Baby & Kids

Diapers are one of the only products worn against a baby’s skin around the clock, and manufacturers aren’t required to tell you what’s in them. Here’s the actual construction, layer by layer.

Perfume in a diaper exists to mask odor for the adult changing it, not to do anything for the baby wearing it. And one word on the package can hide dozens of undeclared ingredients.

Almost every diaper brand says “chlorine-free” now. Two very different processes hide behind that phrase, and only one of them means no chlorine chemistry was used at all.

Cloth wins on landfill and loses on water and energy. The comparison is closer than you’d think, it depends heavily on how you wash, and anyone who tells you it’s obvious is selling something.

Diapers carry no required ingredient list, so we read the material disclosures, checked the certifications at their issuers, and traced who owns each brand. Six picks, from a $12 pack to a $105 box.