flawed Competition
I think if these big companies want to compete with cloth nappies they ought to bite the bullet and make ‘cloth nappies’ rather than decorate rubbish!. You wouldn’t stick pretty flowers on a bin liner or decorate disposable sanitary wear to make them more appealing! However you dress them up they end up in the same hole in the ground to fester long after our children have had children.
Cloth nappies are cute and appealing because among others things they have an appreciation of the environment! Yes, they’re cute, fluffy and come in a huge range of materials and designs but we’re also preserving our planet for those that are using them! Something that using disposable nappies sadly falls short of!
Hopes?
Do we cling to the hope that when these limited edition prints go out of stock those fashion conscious mums look to cloth nappies to satisfy their babies fashion needs? Maybe even ignite a new addiction to all things fluffy (that can also be colour co-ordinated) or that cloth bumming mummies shout loud enough to promote cloth nappies!
As I write this Cotton Babies (makers of bumGenius) are staging an appearance outside the USA today building in NYC, to raise the awareness of modern cloth nappies to the masses in response to release of this throw-away fashion phenomenon! Cotton Babies Blog
shocking! Why on earth would you want a denim disposable or some other sort of pattern to throw it away?
what a waste!
All I can say is that cloth nappying must be having such a huge impact on the disposable manufacturers sales that they now feel that they need to decorate them!….lets hope we can get more and more people to switch to reusables and force the sposie companies to look at competing in the cloth nappy industry instead!
i mentioned that to my husband when we started cloth, i said it was only a matter of time before dispasables became cute because they already try with the pooh bear on huggies and the cutie baby elephant on pampers. But tbh they arent cute, a patterned bit of rustly paper is not cute. Look at a plain white sposie… ugly. But a baby in a plain white cloth nappy… so sweet!
We were in sposies until 9 months and whenever we wanted her to look pretty in her nappy, we just put a pretty pair of knickers on top of the nappy – I just don’t understand the point of these nappies, more expensive, apparently don’t work as well and they’ll get thrown away – I’m not sold, that’s for sure.
That’s more marketing madness, why make something as temporary as a disposable nappy pretty. Using even more resources to wear for a few hours, such a waste.
If only the people that want pretty nappies knew how simple cloth was to use there would be no need for this product.
So many people try to tell me that cloth nappies are so much work – all that extra washing etc. What’s 1-2 extra wash loads a week to taking an extra trip to the supermarket?
I do think prettier ‘sposies are just pointless!