Our newest review in the Detergent Wars Series is Little Love Buns!
Little Love buns is a retailer and manufacturer of cloth diaper detergent, wipes solution soap bits, diaper pail powder, cloth wipes, wet bags, and nursing pads. Little Love Buns focuses mostly on diaper detergent, which comes in several yummy scents like strawberry watermelon, cucumber melon, peach mango, and cherry almond. Dallas, the owner and creator, sent me a bag of their detergent to try out for a review!
I received the yummy Strawberry watermelon scent. It reminds me a lollipop. This is the small bag which holds 48 loads for a regular washing machine or 96 loads for an HE machine. My machine has a huge drum and I have hard water, so I use more detergent than usually recommended. The small bag is $9.50. There is a larger bag with 85/170 loads for only $11.00! That is only $1.50 more for almost twice as much detergent!
The cloth diaper detergent is a non-sudsing powder detergent. The ingredients: Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Oxygen Cleaner, Sodium Percarbonate, Sodium Borate, Fragrance Oil. You can also get the unscented version without any fragrance oil.
Washing instructions vary based on your load size and washing machine, but 2-3 tablespoons is the usual amount for a regular diaper load. I use a .5 teaspoon measuring spoon to measure out about 3.5 tablespoons for my top loader.
For my washing routine, I do as follows:
-warm pre-rinse
-Hot wash with detergent. (Not too much water, but enough to cover the diapers plus an extra inch.)
-Warm rinse
-Second hot wash without detergent
-Warm rinse
My routine may seem excessive to some people, but I have very hard water and usually have to use more detergent than usual or add my own laundry booster with extra sodium carbonate. Little Love Buns does not create suds, but as you can see above, I had a bit of detergent buildup from a liquid detergent I was trying previously!
The verdict: Little Love Buns actually worked very well! My diapers had no smell at all coming out of the dryer. This detergent is very mild, so I would not use it for anything greasy or horrendous, but it worked great as a basic diaper detergent. I found it worked better than some of its more pricey counterparts. I think the addition of sodium bicarbonate to their formula is probably a key ingredient to its performance. I like to use a new diaper detergent at least 6-10 times so that it has time to allow for any issues to crop up, so I can troubleshoot. I have not had any problems with Little Love Buns and it works well with my hard water. I would probably buy the large bag for myself since it is such a good deal and I like using a little more detergent with hard water.
I really want to get the peach mango scent!
I also need to recommend them based on service alone. Dallas, the owner, is very attentive and helpful. If you have any questions at all, she is very responsive and quick with her service. Great customer service is always a plus when ordering any product, especially online!
(NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
*I received this detergent for review and did not receive additional compensation. All opinions are my own.