Maia
Est. Contributor
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- 57
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- Incontinent
Hello gentlepeople,
I thought I’d write down a couple of things that I figured out over time trying to manage the flooding waterworks. Most is related to plastic pants and cloth diapers.
I’ve always been fully urinary incontinent because of a congenital issue, and have never found anything that beats good old plastic pants and pin-on cloth diapers.
When laundering isn’t an option, I use the largest disposable pads that I can find with tie-on plastic “snibbar” (not sure how to translate that: they’re thin plastic hourglass-shaped sheets that can be tied to fit at the sides. They’re from Sweden, and in France they’re called pointes a nouer - ‘tips to tie’).
Some resources that may not be too widely known
Cleaning plastic pants / cloth diapers
Repairing plastic pants
DIY plastic pants - it’s a ton of work, but the result can be very good. You’ll need some sort of sealer or welding apparatus though (unless you’re happy with leaky sewed seams, of course).
I hope this is of some use to someone!
Iraina
I thought I’d write down a couple of things that I figured out over time trying to manage the flooding waterworks. Most is related to plastic pants and cloth diapers.
I’ve always been fully urinary incontinent because of a congenital issue, and have never found anything that beats good old plastic pants and pin-on cloth diapers.
When laundering isn’t an option, I use the largest disposable pads that I can find with tie-on plastic “snibbar” (not sure how to translate that: they’re thin plastic hourglass-shaped sheets that can be tied to fit at the sides. They’re from Sweden, and in France they’re called pointes a nouer - ‘tips to tie’).
Some resources that may not be too widely known
- There is a Swedish webshop that sells these snibbar: https://vuxshopen.nordicshops.com/product.html/snibb
I got a few packets of those several years ago, and they last amazingly long. I always use two stacked together because I find just one too flimsy, and this way I can have the pleasantly textured sides both outside and inside. The funny thing about these snibbar is that they look very wrinkled-up where you tied the knot: but just put them in a washbasin with hot water and they magically smooth out. I clean them with a drop of shampoo, and they last almost forever. I don’t know what sort of plastic they are made from, pvc or something else - maybe polyethylene?
- unlike many abdl people (as I’ve understood at least), I dislike smooth shiny plastic. Or, maybe I should say: I have a thing with textured plastic, also known as “taffeta embossed vinyl”. But whatever it’s called: it is increasingly hard to get which is a never-ending source of frustration to me, because they didn’t choose to use textured plastic for baby-plastic pants since the 1950’s for nothing. It prevents the plastic from clinging to the skin where it touches and gives the plastic a bit of a luxurious silk-like look and feel. Way better than that sterile clingfilm-like shininess, which always makes me feel as if I’m a wrapped cabbage. And besides, I find the very specific swishing sound that that textured plastic makes infinitely cute. As far as I know, the only decent plastic pants made from this textured plastic are sold by baby-pants.com (the pink stars and blue stars pants). It also has cute little stars embossed in it. There’s also (and I guess this one is much less known) the German web-shop fabimonti.de. I’m not too wild about their plastic diaper pants because the crotch is too narrow and they don’t fit the female body-shape very well. It look as if they are scaled-up man’s underpants. But they’ve been adding more and more fetish-related products lately, including complete overalls and whatnot. Plus, decent prices (some of those places targeting the fetish market are outrageously expensive). Especially their thin foil is superb and very soft. The texture is much finer than with those from baby-pants, even almost invisible without magnifying glass; but it lends the foil a kind of nice shimmer. I prefer the baby-pants pink-stars foil, but I can’t find that anywhere to buy that by the meter. I sent a mail to them to ask, but they didn’t want to tell. If anyone knows where to buy it, can you please let me know? In the UK there’s also some places that sell textured plastic pants but those are a waste of money (stiff, hard, yuck! blehh! bah!) - just like the SGA and Hygia ones from the Netherlands where I come from. They used to be great, but these days they’re made from old sandpaper because someone out there decided that incontinent people should be punished for being wet.
Cleaning plastic pants / cloth diapers
- I suppose everyone knows that you best not throw plastic pants in the regular laundry, and ESPECIALLY avoid fabric softener. Since about a year I found that the German discount shop ohwe.de (Save Express) sells special “pvc wash” - probably also sold elsewhere. It has a bit of a strange, somewhat chemical (though not unpleasant) smell to it (it reminds me of an inflatable toy rubber boat we had when we were kids - a BP petrol station promotional gift) but it doesn’t harden the plastic and it does a good job.
- I never put plastic pants in the washing machine anyhow, because the violent movements and washing powder quickly ages and hardens the foil. The same goes for UV light - never put them in the direct sunlight to dry.
- if you use cloth diapers, you’re probably familiar with the stinky ammonia buildup phenomenon. Washing your diapers hot enough helps, and the better they are rinsed the less likely you’ll be ammonia’d. Flat diapers are easiest in this respect, prefolds and other shaped diapers are harder, and the ones with builtin waterproof layers are dreadful. That is, apart from that they usually aren’t waterproof anyhow, so that layer only helps to make them more difficult to launder and dry. Good riddance.
- Limescale remover - the stuff that you use to clean your bathroom taps with - neutralises ammonia (a base) because they contain formic acid (or something similar). I found that if I spray some on the wet diaper in the bathtub, the ammonia stink disappears almost immediately.
I then rinse the diaper in the usual way in the tub as I take my shower.
I don’t know if it also helps preventing the problem. Vinegar should also work (and it is sometimes recommended sometimes to add to diaper pails), but has the advantage of also smelling quite strong. Formic acid is practically odourless.
Repairing plastic pants
- there was a topic about this, but it was closed. So I’ll put it in here. Some years back I decided to make my own plastic pants because I wasn’t happy with what was available and I found that German webshop that sells a nice quality of pvc foil. You can indeed glue soft pvc foil, with special “soft pvc glue”. It’s sold at DIY shops (Bison glue for soft PVC) e.g. https://www.bison.nl/nl/product.445, or, in shops that sell gardening stuff as “pond foil glue” (people apparently use thick pvc foil to create garden ponds with) eg. https://www.bol.com/nl/p/griffon-zacht-lijm-pvc-m-385-250ml/9200000047294215/. Make sure you use it in a well ventilated place though.
- I try and minimise my use of that glue because welded seams are still way better (stronger, more supple and durable). I found an old NATO plastic sealing machine in an army surplus store. It’s a very heavy-duty but clunky machine, presumably used to mothball military equipment in thick foil with (it came with the last maintenance report, signed off by a French sergeant). Judging by the loud clacking noise that it produces it has a couple of heavy relay switches inside, and a timer with an old-school buzzer that you can set from 1 to 10 seconds. it’s a beast of a machine, used to setting its teeth in rough-tough military canvas and I had to temper it’s enthusiasm a bit so that it doesn’t chew right through that delicate plastic panties stuff in a millisecond. The temperature can be set anywhere from 50 to 300 degrees or so, and I found that 140 degrees (centigrade) works well for PVC foil, for about 7 - 10 seconds. The “hot” side of the tongs (that weigh almost a kilogram) is wrapped in baking paper to prevent the bare hot metal melting and tearing the thin plastic foil, and I cover the seams to be welded with masking tape (the same stuff you use when painting). This also serves to keep the plastic in place while I work. It is possible to fix a tear with that welder: put a small piece of foil over the tear, cover it with masking tape and apply the tongs. If I’m careful and lucky, it is then invisibly fixed. If not, it makes things worse - I suppose it’s a matter of skill and experience.
DIY plastic pants - it’s a ton of work, but the result can be very good. You’ll need some sort of sealer or welding apparatus though (unless you’re happy with leaky sewed seams, of course).
- You cannot weld aged foil that’s hardened. It doesn’t melt, at least not at the temperatures I tried. The same goes for plastic that’s been welded but has come loose.
- It pays to experiment with welding temperatures and times. A weld that looks great can still be very shallow (with only the contact surfaces melted together) and snap loose unexpectedly.
- Material costs are negligible compared to the effort it takes. A closed plastic pant will take about 4 hours, and a snap-one one (that I prefer) around 8 - 10 hours. I suppose that with better tools it would be much quicker. But sewing is not an option IMO: it’s not waterproof and the plastic foil tends to start tearing there.
- I found Prym Color Snaps to work very well for plastic snap pants (and there’s dozens of colours to choose from). I think Kam Snaps are almost the same.
- I like to have the elastics of my plastic pants encased, but this has caused a lot of headaches! Without getting too technical: it’s not possible to fold over a curved edge of plastic foil and weld it so that it creates a nice closed elastics tunnel. That only works only if the edge is straight, as with the waist elastic - but not for the leg elastics, where it is most important. Plastic foil doesn’t stretch like cotton fabric does, so you end up with either too much or too little material. I tried patching things up, but in the end it all leads to way too many ugly half-glued /half-welded seams that invariably leak. so that the tunnels fill with water when you wash or even rinse the pants. So, they need to be cut open for the elastics to be pulled out to dry; and then patch ‘m up again, leading to even more ugly seams. In short: a mess. So I tried something else. Though folding a curved edge over won’t work, it is possible to create a curved tunnel for the leg elastics by welding a separate strip of foil of the same shape on to the edge, with the elastic going between two parallel welds. It creates a bit of a ruffled edge but that’s ok. Time will tell if this approach works.
- you can fix the elastics in the tunnels in a completely water-proof way by taking a piece of (slightly sturdier) foil, wrap that around the end of the elastic a couple of times and attach to the elastic with, for instance, two Prym snaps. Make sure there’s about an inch of foil sticking out. When ready, weld that piece of foil together with the foil of the tunnel so that it’s completely sealed.
- Recycling plastic pants: cut off snap pants if made from metal, and remove elastics. Put the foil in plastic recycling container.
I hope this is of some use to someone!
Iraina
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