Why has no one thought of this before?

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BrattyPrincessSophie

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I've been looking up vintage adult diapers recently and have been thinking I really would've liked to experience the various different diapers that have since been discontinued. vintage 90s green Depends? I'd love to give em a whirl! 80s Blue Attends? 90s blue tape Attends? the old American Attends 8-10 with EZ fit tapes? mid 2000s Paper Pak Attends? I would sure love to experience those old products. The old plastic backed TENA Slips before they switched to that icky breathable backing? plastic US TENAs? old plastic store brands? old name brands that are no longer made anymore? the sky's the limit!

So I saw that ABU has made replicas of 1 or 2 vintage baby diapers and then it hit me like a bolt of lightning! So I asked the question. Why hasn't anyone thought of doing the same with adult diapers? Why haven't any companies, medical or ABDL thought of such a thing?

I can think of 1 obvious reason why which I can knock out and rebut. The obvious issue would be copyright/patents/trademarks. How would a company be able to replicate such discontinued products without getting sued out of business? ABU has the answer. their Super Dry Kids replicate the 1997-98 Pampers Baby Dry almost identically with the slight change of omitting any sort of Pampers logo and changing the letters on the balloons to avoid any copyright violation and I don't believe I have heard of Pampers suing or threatening to sue ABU. In fact it's unlikely that they even care because they haven't made money off of that particular design in over a decade.

So for that issue my suggestion would be to try to replicate these discontinued adult products so they look and feel as close to the same as they were when they were mass produced but make some slight changes to skirt around any copyright issues that might arise. and As for vintage Depends, replicating those would prove an obvious challenge as Kimberly Clark still owns the patent to elastic waistbands so they may have to work out some sort of deal with them. and if copyright/trademark issues do arise despite companies' best efforts to avoid them, perhaps they could arrange some sort of deal with these companies where a portion of the sales of these replicas goes to them or something.

All I can say is imagine Bambino replicating old Attends, etc. I'm surprised not even ABDL diaper companies have thought of this and the aforementioned solutions to any legal risks.
 
For the same reason ABU hasn't tried to replicate vintage Huggies, Luvs et al in addition to Pampers. There just isn't enough demand for all those different products to make it cost-effective. You'd need more than people giving them "a whirl" - you'd need large numbers of people using them regularly, and why would they when there are better designed ABDL products on the market right now? How many ABDLs are going to want to wear 80s vintage Attends when they could have ABU Space for a similar price - and it would be a similar price due to the high per unit fixed costs associated with small production runs. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually turned out to be more expensive.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no interest whatsoever in vintage medical nappies. If they were discontinued more than about five years ago (when the move to cloth cover really started) then it was most likely because they were superseded by a superior product design.

Don't get me wrong, the old plastic-backed Tena Slip Maxi was my favourite nappy, and I wish that they hadn't stopped producing them - I bought a whole load of the very last batch - but for me, the Snuggies Waddler Overnight is a superior substitute, and there is the Space and Little Pawz yet to come.
 
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then I can only hope 3D printing technology advances to a point of being able to produce mass quantities of fully functional diapers. Maybe the replica idea is just wishful thinking but a girl can dream can't she?

In any case maybe there are some current brands out there, medical or otherwise that could be classed as spiritual successors of sorts to these discontinued products?
 
The other thing you have to remember is that as a nappy, the SDK is nothing special. There were more comfortable and more absorbent products on the market at the time it was launched. It was designed to evoke nostalgic feelings for the users infancy, as an aid to regression. I occasionally play vintage video games, because I'm somewhat nostalgic for the times I played them, the first time around. How many people are nostalgic for a product that they've never used?

SnowPrincessLily said:
In any case maybe there are some current brands out there, medical or otherwise that could be classed as spiritual successors of sorts to these discontinued products?


What exactly do you mean by spiritual successor? What it is about those products that you thing makes them worthy of having spiritual successors? At the end of the day, a nappy is a functional product. If the 80's or 90's Attends were a good product - comfortable, absorbent, leak-proof - then their spiritual successor is any modern nappy that has those same qualities.

What is it about these particular products that appeals to you? I'm not old enough to have actually encountered any 80s or 90s adult nappies, and I'm a decade older than you!
 
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I guess anything with the same feel and performance or similar, maybe with a similar look or design, but the aesthetic aspect is not required. I mainly mean something with the same or similar overall feel and performance but without first hand experience I can't really describe those qualities so I mostly only have emotional memory to go on, but I would think there are some on this forum who have had first hand experience with these products. All I really have to go on is pictures of the products and word of mouth from people who have used them. i just know I would have liked to experience them. As for appeal, I guess I just sorta always had a thing for medical looking diapers, babyish diapers are cute and all, but for some reason and I can't quite put my finger on it, I've been drawn to medical type products.

At it's core, the appeal is the same reason people like us see an appeal in diapers in general. We are just wired that way, it's what we like.
 
I can understand the curiosity, but in the case of old Attends, you're not really missing much. The plastic felt nice but the capacity was lower than any ABDL diaper currently available. They were notable for being easy to get, nice enough, and inexpensive. I'd still buy them I'd they were available but since they were only about 25% greater capacity than current Depends, I don't think most ABDLs would appreciate them.
 
SnowPrincessLily said:
At it's core, the appeal is the same reason people like us see an appeal in diapers in general. We are just wired that way, it's what we like.


A desire for nappies in general is one thing, but your desire is incredibly specific, especially for a product that you have never used. You mention emotional memory - did someone you know use these particular products? Not to pry, just curious.
 
I would purchase the vintage adult diaper variety pack you propose. But, i dont want to wear them again. It would be just to see how much they have improved. My first adult brief was the Green Depends. Back in the 90's you could actually buy a two pack sample of them at Walmart and some pharmacy. They were freaking amazing then (but only because thats all i knew besides DIYpers). Now, going from a thick and highly functional diaper to an 10oz max capacity 1990's depends wouldnt help me sleep at night.
 
Glue a paper towel to any color garbage bag with as many tapes as you want and you've replicated store brand diapers from the 80's and 90's until the disappearance of mainstream plastic backed store brands. They did look better though, especially my old attends six tapes.
 
I guess what you guy's dont know is to get some manufacturer to do a diaper run you must order at lest a container full of diapers which is a lot of cash out lay then you have art on top of that .
So that is why company's run out of stock or can't fill demands.
The start up costs are a killer.

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Trevor said:
I can understand the curiosity, but in the case of old Attends, you're not really missing much. The plastic felt nice but the capacity was lower than any ABDL diaper currently available. They were notable for being easy to get, nice enough, and inexpensive. I'd still buy them I'd they were available but since they were only about 25% greater capacity than current Depends, I don't think most ABDLs would appreciate them.
Attend's the 80's they were thick very but most all diapers were even the baby ones look at the movie Mister mom the the movie poster shows how thick they were.
The technology back then .
They were my favorite but they clomped up and fell into the bottom if worn to long.
So some of the diapers of today are better.
The only thing is to make them thicker so you get the same feel.
Most AB/DL would go for that.
 
The only interest I have in vintage diapers is simply to learn how they were back then compared to what we have now. I couldn't see myself using them on a regularly basis.
 
I like the concept of recreating vintage adult diapers. I'm in the minority of people who really like the various styles of Depends and I think it'd be cool to get my hands on a package of the green Depends tape-on diapers of yesteryear, just for the sake of comparison, growing my collection, and dare I say "brand loyalty/fetishization". That said, I think for someone into such a niche type of product, I'll have to stick to eBay ABDL resellers to fill that hole in my stash, should I ever feel the need.

In my opinion, if the ABDL/"little" diaper producers are going to start replicating vintage/discontinued diapers, their biggest success would be adult-scale Pull-Ups style training pants and GoodNites or UnderJams. For some reason, no company produces adult pull-ups with the same basic design of the full-length strip of padding up the front and back with the separate stretchy side panels. I know I speak for more than myself when I say that if an ABDL diaper producer made adult-sized GoodNites clones, complete with stretchy foam-y side panels with vibrant, "gender-specific" graphics on the plastic, and the anti-crinkle sheet on top, they'd make a killing.
 
It is because their gone that their worth so much on places like ebay. I have the last one of every type or upgraded adult diaper in the original package I ever bought over the last twenty years and someday the collection will fund my retirement.
 
I believe that the old discontinued styles are gone for a reason. I tried Attends and Depends in the late '90s and liked them because they were the best available to me at the time. The green Depends with the elastic waistband felt like a padded plastic bag and had little SAP at the time. The elastic strip was too skinny and dig into my skin. The green ones with a more modern waistband felt and wore better, but still did not hold much. Attends had cheaper plastic, a weird inner layer, and better absorbency. These are not diapers I would want to wear much if at all.

Recreating that experience for me is best done with a Dry 24/7. Those diapers are a little thicker, have much better plastic outer sheets, and fit me even more comfortably. The absorbency is not comparable, but I cannot complain about the much higher absorbency of the Dry's. XPmedical makes something similar in their A+ line which felt even more like the old Attends or Depends, but again with higher absorbency. I keep planning to try them in the size regular, but have not gotten around to it yet.

To sell diapers, a company must make diapers worth buying. The old styles were nice in their day, but newer designs have made them worthless except to collectors. Now, if someone wanted to make modern diapers resembling the old ones in feel and appearance, there may be a small market. A more profitable plan would be selling Fabines or something comparable in America. That would really peak my interest.
 
Jeremiah said:
Now, if someone wanted to make modern diapers resembling the old ones in feel and appearance, there may be a small market. A more profitable plan would be selling Fabines or something comparable in America. That would really peak my interest.

Try the Rearz Spoiled, or the Bambino Belissimo. Or wait for ABU to release the Space. Fabine isn't exactly alone in the market anymore.
 
As a non-AB i really hate baby and kid prints. i like it to look adultish, medical, and embarrassing. The old vintage adult diapers do that for sure! There is zero interest in ABDL diapers for me. I will keep my Abena plastic backed as long as they make them. But, surely the invention of ABDL diapers is cutting into real plastic backed Adult diapers profits.
 
I remember buying my first Depends in about 1990. They were the green ones that June Allyson was talking about. I think they had latex rubber in them because THAT's what I remember. When I opened the bag they smelled like a bag of rubber bands. I would like to see how they were constructed because I swear the padding went all the way in to the wings unlike anything today. That's probably just incorrect human memory, but I want to see so I know. I know they didn't hold very much but at the time it didn't matter because I had finally reached my goal of acquiring a true adult diaper after 6 to 8 years of wanting it badly. Yes, I would buy a bag, but no, there's not enough demand for anyone in their right mind to try to recreate them.

And didn't Attends have some sort of plastic inside liner like on old maxi pads around 1990? I'd like to see that too.
 
Regardless of any silly legal stuff I would love to have older Tena Slip Maxi make an appearance... Years ago when they dropped the square bottom look and went more panty shaped but before they went all war paint with the grey edged tapping panel followed by the purple for the Maxi capacity product Tena had a sweet spot with an all white nappy with just the words Tena on the panel when they were PERFECT (IMO) would love to have those ones back.

As for Depends 3 tape trifold green meanies unless they were made with some capacity this time around!
 
MattyMax said:
As a non-AB i really hate baby and kid prints. i like it to look adultish, medical, and embarrassing. The old vintage adult diapers do that for sure! There is zero interest in ABDL diapers for me. I will keep my Abena plastic backed as long as they make them. But, surely the invention of ABDL diapers is cutting into real plastic backed Adult diapers profits.

Well, there's always the ComfiCare. Or at least, there was. It remains to be seen how the new ones turn out. And ABU have indicated that they will be producing a version of the Space in plain white. And there's the Snuggies Tighty Whities. As for real adult nappies.... we are still an incredibly small market compared to the need for medical purposes, so I don't suppose that it makes a difference. The decision of many manufacturers to abandon plastic-backing certainly wasn't driven by us - we like plastic, after all. But so what if it does erode their profits? I, for one, prefer ABDL designs. Abena doesn't have a God-given right to my money.

EDIT:

In fact, thinking about it, if there really are enough AB/DLs out there to influence the product design and sales of major nappy manufacturers, then there are more than enough to support any number of small boutique manufacturers making targeted products. We have several now, and I don't believe that there's anywhere near enough of us to influence Abena's commercial decisions. But I still don't believe that the market for re-creations of long-obsolete non-AB designs is ever going to be big enough to support even one manufacturer.
 
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