Plastic Backed Diapers In Stores

[Kari]

OK kids,

I (and I am sure others) want to know what stores and/or brands still carry plastic backed diapers.

The crinkle is part of the experience.

Although I will try AB Universe's new "cloth" backed since they are so darn cute!

I need plastic backed in the meantime.

Until Depends puts cute prints on theirs.

Share your knowledge with the group.

I need a new signature

[Guest little_jonny]

i would say check out CVS.. they have some old packages of depends there that have plastic back.. i still have one left and even trying to put it on makes so much noise

[DL_Master]

Tena or Kendall lille supreme if youre in canadia

[loopy]

Abena x-plus, and molicare. And the abu cushies are plastic backed.

[write_to_dl]

CVS, Walgreens, Meijer and Walmart still sell Depend Max Protection. All of the before mention stores have moved away from plastic for their store brands. Most all the medical supply stores around the Columbus, OH area still sell plastic backed diapers as well. I remember when I was a bit younger that Revco (now bought by CVS) used to sell Depend AND Attends. I wonder why the drugstores quit selling Attends.

[Angela Bauer]

CVS, Walgreens, Meijer and Walmart still sell Depend Max Protection. All of the before mention stores have moved away from plastic for their store brands. Most all the medical supply stores around the Columbus, OH area still sell plastic backed diapers as well. I remember when I was a bit younger that Revco (now bought by CVS) used to sell Depend AND Attends. I wonder why the drugstores quit selling Attends.

Hi Write to DL,

Over the years here on DD we have discussed all the issues you raise. Unfortunately none of the huge corporations owning the brand names, nor the stores, will comment on the record. This leaves us to make use of inside sources and public documents. In addition at various times the two leading business consultants to the disposable diaper industries, Carlos Richer for baby disposables and Gary Hirsch for adult disposables, have shared on their websites.

The switch to the double-layer so-called "cloth-like" waterproof covering started with baby disposables because market research found mothers disliked the feel of poly-plastic on their arms when carrying a diapered infant. As diaper manufacturers learned how to design and produce cloth-like, they discovered other benefits to themselves. It is far more practical to make and market pull-ups using cloth-like shell. Perhaps most important, the double-laminated cloth-like shell is less subject to shipping damage than traditional poly-plastic. A downside to poly-plastic from the seller's standpoint is the short shelf-life of the adhesives on the sticky tabs. The hook and loop fastening systems often used with cloth-like have an apparently unlimited shelf-life. The more robust cloth-like can be successfully compressed more, thus allowing more diapers in a given amount of space. Disposables are bulky, so cargo containers get filled long before reaching maximum weight. When shipping, you pay per container, not by the ton!

The downside to cloth-like for the care-giver, parent or babysitter is that in bed, cloth-like clings to sheets and blankets, pulling gaps which leak. Their is no evidence the infant or toddler can tell or cares about poly-plastic vs. cloth-like. In the adult diaper business, there is a small share of healthy people who walk into stores. Compare that to the huge share who are incontinent and very price sensitive. They buy regularly, often with financial aid. These people buy on-line and from remote vendors.

Professional and regular care-givers of diaper-wearing adults find and report it is far easier to change an adult reclining in bed using poly-plastic shell. With an invalid confined to bed, repositioning the tapes is not an issue, since the disposable will only be worn once. With practice a care-giver knows exactly where to place the tapes for maximum protection. Nursing homes and other institutions purchase disposables in bulk, so shelf-life is not an issue. Some institutions also stock cloth-like for their more active clients for use while awake. They also use adult pull-up for some clients.

Do you realize that in most situations it is the manufacturer who pays retail stores for shelf space? This has been standard practice for generations. For reasons never made clear, P&G never made a push to gain maximum shelf-space for Attends, which they did not advertise on TV in the USA. Along came KCC, making use of experience from Huggies, offering stores bonus payment for extra shelf space for Depend, which was heavily advertised on TV in the USA. Remember the June Allyson commercials? Suddenly stores demanded equal payment and support for Attends from P&G. The Attends shelf space was reduced.

P&G was caught in a bind. Attends was a minor profit center in the old days. P&G did not want negative reaction from chain supermarkets and drug stores over all their other products including Pampers, Baby Dry and Luvs. Consequently they sold the North American Attend brand and factories to Paper Pak Corp, at the time the largest manufacturer of adult disposable products for the institutional trade. Paper Pak had no experience is marketing through mass retail stores.

Subsequently Paper Pak changed their corporate name to Attends Health Care Products. Attends does make a handful of disposables for the retail trade, but the majority of their Attends line is aimed for the institutional and home incontinence care trades.

There is and always will be a disconnect between the diaper features important to incontinent clients, those living in assisted care and the ABDL community. ABDL want bulk to remind them of the sensation of diapers while they were young. Relative to baby diapers on babies 25 years ago, all current adult diapers will feel thin and stiffer. Professional standards of care mandate that incontinent clients be change often enough maximum capacity is not necessary. Like babies, many incontinent clients dribble urine, so speed of absorption is not important. Reducing fluff does reduce absorption speed, but also reduces costs by reducing shipping and storage volume. As the use of SAP has vastly increased, it costs less. Unlike 20 years ago, fluff costs more than SAP.

The original patents on Velcro ran out some time ago. These days many firms make quality hook and loop generic substitutes. P&G uses a combination of H&L with some non-aggressive adhesive in their Cruisers baby diapers, which has reduced gap pulling slightly.

Short-term there remains a need for poly-plastic disposables, but the trend is to cloth-like. Those desiring poly-plastic need to anticipate increase in price.