Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[oznl]

This week I wore, for the first time my new(ish) XL sized Rearz cloth pre-fold “diaper” under battle conditions: properly, and including unplanned emissions.

I’ve called it a “diaper” instead of a “nappy” because that’s what it is.  Prefolds were unheard of back-in-my-day in the remote colonies I grew up in.  Like Halloween and hyper-obesity, I had them comparmentalised as North American institutions but ones that are inevitably making their inroads to our shores.

I actually bought this diaper some weeks back and although it HAS seen some previous pee action, it’s been for short shifts only coming as it did with dire manufacturer warnings that it would take several wash cycles before as a product, it truly resigned itself to its ignominious destiny and developed some reasonable pee-absorption characteristics.

I’d put it on early evening, intending to wear it for the 4 to 5 hours until bedtime whereupon I’d change into something “proper”. 

I’ve struggled with fitting issues before with pre-fold nappies and those struggles included this one too.  I’d chosen “XL” for the Rearz as my previous experience with pre-folds is one of curious coverage gaps and repeated unplanned departures.  I also struggle to get sufficient overlap at my hips to make me confident with them in bed at night.  I thought that the XL might help with this. 

In reality, the Rearz definition of XL was probably over-kill for me despite my phone-booth-figure.  The breadth was certainly sufficient to at least join the front and rear wings at my hips (somewhat) but the price of capturing a thin slice of this territory was a length of diaper so great that it became necessary to fold the top front edge back in on itself by at least a few inches before attempting to wear it.

For the fold itself, the least-worst solution seemed to be a variant on the “jelly roll” fold which is nearly impossible to explain in prose but simple to the point of implausible with a diagram.  It involves folding the diaper back in on itself east to west but creating “wings” by pulling the folds apart at the rear end.  Realistically, I need the wings pulled apart at BOTH ends.  The challenge here is that having folded the north front end back over itself, things had gotten a little bulky at that front wing.

Acting on the advice of @ozziebee (who was more experienced in the ways of these "diapers"), I used “snappi” nappy clips instead of pins.  Despite being suitably sproingly (that’s my word of the week: you’re welcome internet), it became clear that the whole affair was likely to slide off of me anyway, especially when it got a bit wetter and heavier.  This may have been because I’d only used two snappies each side.  Ozziebee had also mentioned using eight but I was going to need some solid civil engineering and a site plan to figure out how to accommodate that many within the real estate available to me.

I pulled up one of my more optimistically small pairs of compression pants over my plastic pants to try keep the whole affair in the correct anatomical ballpark (no pun intended).

By the time bedtime rolled around about 4 hours later, I realised that I was hardly wet at all.  It seemed like a complete waste to change it out and it wasn’t like it had already had a few tours of the washing machine.  This was SUPPOSED to be a “night” rated nappy anyway and it had had a couple of washes.

Possibly courageously, I decided to leave it on and went to bed in it.

Unsurprising it was a fair bit wetter when I woke up in it the next morning although to be fair, there was no hint of it leaking and it didn’t really feel THAT wet.  The main sensation was of warmth and heaviness.  I suspect I may have bed-wet although the evidence was circumstantial: a delta between how much pee was in my pants and now much pee I thought I’d put there along with a curious non-recall of overnight wetting events.

Upon attaining the vertical however, it became clear that things were a bit saggy, especially at the front.  Where those “wings” were folded back on themselves to truncate the length of the product at the expense of considerable extra bulk at the top of my crotch were now heavy and wet.  They were pulling down on the not-quite-restraining Snappies fearsomely, threatening to reveal to innocent bystanders the horrors that lay within.  Structurally, I don’t think it was up for a walk downstairs as it was.  I suppose I could have tried pulling some jeans on over the top of it to fortify the fight against gravity but instead, I opted for my morning nappy change instead.

I DID like it as an adult cloth product.  It was comfortable and offered a truly viable degree of absorbency.  It had dealt with a 13 hour overnight shift that I suspect included at least one bedwetting event.   It was comfortable in bed.  It did not leak.  That was impressive.  I just wish I had a bit more coverage at the sides and I’ve yet to figure out a way of making it stay up on me.

[Little Sherri]

On 8/24/2023 at 8:21 AM, oznl said:

but the price of capturing a thin slice of this territory was a length of diaper so great that it became necessary to fold the top front edge back in on itself by at least a few inches before attempting to wear it.

I've had to do the same thing. I own a couple of these. I wish there were some way to consign the folded-over absorbency to the business areas, rather than having it linger at my waistline. I have not tried the Snappi's and now probably will not, as pins, although requiring a bit of care on installation, then allow you to completely forget them. 

Like good wine, and unlike cantaloup or bananas, Rearz pre-folds do improve with age - I was unimpressed with their capacity when I first christened one after a couple of opening-day launderings. Now, a few years later, they hold a fair bit for their weight. 

[ozziebee]

I actually went up to a 2XL Rearz Prefold, and found that the added length provided a lot more overlap between the back "wings" and the front.  The back corners I can almost get to touch together in front when wrapped around my belly.  I am talking upwards of about 10cm or so on me for sides, and 5cm or so above my belly button. I can _just get to the belly button on the XL, and not a lot of coverage on my hips/side.

It is a _lot_ more rise than the XL tends to give me both front and back, which means I have more real estate with which to use 8 snappi's.  I'm also ensuring the nappy is tight on me, and not loose.   It's a lot of nappy, and it makes me feel really small and secure.  No leaks whatsoever so far.  I do put baby terry cloth 60x60cm nappies in as stuffers, but I just lay them flat, no folding into pads. 

I can't find 2XL in country after I bought out the stock that Derek had

[oznl]

The “Challenge” is a curiously male pursuit.  Closely related to the “Here, hold my beer and watch THIS!” behavioural pattern, it is a curious ritual whereby two or more (usually males) will egg each other on to do something that usually lies somewhere on the spectrum between “inadvisable” and “outright stupid”.

That was this week’s nappy-related adventure.  Like the Tango, the “Challenge” requires two to play.  The other party was a fellow DD member (I told him up front he’d have to own this on DD if it went through but I’ve relented and he can choose whether or not he wants to ‘fess up). 

It was I who started it though.  I’d been more amused than frustrated by endless dilettantism surrounding his obviously deep desire to try at least semi-permanent night nappy use.   In return, he was extolling the virtues of epilation and his fearless misuse of this feminine grooming appliance in the face of my misgivings.  If you spend most of your life marinating in soggy nappies, there’s loads of good reasons to stay bald down inside ones’ nappy-zone and I shave there regularly but whilst epilation does confer an advantage with respect to zero-stubble and less maintenance, there’s the whole “screaming in agony” thing.

You can see where this is going.

The Challenge:  HE would go and buy himself a CASE of nappies (not a bag: bags are for weekend warriors) and use them every night.

In return, ME would go buy an epilator and, matching his daring-do, USE it (although not every night because it’s nice to have skin to keep our insides on the inside of us). 

Nothing then proceeded to happen for quite a few months after the issue of this challenge and I alternated between mild exasperation at his continued dilly dallying and relief that I was off the hook for my end of the bargain.  And then finally, a week or so ago, news arrived this his end of the challenge had been met and ongoing night nappies WERE now a thing.  Thusly, the gauntlet was thrown down before me.

It is the way of our obscure complaint that we are oft condemned to making highly embarrassing consumer purchases.  So, that very next day, I stood before a sales clerk young enough to be my daughter at a nearby Chemist (drugstore) who was trying hard not to make eye contact with a customer old enough to be her father buying a shiny new feminine “Epilator”.

All too soon later, at a curiously unappetising unboxing ceremony back home, I had a thing that looked like a modified shaver on my desk with what seemed like dozens of bewildering plastic accessories.  I actually had to read the manual.

Like disembowelment, the epilator process is simple enough.  A motorised rotating cylinder of tiny, rotationally activated tweezers grabs hairs that travel beneath the nip of the roller and skin, ripping those hairs out en masse as they are rotated away from the soft pink skin beneath them.  The manual made many veiled references to “minimising discomfort” during this medieval process and recommended that of the available plastic torture accoutrement, the “beginners’ head” was possibly the least-worst way to start whilst in the shower, under running water.

I took that advice and so, a few minutes later, found myself dragging a buzzing shaver-like device across my nether regions, perpendicular to the skin, in the shower.

It was a breeze!  Utterly painless!  I could do this all day!

And then I realised it wasn’t actually doing anything.  At all.  I ripped off the “beginners’” head and had another go.  Properly.

Removal of the “beginners” head instantly resolved the “utterly painless” paradox at breathtaking scale.  A very short sweep delivered a 1” wide swathe of white hot pain in its path with a fierce intensity that made it almost beyond my ken simply to hold the thing in place.  I found myself gasping and giving myself longer and longer breaks between each agonising “run” across increasingly outraged, reddening flesh.  A cattle prod would have been more comforting.

I recalled his advice on pain when I questioned him about it:  “After a few minutes, the endorphins kick in and it’s ok”.

That’s because he’s got stiff-upper-lipped British endorphins: brought up on cold showers, dismal weather and a “Dolce et decorum est” fatalist ethic brewed in a land that considers “Not too bad” as a desirable state of affairs.  British Endorphins are plucky, reliable and honour-bound.

I’ve got Australian endorphins.  They’re a bit different.  They didn’t rush to my aid in a “Battle of Britain” scenario.  Instead they sat off at a distance surveying my misery, pulling drags on their cigarettes (endorphins love nicotine) before saying “Nahhhh mate…  You brought THAT one on yourself.  YOU deal with it…”  As I yelped again, I thought I heard one of them guffaw “THIS is nothing!  Do you remember that time when he thought it might be a good idea to treat his nappy rash with neat isopropyl alcohol?”

After one of the more miserable, endorphin-free 10 minutes I’ve spent in the shower, I emerged with a pubis that looked like a plucked chicken and felt like it had been microwaved.  Attempts at the bumpier parts of the male anatomy had been largely abandoned after I found that the non-beginners-head to the epilator was just as likely to grab rough skin and incise it as it was to rip out hairs.  Nothing spoils a good exfoliation like exsanguination.

An hour or so later, I’d thought things had calmed down a little in the department of crotch whereupon I suddenly and thoughtlessly began to wet the soft terry nappy I’d changed into.  I should have just stuffed a starving ferret down the front of my nappy instead.  With yet another yelp, I concluded that either I was peeing battery acid or that my skin down there was still extremely cross at me despite the bucket of moisturiser I'd lavished upon it.

Now, nearly a week down the road, it’s painfully clear which bits I’d successfully epilated versus the bits I did not.  With my pubis now resembling a worn out cricket pitch, it’s time to step back into the shower for round #2 with the appliance I shall henceforth refer to as “Satan’s Lawnmower”.

Or, I could deal with unwanted nappy-zone hair in some less painful way such as burning it off with a blowtorch…

[NoIllDL]

Well done, @oznl!  My wife is more "accommodating" than your beloved, and she had the brilliant idea of epilating my nether region.  (This as a sort of comeuppance for the years she endured Brazilian waxing at my request.)  It certainly hurt beyond anything my poor vocabulary can describe; you are a true trooper if you self-epilated.  I had to hang on to the head board while she took the epilator in hand, and even then it was just about more than I could endure.  The good news now that we're six weeks in is that the pain gets much, much less with each passing week:  there's simply less hair to be ripped out.  I do draw the line at epilating Mr. Happy and the Boys.  I will continue to take the razor to those most sensitive bits.

[Shotgun Diplomat]

7 hours ago, oznl said:

That’s because he’s got stiff-upper-lipped British endorphins: brought up on cold showers, dismal weather and a “Dolce et decorum est” fatalist ethic brewed in a land that considers “Not too bad” as a desirable state of affairs.

I love that phrasing so much. Some Brits are taciturn to an almost unbelievable degree. As an example, I slaved away for hours making Osso Bucco for a visiting cousin. Having talked up my dish for years of visits to them, on their infrequent hopping across the pond and a continent I decided to go for broke and make it. So I did, it was absolutely delicious, tender not spongy veal; the sauce was beautiful. Their response... "Not too bad." Needless to say I was unimpressed and needed some wine.  

[Stroller]

Well that buries for good my vague intention to try epilation at some point.  I've put it off for a long time, but now that's for ever.  I'll stick to my trusty disposable razor.  No idea what the crack about the weather here's about though: it's already 8am & it hasn't rained all morning.  So far.

As for needing some wine, I'm drinking on a 2 months off, 1 month on basis this year.  For my health mostly, but it's saving a shedload of money on the side.  I've just done July and August dry, and today's the 1st of September.  Tonight I'm camping out, ready for  5am start tomorrow, walking 45 miles across Wales.  The wine's already packed, as are the necessary nappy changes.  If I feel 'not too bad' tomorrow night I'll be doing pretty well.  I can feel my upper lip stiffening as I type, in anticipation.

[jeremy12312]

On 8/31/2023 at 7:27 AM, oznl said:

 

I’ve got Australian endorphins.  They’re a bit different.  They didn’t rush to my aid in a “Battle of Britain” scenario.  Instead they sat off at a distance surveying my misery, pulling drags on their cigarettes 

[Little Sherri]

Good Christ. I have contemplated this, but, I caught a fold of skin in the buzzing teeth of a repurposed hair clipper, used to defoliate "the area", and just that stung and bled. I am also worried about vexing the skin "down under" (sorry), and then subjecting it to conditions wherein it has an opportunity to pay me back for my disdain. If you recall, I ended up being impaled with a metal drinking straw a couple of weeks after going for a run in a pull-up that my skin did not appreciate. I worry about perforating the shield in a radioactive zone. 

[BabyJilly_S]

For what its worth I have tried all the methods here  

Waxing at a salon wasn't too bad, though they couldn't believe I wasn't hollering in pain whilst "the boys" were done. They use a different wax for the nether regions as for general body hair removal . 

I have epilated myself, though I didn't go to far as you do need three hands to pull the skin taught so you don't and up chewing yourself to pieces.

Shaving is fine.

What I found though is that i seem quite prone to ingrown hairs after all methods which is very annoying.

Eventually I  fell upon the dual combo of shaving and IPL treatment using a light gun. This has worked very well for me as I am very pale skinned with dark hair (being from England lol) and after a few months very little hair grows back around that area. You just have to keep using fairly regularly again as hair is on a growth cycle and it does come back

The boys down there don't get all the treatment as it works on heating the hair follicle core damaging it so if the area is dark it doesn't function properly and it also doesn't work on light/grey hairs

As I have been doing this a few years now I am down to a weekly shave and zap...though of course your mileage may vary.....

 

[BabyJilly_S]

Oh, the only other thing I will say is that after any hair removal, daily exfoliation was essential for me to combat those ingrown hairs. 

[oznl]

This week’s awesome breakthrough in nappy engineering came about as I toyed with the concept of the mediocre experience whilst getting ready for round #2 with “Satan’s Lawnmower”.

Somewhere along my life’s line I’d picked up a freebie bag of Lille SupremForm “shaped pads” (“Super Plus” thickness no less!)  These are large, waterproof backed pads.  Things that never quite made the evolutionary leap into full blown adult nappies, lacking as they do, wings and tapes.  The idea seems to be that you just stuff them down your pants (or perhaps Uncle Albert’s pants) and hope for the best. 

Despite being pads, they had a moderately large form factor (700 x 360mm, or, if you live in a country that can’t cope with metric measurements, about the area of a road-killed squirrel).  Commensurately, they also claimed a large (for a pad) storage volume (2750ml or, if you live in a country that can’t cope with metric measurements: about the fluidic volume of FOUR squirrels prior to being road-killed, such is the liquid capture and conserve capability of SAP).

On initially salvaging them from disposal, I’d had the vague idea that I’d perforate their waterproof backing and have an awesome booster pad but things just didn’t work out that way.  Firstly, their large size meant that unlike a booster pad, they tended to bridge over any leak guards in the host disposable nappy with predictable results and secondly, the waterproof backing had achieved the medical adult nappy holy grail of uselessness; simultaneously hopelessly saggy and stretchy, slightly moisture-permeable and to complete the trifecta, yet still strong enough to mean that “perforation” meant “evisceration” with associated fluffy escapes.

I didn’t really know what to do with them after learning all this but it seemed a shame just to throw them out.  I reverted to my time-honoured strategy of stuffing them up the back of my nappy cupboard with a vague insight that I’d end up throwing them out anyway, but some weeks, months or years down the track.

Cue my brilliant idea.

I’d spent the day in a cloth nappy and it was time for my evening shower and change however I rested upon the horns of a nappy dilemma.  It was (in my opinion anyway) too soon to change into the kind of cloth nappy capacious enough to cruise through until the next morning.  This would have to be something like a a pinned 60” x 60” terry and plastic pant job which would leave me looking like a sweaty Baby Huey in the kitchen as I waddled about cooking dinner.   It was also unlikely that I’d fully exploit any lighter, fresh cloth nappy before my bedtime change as it was quite warm and I wasn’t peeing that much.  Lastly, it would be kind of a stretch to expect my proposed sleeping-nappy (pull-on Kins cotton diapers layered with Kins pull on terry pants) to go that distance.

What to do?

As I contemplated one of the more ridiculous dilemmas my ridiculous lifestyle choice was imposing upon me, inspiration struck.  What if I took one of those apparently-useless shaped pads, stuffed it down my nappy and then just ripped it out again before bed?  This would effectively be the nappy change equivalent to in-flight re-fuelling with the removal of a soggy pad leaving my underlying, pristine cloth nappy to seamlessly step into the breach until morning?

It kind of worked.

The nappy somewhat-held the pad where it needed to be and the pad somewhat-held what it needed to hold.

It wasn’t perfect and I did encounter some damp terry toweling when I reached in to the humid confines of my nappy to pull the pad out before bed anyway.  This didn’t surprise me because the “Lille SupremForm” products are medical/institutional incontinence products whose design intent is to win care facility tenders, not absorb pee. 

There was also the small question of the sodden pad trying to bring out my anatomy with it upon extraction but that may have been operator error.

But it worked enough.

I’d consumed only a pad which was destined for landfill anyway AND, the cloth nappy that remained behind although not completely dry, was easily dry enough to take over until morning. 

1 pad down, 19 to go…

[oznl]

I had one of those slightly bizarre dreams last night that I was peeing in bed: the type that morphs into waking up and realising that I AM indeed having a pee.  In the early days, this would cue an instant of panic before I realised that this was “ok” and I’d even stop for a second of three.

That doesn’t happen now.

I just slowly became aware that it was only partly a dream and things were in fact rapidly becoming warm and wet down there but this was fine, I was dressed for just such an occasion.  I couldn’t have stopped anyway.  I can’t remember how to.  It was about 1am and I’d been asleep for about 2 hours.

It was quite a big pee too.  I’m not sure where all that came from but there seemed to be quite a warm bath going on down there.  I remembered having a tall glass of water to wash down Saturday night’s red wine but being basically dry when I went to bed having removed a sodden pad from my cloth pull-ups.  I believed therefore that leaking was highly unlikely.

I swiftly fell back asleep.  By 730am I woke to find my nappy drenched (just laying there I could feel that my bum was not only warm but wet) however my pyjamas and bedding were indeed dry.  I may have gone more during the night but I couldn’t remember.  I certainly had a near empty bladder on waking which is pretty normal now.  With a pang of guilt though, I realised that there was a distinct “wet nappy” smell emanating from under the covers heralding the need for some more intensive washing of those cloth pull-ups.

My beloved didn’t comment or even seem to notice.  Yesterday she’d seized some of my “spanx” compression pants and now they were washed and folded with my other clothes.  She draws the line at my plastic pants though.  They are left for me to deal with (along with cloth nappies).

It’s breakfast time now.  I’m in a dry(ish – there may have been drips)  Abena L4 + Booster + plastic pants and am dressed.  On Sunday I change back into disposables so I don’t have wet cloth nappies lying about during the working week but three days’ worth of cloth nappies are now in the machine to which I’ve added a splash of bleach in addition to my routine laundry sanitiser. 

Soon I will hang them out to dry and contemplate what to do with Sunday: the 1,607th consecutive day of my 24/7 nappied life and the 1,767th night after my resolution for doing so.

 

[Little Sherri]

@oznl, do you use Star San or a similar product for sanitizing around your brewing activities? There are two types available here; one is based on iodine, and that one is not of interest for this conversation because it would presumably stain horrifically. The other is a phosphoric acid-based food-safe sanitizer (when mixed at the proper ratio), which can be used without rinsing on food-contact surfaces or in vessels (kegs, fermenters, growlers, beer lines etc). 

The diluted use solution is almost as cheap as water... I don't employ cloth nappies often enough to put together a statistically significant sample, but, I am curious - if you have this stuff at hand, what would happen if you added some to the water in the diaper pail? IE, if the cloth nappies had a lengthy presoak in sanitizer, and then a wash, rinse and dry, would the earth be scorched enough to take them back to the ground floor, in terms of biological load, upon their next use? 

[oznl]

17 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

@oznl, do you use Star San or a similar product for sanitizing around your brewing activities? There are two types available here; one is based on iodine, and that one is not of interest for this conversation because it would presumably stain horrifically. The other is a phosphoric acid-based food-safe sanitizer (when mixed at the proper ratio), which can be used without rinsing on food-contact surfaces or in vessels (kegs, fermenters, growlers, beer lines etc). 

The diluted use solution is almost as cheap as water... I don't employ cloth nappies often enough to put together a statistically significant sample, but, I am curious - if you have this stuff at hand, what would happen if you added some to the water in the diaper pail? IE, if the cloth nappies had a lengthy presoak in sanitizer, and then a wash, rinse and dry, would the earth be scorched enough to take them back to the ground floor, in terms of biological load, upon their next use? 

There's Star San in the cupboard somewhere...    The only one I've seen is the clear phosphoric (no rinse) version.

It's described as being for "surface sanitation".  I guess the open question would be how much you'd need to hit every bit of surface in a toweling nappy at the effective concentration.  It's cheap enough but not THAT cheap down here.

For the most part, bacterial build-up is kept at bay by ditching the water-saving feature of the washer for nappy loads and chucking in some laundry sanitiser.  Some of the bulkier nappies can still need maintenance, especially if I've been a bit remiss in having them marinate too long prior to washing.  When that happens, I use a splash of bleach in the washer along with everything else and that nukes it.

[oznl]

This week’s “diverted from immediate consignment to landfill” product test was slightly unusual: an actual, “medical” re-usable adult nappy.  Medical incontinence appliances in my experience live in a parallel universe.  It’s 1975 over there; disposable is good, sustainability is irrelevant and plastic is great for everything.  Down here, a reusable adult nappy that can be bought from the kind of medical supply store where carers and institutions would shop is a rare bird.

I rescued it from the throw-out pile.  Although unused, it had been unpackaged and was therefore considered unacceptable for reassignment.  It was even an “XL” size which was possibly a size up from what I needed but with cloth, more is more.  I decided to give it a reprieve from the rubbish bin and a bit of a road test.

It was a “Night N Day” brand.  That’s a tradename that sprouted from an even-less-fashionably-named former called “Minappi”.  This manufacturer has been around quite a few years but very much a niche supplier of low-absorbency gear and I thought they’d just faded away.  Apparently not.

This nappy was described as a “Unisex front-opening all-in-one pant plus” and was a Velcro or snap (user chooses model) with an integrated breathable outer waterproof layer (doomed to prematurely consign the product to failure) over a non-removable pad (infuriatingly difficult to dry, bonded as it is on one side to a waterproof cover).  On the upside, although T-shaped, it was a proper nappy, even if the outer cover was a rather stylish navy blue.  It also had a reasonably wide crotch, a fairly capacious seat and was secured at the front by two Velcro wings (I also have an example of the press-stud version but I’m yet to try it).

The vendor’s website had recommended its use for “Heavy urinary or faecal incontinence”.  This sounded like the kind of dewy-eyed fluff and spin young marketing graduates are infamous for.  Even the wildly-optimistic manufacturer’s absorbency rating of 600ml would hardly qualify it as suitable for heavy urinary incontinence.  Presumably “heavy faecal incontinence” means the user may crap in in them although I suppose it was possible that it was battle tested with turds made from depleted uranium for that true “heavy faecal incontinence” experience.

They’re not cheap either.   AUD50 per throw although since the little Aussie battler we use for currency is currently only worth about USD0.65, they probably look cheap enough from the other side of the Pacific.

I decided to try it out during the day (Friday) which is a non-worked day for me.  Home alone, I’d be able to bail out of it and/or mop up in the event of catastrophic failure free from spousal censure.

Looking at its slender padding dubiously at my morning change, I felt a cloth booster would be in order.  The easiest booster I know is simply a 24” x 24” baby’s terry nappy folded into a pad; cheap, effective, 100% reusable and I had plenty on hand.  I didn’t need to worry about this “booster” compromising any leak guards because there weren’t any.  I installed one accordingly and after changing out of a rather well used night nappy, I put on my “Night N Day”.

It was reasonably comfortable to wear although I found the wings to be very narrow (almost belt-like) and there was before long, some minor irritation from spare velcro touching my skin.  There was zero side protection.  I wouldn’t dare wear them in bed.  There were far too many gaps in the fences.

And so I went about my day, peeing in my pants as needs arose.

It’s good that I don’t pee normally.  After nearly 5 years in nappies, I have a pattern of heavy dribbling or spurts rather than well-defined episodic pees.  I suspect anything resembling a well-defined, episodic pee would have finished up on the floor courtesy of the air gaps between nappy and me. They did cope with the drip and dribble use case though.  For a while.

The first drab, slightly pudgy fairy of failure appeared on the chair beneath me after about 4 – 5 hours of very light use.  Two, small damp crescents, one at the base of each buttock.  This was closely followed by another failure fairy bestowing a damp spot at the front of my crotch.  I’d originally assumed press-out leaks but the soggy patch at the front suggested other factors at play.

I pushed on until about 4pm.  By then, they’d been in play for about 7 hours but frankly, I doubted they’d seen much action.  Nevertheless, my beloved would be home before long (I prefer to hide the ghastly mechanics of my craft from her as much as possible) and I was just making furniture damp.

I decided to shower early and change into a Rearz pre-fold fortified with a removable pad so that I could stay in it until morning.

A post-change nappy-weigh-in and root cause analysis of the failure did not further ignite my enthusiasm for the “NightNDay”.  The base nappy itself held a disappointing 303ml of pee: roughly half its rated capacity.  By disposable standards, getting half a tank seems like a good result but remember that in this case, the rated capacity was dismal in the first place.  A further 258ml of pee had been squirrelled away by the 24 x 24” terry booster I’d installed: 601ml in total, little more than a pint.

The leakage problem was not press-out leaks but rather a product design decision.  The inner absorptive pad was sewn to the outer waterproof liner with cotton thread that perforated BOTH the waterproof cover AND the pee-soaked bits whilst providing a wicking route along the way.  At my bum, gravity, pee and this type of seam running alongside the nappies outer edges at the rear of my thighs all conspired to cause travelling damp.

The front leak was similar in origin.  The Velcro “landing strip” was again sewn on both through the waterproof layer and the pee-layer behind it.  Furthermore, this seam existed at “ground zero” for the splash zone for anybody with male plumbing.  Pee had wicked through the seam.

I’ll probably try it again with plastic pants but of course a requirement for plastic pants defeats the design purpose of the original and with TWO waterproof layers, the Swedish Sauna effect will be pronounced.

Did they not TEST this?

All in all, my rating of the “Night N Day Comfort Unisex Front-Opening All-in-One Pant Plus” (I suspect the “Plus” bit means “Puddles”) is a solid C minus.  And that’s largely given to them for making the effort.

Minimally absorptive, coverage gaps in the male “splash zone”, skin-irritating Velcro and with an intractable fluid permeability issue due to construction-induced waterproof compromise, they MIGHT be useful to cover a similarly dysfunctional medical grade disposable pull-up.  It would have to be something medical grade though.  A decent ABDL product would have surface area such that the Night N Day would not cover the edges for leaks anyway.  You could possibly use and ABDL nappy to cover and catch for the “Night N Day” but that does seem to somewhat defeat the purpose.

There IS one other higher calibre weapon in the “Night N Day” arsenal but a casual glance at their website claims suggests that it’s not going to be wildly better: same form factor but with the 600ml claim uprated to 1000ml through significant extra bulk, or possibly significantly extra marketing BS.  They have something else that MIGHT work (a press-stud terry nappy) but down-rated to 300ml.  Perhaps they could be layered before plastic pants but that’s probably going to result in Teletubby aesthetic.

This is a problem that we MUST solve.  If we can put rovers on Mars, we can design cloth nappies for grownups that work effectively and can be laundered.

Irrespective of what you might think about climate change, the profligate use of non-renewable resources to punch out millions upon millions of plastic and pulp things that we pee in and bury is both unsustainable, a waste of dwindling petrochemical resources and wildly inefficient.  I suspect it’s a matter of time before Governments around the world will be introducing controls and curbs that more or less force the nappy-clad amongst us to switch to reusable products.  Those disposables could (and arguably SHOULD) go the way of plastic drinking straws and shopping bags.

The problem here is that this type of reusable product is more likely to inoculate obligatory nappy wearers against washables than lead any planet-saving charges.  I can hear the cries now: “I TRIED reusables and there was pee everywhere and I could never get them clean and dry!”

I realise that there are better ABDL re-usable products (sometimes, somewhat:  here too I have reservations) but the harsh reality is that neither institutions nor patients nor carers are likely to go shopping at KinkyKuddlez to find them.  When THEY look for re-usable adult cloth nappies on their medical supplier websites, they’re going to find the “Night N Day Comfort Unisex Front-Opening All-in-One Pant Plus”

And they just don’t work very well…

[oznl]

As a kind of postscript, I gave the “Night N Day Comfort Unisex Front-Opening All-in-One Pant Plus” another spin today, this time covering it with PUL waterproof pants.  For the sake of design intent symmetry, I used an “Eenee” brand PUL pant which IS a locally source, medical product.  The Eenee pants’ unprotected elastics make them useless for covering cloth products but their size is such that those elastics are some distance from the infamously porous “Night N Day” seams.

Sure enough, my outside stayed drier than my inside.

Eventually Father Time ended the pee party as I had to shower and change before cooking dinner.  At change time, the outside of the “waterproof” layer was thoroughly wet at every sewn hem (rendering it useless) but the Eenee PUL pants had kept my clothes dry.  Payload measured at 713ml: still not much but I changed due to time, not leakage.  They could have gone further.

So, they WILL absorb more than 600ml when boosted but used as the manufacturer intended they remain useless…

[Little Sherri]

I used to work in a healthcare-adjacent field doing calculations regarding laundry loads as they pertain to selecting giant 600 V laundry machines that four healthy men could climb into (though they wouldn't be very healthy come the spin cycle). This was right around the time that most institutions were moving away from reusable products, which were seen as possible vectors for infections, if the laundry process broke down with respect to temperature or chemistry, and, people were doing the math on how much equipment, labour, water, energy and chemicals were required to carpet bomb grandma's knickers back to fluffy and white after the asparagus and bean casserole went through her. A case of plastic bags lined with tissue paper that cost $0.86 cents each and went straight into the trash were a wet dream. And wet dreams ensued... the 600 V machines were still needed, just now, to clean the linens soiled by the "Purchaser's Parsimony" brand nappies they bought by the ton, instead of for the reusable diapers. 

But I saw many of the products they used to strap people into during testing, and my God, they looked abysmal. Giant, grey or green or light blue expanses of canvas or vinyl, with snaps or Velcro or even buckles and straps, into which padding was either placed, or had been sewn. These things were HUGE - there was no dignity, no privacy, and no question about what you were wearing, in those things. We can't go back to that. I think a mid point might be compostable, disposable diapers that are essentially big booster pads with hook-and-loop tabs on them made from robust cellulose fibres that break down eventually, and then you wear, and wash, only the plastic pants, which takes much less energy than trying to wash and dry pounds of absorbent cotton. The disposable part gets composted into biogas, biofuel, or fertilizer, in a more or less carbon-neutral loop, and they recycle our plastic pants as they break down, into garden furniture for brothels, or Soviet car interiors, or whatever. Apparently vinyl is eminently recyclable. 

Someone built a machine that was supposed to separate the fluff from the cover, and spit out wads of plastic that could be recycled, and bales of fluff for composting - I'm not sure what happened to that, if it was failure-prone, or if they just didn't find a market for the output products. Here at home, one local municipality was lauded for allowing disposables to be put in with compost, diverting so much refuse over to their composting program, relative to other cities, that they got subsidies for doing it from the province... until other municipalities squawked that what they were doing couldn't be possible, and an investigation showed that what they'd done was to buy a machine that screened the compost material and conveyed the diapers... over to landfill. But, after the tallying had already been done. Very effective, actually. 

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

people were doing the math on how much equipment, labour, water, energy and chemicals were required to carpet bomb grandma's knickers back to fluffy and white after the asparagus and bean casserole went through her.

You may well there have just conjured a mental image sufficiently disturbing to cure ABDL 🤣

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 I think a mid point might be compostable, disposable diapers that are essentially big booster pads with hook-and-loop tabs on them made from robust cellulose fibres that break down eventually, and then you wear, and wash, only the plastic pants, which takes much less energy than trying to wash and dry pounds of absorbent cotton. The disposable part gets composted into biogas, biofuel, or fertilizer, in a more or less carbon-neutral loop, and they recycle our plastic pants as they break down, into garden furniture for brothels, or Soviet car interiors, or whatever. Apparently vinyl is eminently recyclable.

I think we've been here before and yes, I agree with you.  Abstracting the long-life plastic from a pulp/SAP inner liner may well be a suitable middle ground but it seems that the world is yet to catch onto this idea.

It would be nice if, whilst they were at it, that inner liner was made suitable for side sleepers.

[oznl]

I’ve been persisting with epilation and can now confirm that masochism is NOT one of my quirks.  I’m not getting any joy out of repeatedly hurting myself.

As the instrument of my torture, Satan’s Lawnmower (my epilator), lurks casually amongst the humdrum tech clutter in my desk drawer as incongruously as a self-flagellation discipline might lie amongst thoughtful papers in the desk drawer of a Benedictine abbot.

It turns out that choosing pain is also a religious thing.  Voluntary, self-inflicted pain was often practiced by some outer-reaches of the god-fearing demographic as a kind of virtuous self-punishment.  A particularly noteworthy example was the 18th century Congregationalist writer and preacher Sarah Osborn (1714 – 1796) who flogged herself regularly to, in her own words, “remind herself of her continued sin, depravity, and vileness in the eyes of God.”

She must have been a hoot at office Christmas parties.

On a slightly more serious tangential note, Sarah does offer an interesting counterpoint on the thorny question of self-image within our strange community. 

Sometimes I get depressed about how ridiculous my compulsions and life choices have been with respect to the whole nappy fixation;  the mental shortcomings that have inflicted this upon me and the negative social and environmental outcomes it brings forth.  From my vantage point, shaded from self-affirmation, I imagine that other, un-afflicted, let’s face it NORMAL people must comfortably inhabit glorious bronze mental mansions of their own self-worth, gazing out their virtue-bejewelled windows at the affirmation from the crowds of other people in their lives, smiling beatifically upon them from across peacock-strewn lawns.   

Now I have Sarah Osbourne to remind me that there’s always unhinged religion to make you feel even worse about your self-worth than wearing nappies might.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand:  whenever I choose mortification of MY flesh, I reach for my trusty Braun lady-scraper.

I’ve adopted a regime of “little and often” for its use.

Yeah, it hurts less, a bit, now that I’ve had a few goes with it.  It’s not just me getting used to pain.  There’s definitely LESS pain going on but it’s a long way from what I’d call “comfortable”.

Presumably, there are simply less remaining hairs to hurt whilst being ripped out.  The obvious ones are gone by now.  This analgesic benefit is therefore conferred in a similar way to the anaesthetic effect reported by the handful of immolation survivors who make as far to the point where those pesky pain-causing nerves are simply burned away and fall silent.  Sure, it hurts less but one can’t help being left wondering if the destination was worth the journey.

Occasionally, the flailing knives of this demonic tool will find fresh, un-mowed pasture to rip up instantly reverting the pain level to “white hot”.  Occasionally, I will get it too close to a nook or cranny and it will ingest flesh and slice it with similarly spectacular pain levels.

It is however starting to have an effect.  There is it seems a distinct difference between “shaved” and “hairless” flesh.  My pubis at least is now hairless.

Shaved is certainly better than nothing.  It delivers the hygiene and washability one would want from a nappy area but requires near-daily maintenance.  The twin demons of stubble and ingrown hairs are never far away and it’s never truly 100% smooth.

With hairless, once the “plucked chicken” effect has died down, the remaining skin IS soft and smooth.  It really is like a baby’s bum: pink, very soft, hairless and in my case at least, usually a bit damp.  There is no stubble because there is no hair to build it.  There are no ingrown hairs (at least to date) because there are no hairs to form them.  I’m aware that regrowth WILL occur necessitating maintenance but to-date, none has occurred.  I’m told that when it does, the new hair, grown from new hair follicles, is very fine and (relatively) easy to remove.

It’s difficult to say if the “wet” and “wetting” sensation are any more vivid on a truly hairless (as opposed to simply shaved) crotch.  My imagination has filled in this gap by deciding that it IS but my rational brain says that it might just be that my skin down there is a bit cross with me.  I have also noticed a reduction in the quantity of rash cream I need at changing times, presumably because I’m not longer plastering hairs and stubble with the stuff.

There are still some limits.  The epilator is definitely designed for flat terrain.  As the topography in my nappy zone elevates, so does the risk of pain and incisions.  The hilly bits are largely left for the shaver for now although I’ve gradually been pushing at the demarcation lines.

The dwindling number of hairs remaining in my nappy zone are right to tremble.

[FretaBWet]

@oznlhad you considered a hybrid approach to your hair removal? Yes, the epilator is designed for flat terrain and your nappy area has hills and valleys so a two prong attack on the enemy hair may be called for. There's been no shortage of discussion about waxing pubic hair and the pain involved in using that method and most avoid it due to the level of pain. As you said, it hurts less now so maybe the same could be expected from waxing at this point. By waxing you can depilate the peaks and valleys while using the epilator on the flats. Just a thought I had that may help.

Hugs,

Freta

[Little Sherri]

I've eyed the hair removal creams the women in my house employ, as well as the sugaring strips, and razors - nobody yet uses an epilator, as far as I know. So far I still just reach for the clippers. The result is imperfect, and the manscape requires regular maintenance, but... I was once hospitalized for an ingrown hair that turned into an abscess. That may have been due to a lack of care with a razor, or, it may have been due to a 5 mile run I did in an ill-fitting pull-up. Either way, I'm terrified of angering the Gods down there... 

[oznl]

14 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I've eyed the hair removal creams the women in my house employ

Don't...  There be dragons 🤣

14 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 but... I was once hospitalized for an ingrown hair that turned into an abscess. That may have been due to a lack of care with a razor, or, it may have been due to a 5 mile run I did in an ill-fitting pull-up. Either way, I'm terrified of angering the Gods down there... 

That’s an interesting point.  When I started out with this misadventure, I’d read that epilation was a way of avoiding ingrown hairs as both the hair and the hair root are removed as opposed to merely beheading the hair and hoping that the regrowth happens the right way up.

Reading more closely I sense marketing pixie dust.  I suspect that the above is true IF (and only IF) one is epilating “properly”.

A half-arsed epilation job (such as what may occur whilst the recipient is screaming in pain and flinching) may see hairs simply broken off rather than from their mother untimely ripped (you don’t often find Shakespeare on DD). 

In this scenario, there MAY well be ingrown hairs.

Having said that, I've had a few ingrown hairs with shaving down there but nothing that I'd consider hospitalisation territory: painful lumps nevertheless

I shall watch and wait…

16 hours ago, FretaBWet said:

Yes, the epilator is designed for flat terrain and your nappy area has hills and valleys

This is very true.  It's one thing to mow a lawn.  It's quite another to mow a topiary

[oznl]

This week I’ve been puddling around (sometimes literally) in the nappy `world of the unexceptional: working my way through some of the flotsam and jetsam of left-over-but-unused medical nappies diverted from landfill.

4/5 of a pack of “ID Slip Super” hove into view and last Saturday, I test drove one.  During the day, whilst I was home, where I could change and clean up in the event of catastrophic failure.

Did I mention that these freebies were “XXL” in size?  I can only assume that this is “bariatric” territory, or maybe it’s designed for a walrus.  I’m NOT a small guy but on me, these things were huge!  Around 90cm east to west and a similar distance north to south!  Interestingly, this implementation of “huge” was also reflected in padded area.  The padding around the bum was so wide (nearly 40cm) that when wrapped around me, there was (almost) side protection!   A little narrower at the front (around 30cm) with the “valley” about 18cm.   The tapes at the front actually met in the middle from both sides, even overlapping a little such was this tent-like nappy big on me.  I was padded up to near my belly button.

Despite their relatively diminutive dry weight (176g), I got a little excited.  Maybe these things could actually be USEFUL?

Well, kind of…

The first drama was that they were the “slip SUPER”.   Whilst in traditional English, the word “Super” generally means “superior”, common idiom is that super is more, well superlative, describing something that is radically above and beyond others.  In marketing (non-traditional) parlance, the word “Super” denotes “not the worst we’ve got but nowhere near the best either”.

So, they were probably more absorbent than, say, a string bag but nothing like beach towel absorbent.

With their ISO claim of 3800ml (I suspect yielded more by acreage than thickness) they SHOULD have been ok (at around 1/3 of 3800ml).  Due to their capacious, wrap-around fit, they were certainly comfortable enough.

I persisted with them for around 8 hours although only for 5 of those 8 hours could I be considered to have persisted in safety.

I was outside doing yard work, standing up for the most part.  As is my habit after 4.5 years of 24/7, I peed very often in very small amounts and kind of lost track of things.

I was just thinking that they hadn’t done too badly when, at around the 6 hour mark, I popped inside and sat down.

I immediately stood up again.

It was exactly like sitting on a lukewarm saturated sponge.  I felt pee exuding extravagantly out both leggings into my plastic pants.

Plastic pants over disposables merely delay wet clothing, they do not avoid it.  I was seconds away from a catastrophic leak if I’d remained seated.

I abandoned my quick check of the internet, went back outside (away from carpet) and pushed on  (standing only) for another couple of hours

The post-change diagnosis confirmed that in addition to Abena-like sagging, the “super” padding had simply been overwhelmed despite a weigh-in suggesting a payload of only around 1050ml: fairly dismal for their size.

I guess I could consider the “maxi” variant (apparently less worse than mere “super”) but I’m not sufficiently inspired (no pun there Rearz) to pay money for them…

On another note, my beloved leaves tomorrow morning VERY early for a flight down to Sydney for one of her periodic “long weekends with the girls”.

Traditionally, I’ve used these (rare) opportunities to conduct various experiments that I would not dare do in her company.  I’m not entirely sure I can be bothered this time.  Whilst she will be off wining and dining, I’ve got a list of minor domestic renovations to attend to.

I’ll at least get ONE experiment in because I’ve already started it.  It’s early evening here and I’ve changed into a Rearz “Mega” XL.  I’ve only tried this nappy once before and a combination of poor judgement and low hydration meant that I didn’t really plumb the depths of its capabilities.

This time will hopefully be different.

I’m heading to bed soon where, based on previous experience this week, I’ll probably bedwet in it.  Getting up early, I’ll just pull on some jeans over it, deliver a spouse to an airport, drive back home and push on with my day.

We’ll see how far it gets…

[Little Sherri]

1 hour ago, oznl said:

Rearz “Mega” XL.

I'm trying to figure out which model this is over here. We don't have a Mega XL, but we have Mega-ed versions of the Inspire+, Critter Caboose, Safari, Barnyard, Dinosaurs, and Mermaid Tales. If the diaper you're referencing is white, then I'm going to assume it's a Mega Inspire+.

As an aside, Rearz seem to basically have 3 current lines, excluding the outlier single-tape Selects and other leftovers: the Lil' series (Monsters/Squirts/Bella), the Mega series (outlined above), and the V2 series (Princess, Alpaca). They also have some weird low-volume products like Rebels and Halloween and Christmas themed diapers that I've never tried but that I think might rest on their old Inspire platform, before it went Inspire+ and then Mega Inspire+, and could no longer legally be shipped by air because if they come in contact with water, they might expand enough to damage the airframe.  

Their InControl brand does not employ the Mega hyperbole, but, assuming that, as with brand-engineered automobiles, Rearz is probably using the same chassis over here in white diaper medical land, that they use to underpin (see what I did there?) their printed nappies, I'd assume, based on driving impressions, that their Essential is a Lil' diaper with no print, the Elite is a Mega Mermaid Tale with no print, and the InControl Original seems to be a white V2 - the sizing lines up. The Active Air is another outlier, like the Select. There is no printed analogy to these. 

Anyway, let us know how it goes! 

It's interesting that, being in 24/7 mode, and "open" with your spouse, "getting the house to myself for a weekend" is no longer a big deal. I used to cherish the opportunity to have the house to myself, to the point of spending notable sums on having my family spend 2 or 3 weeks at whatever vacation destination we'd chosen, while I, the wage donkey with the 9-5 job, would join them partway through the trip, because of a "big project", or whatever. Or, I'd snag whatever opportunities I could to travel for work, just to get those precious nights in a hotel somewhere, when I could relax and just be "diaper guy" and watch 24 or Breaking Bad and drink a beer in bed while reviewing a spreadsheet with one eye.