If you’ve opted to spoil the planet like many other parents (including myself) then the big question is Huggie or Pampers, which is the best disposable nappy?
Huggies and pampers are the leading disposable nappy brands regularly going head to head in marketing campaigns selling the virtues of their own and generally dissing the opposing camp. Enough is enough, I intend on outing the best nappy once and for all, I’m a real mum, with a real kid and I’ve done a ‘real’ wetness test, read on to find out the results…
But first a bit of background, I’m a pampers fan, ever since I worked in a nursery I’ve been solidly for pampers, Erin has always used pampers. I was recently approached by a representative of Huggies and asked to test their pull ups, I agreed, but I warned the rep that I was a big pampers fan and that the review was unlikely to favour Huggies. I wanted to give them a fair go though and decided that some rigorous tesing out to take place, divided into two categories, the fit, and the fluid test.
The Fit
Pampers
I like the fit of pampers. They are fitted around the top of the thigh with an elasticated strip which stops leakage. They are high waisted which keeps it fitting when the nappy is ‘heavy’. On the negative side they can become quite bulky when wet.
Huggies
Huggies pull ups have large elasticated bands at the side which look very comfortable. The sides are velcro-like which makes them easy to take on and off. The negative point with huggies is definitely the fit around the leg which isn’t nearly close enough.
The Fluid Test
You’ve seen this test before, at one point and another both ‘camps’ have produced the astounding result of their own nappy being the dryest. Well now we are going to find out once and for all, and I promise I have been completely unbiased, my husband even acted as adjudicator!
I used my usual size 5 pampers economy and tested against my free sample of size 5 huggies pull ups. I used warm, but not hot water to test. In hindsight I should have coloured the water so it showed up easier, I’ll do this next time (yes, I’m planning a similar test – premium vs shop brand).
To ensure the same liquid was added to each nappy I used a shot glass.
We set a timer for five minutes and then pressed some card against each nappy with equal pressure to check for wetness. This was when we realised that coloured water would have been sensible! However, I think you can see from the first photo who came out on top. We were very surprised we were sure that pampers would be revealed as the outright winner.
I’m not sure how much you can make out from the photos but I can tell you there was a noticeable difference and it was in Huggies favour.
In the pampers photo you can see the wetness,mostly in the bottom left hand corner. I picked up both nappies to see how heavy they felt when wet, they were both about equal. On closer inspection I noticed that the pampers keeps the ‘water’ in a very central position wheras the huggies spreads the ‘water’ over a larger space which I think explains why pampers were coming out more wet.
We repeated the process, adding a couple more shots of water, and testing after ten minutes. The results were even more obvious, huggies were clearly drier!
You can see that the huggies test card was practically dry, I think there was one small spot. Pampers after the extra water and ten minutes were significantly wetter.
I should say that I was really impressed with the dryness of both nappies though, I was putting my full pressure on to the nappies to get these results, which means that our kids are experiencing even less wetness than this, which is pretty good. It would be interesting to see how a ‘natural’ nappy compares.
As I was clearing up this experiment I did notice one interesting fact which redeemed pampers a little. I noticed a small puddle on the table, at first I thought I had spilled some water but on further inspection I noticed that the huggies nappy was leaking from the side. The nappy had taken on a lot of water by this point, but the pampers version wasn’t leaking at all, so that’s an extra point to consider when choosing Huggies or Pampers
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I'm a 27 year old mum to 4 year old Erin. We live just outside Edinburgh in a small rural village.
I've been blogging for four years and write about anything and everything that takes my fancy.
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