Written By: Kinsey Marie
A year ago today, we planted a seed at the heart of the cloth diaper industry. Our mission in starting Fluff Love was to help as many people as possible have clean, safe cloth diapers for their babies. We didn’t care about what brands or styles of diapers someone chose to use, we only cared that they got them all fully clean each time they washed them, and we knew people needed help to make that happen. Just one year later, we have over 57,000 members around the world and a resourceful all-encompassing website making information accessible to all cloth-diapering parents whether they are members of Fluff Love & CD Science or not. I have to say that from where I’m sitting, it all seems very surreal.
Fluff Love was born out of the combined passions of some very intelligent, very organized moms with a common mission and a ton of talent. A few of the first admins knew each other from other smaller Facebook groups, where they helped other members safely wash their diapers using methods that worked best for their budget, ideals, and other special needs. It wasn’t long before we knew we needed to start our own group to set clear standards for getting things clean with a baseline for research sources beyond anecdotal blogs or diaper and detergent manufacturers. We wanted to be helpful, transparent, and methodical so that members could have a full understanding of what we were suggesting and why, so they could safely adjust their wash routines as they needed to get the desired results.
The response has been overwhelming. Our vision was to reach as many people as possible, but we didn’t at all foresee reaching so many so fast. There were times our admin team struggled to address the mounting needs of the community. There have been interesting members with some strange ideals and those with very detrimental motives. We’ve seen unprecedented growth, and that sort of victory always comes with its own unique challenges, but our admin team and our membership have hearts too big to be overcome by these things.
In the last year, we have seen a shift in the cleaning philosophy of the cloth diaper community as a whole. The common train of thought used to be that prominent use of weaker or less detergent coupled with stripping or bleach additives to control diaper issues like rashes and smells was acceptable practice. Now more and more people, and even diaper manufacturers, are adopting our philosophy to get the diapers totally clean every time so that stripping and bleaching won’t be necessary to address those issues–because they shouldn’t exist in the first place. Using real or more detergent to clean diapers isn’t a new sentiment, since our grandparents used real detergent to clean our parents’ diapers and the first commercial for Dreft detergent was for use on cloth diapers. Somewhere along the way, though, the message got twisted and a group of holistic/naturalist/minimalist ideals collided in an industry where people respond to those messages. Fluff Love appreciates those ideals and holds respect for those with whom messages of naturalism and holistic living resonate, but above all we want clean diapers. Dirty diapers need real detergent, and lots of it. Those with a desire to clean more naturally have been happy to find that they can do so with the appropriate amount of the detergent of their choice, and those who desire to save money with cloth are thrilled to find they can do so easily with cheaper detergents as well.
Everyone deserves clean cloth diapers, no matter your philosophy or budget. It is with this message that we launched Fluff Love University during our 20,000 member celebration. Inside that website now boasts a detergent index of hundreds of options for brands parents can use to suit whatever need they have, along with now a diaper brand index and a washing machine index to help people identify the appropriate wash routine for their needs. All of these things and more have been developed with thousands of woman-hours for discussion, research, and building of the website. And all of this done in our spare time as mothers without compensation from any outside source. Fluff Love is fueled by passion, caring, and the heart of the Admin team.
Who knows what we’ll have accomplished a year from now. We certainly didn’t think we’d come this far in the year we’ve been here. The founding of our registered non-profit organization, Fluff Love Revolution, aims to help spread our message of clean cloth beyond the walls of the internet and into the lives of those who need it. We want to be efficient and effective as we work to make clean cloth accessible to all who desire to use it.
As we make clean cloth mainstream, we want to thank all of you who have been a part of this adventure with us. You’ve advocated for our message, argued reason and science in places it may not have been welcome, invited new parents into the fold, and helped us spread Fluff Love to every corner of the globe. You are why we are here—the safety of your babies is why we serve.
Happy Anniversary Fluff Love!
