Caring for Your Plastic Pants

Our products use the finest plastic materials but care must be taken to keep the plastic soft and pliable. Therefore, you should never use chlorine bleach or fabric softener when washing plastic or vinyl pants. Since these products will damage the material. If your plastic pants are soiled and stained and you want to remove the stain, try boiling the pants in a pot of water on the stove with a little detergent.

Most plastic pants will tolerate rinsed this way. Otherwise, then just wash them in the normal wash, again, without bleach or fabric softener. For drying your plastic pants, it is best to line dry them indoors as the UV rays from the sun will shorten the life of the material. Never put plastic pants in the clothes dryer with your cloth diapers, as the heat is too high and will melt the material. If you must use the dryer, set it to "fluff" with no heat and add a towel to the pants. One problem why vinyl and plastic pants go bad so quickly is the contact with petroleum products or petroleum based products. Many products, such as Vaseline, diaper rash ointments and hemorrhoid ointments, contain petroleum. Check the ingredient list on the product to see if it contains petroleum.

The petroleum in these products attacks and degrades the plastic or vinyl materials, causing the material to become hard and brittle to the point where the material will crack. Do not believe, since the area being treated with these products is covered by a diaper that it cannot get to the plastic or vinyl pants. It does happen! Once the diaper has been wetted, the urine will carry the petroleum through the diaper, allowing it to come into contact with the pants.

Over time, the material becomes degraded to a point where the pants are no longer usable. Signs of material breakdown can be seen first in the crotch area of the pants. That is the area where the highest concentration of petroleum containing product is used and it is also the area where the diaper is the wettest.