Cloth Diaper Wipes Revisited and Cloth Wipe Solution

So I washed and dried my newly made cloth wipes and discovered that the stitch I used wasn't quite close enough to prevent fraying as I had hoped.

So I am currently in the process of putting a narrow hem on the edge by folding the fabric twice (almost a rolled edge) then running a straight stitch down its length.

Sewing the hem on the wipes

"wrong" side of the finished wipe

"right" side of the finished wipe

Now that none of the raw cut edge is showing, they should hold up to the frequent washing they will undergo.

When I posted yesterday I meant to include a spiel about the wipes solution, so here it is:

Homemade Baby Wipes Solution

1 cup water

1/2 tsp Baby Wash (I have tons of Johnson's Baby Wash from gifts, so I'm using that)

1-2 drops Tea Tree Oil (pure essential oil)

I am keeping my wipes dry until they are needed, then I can control how wet the wipe is and have dry ones available to dry his bottom before putting the new diaper on. In reality, all you need is a wet wipe - the soap is a little overkill unless you have a poopy diaper area to clean up. Most of the recipes I saw online listed a mixture of water, soap, and oil. The reasoning for the oil would be to replace the natural oils that are stripped away from the skin by the soap. My inner chemist screamed. Everyone knows that water and oil don't mix. When you add soap in, all your doing is creating micelles (a drop of oil surrounded by the soap) to disperse the oil through the water - creating a colloid. The oil is not going to be available to the babies bum to replace what was stripped away - it is essentially locked in the soap your using to clean with. If your worried about drying your babies bum by stripping the oils - don't use soap unless the diaper is messy. What I do to prevent dry skin on my baby is to apply lotion or oil after his baths (usually accompanied by a mini massage.)

So what is the Tea Tree Oil in there for?

Tea Tree Oil (from the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia) has long been used in alternative medicine for its' antiseptic and antifungal properties. By putting it in the solution it will slow down mildew formation on the wipes if they sit wet for a long time and it *could*, theoretically, help with diaper rash on your babies bottom.