Does the Market Cater to an Older Generation?

PaciPilot

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  2. Diaper Lover
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So, I'm 24 years old. I've been an AB since I was just a B. Now, however, I have the ability to fund this rather expensive habit.

So, what I've noticed is that despite the explosion in AB diaper offerings, they almost all seem to cater to really oldschool, 80's/early 90's designs.

What I want to know is if/when the AB companies will start coming out with diapers that cater to the generation of us who grew up with fairly modern diapers? I distinctly remember that the last diaper I wore when I was 2 years old was cloth backed with a plastic landing zone (that had Barney on it). My cousins who were born when I was 4/5 wore what most of us would probably find in a Walmart today.

When are we going to see AB diapers that are all over cloth, with very light pastel colors and fairly nondescript designs, or characters designed to look like the characters we younger adults grew up with? I would pay $5/diaper if I could get my hands on a cloth like Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, or Elmo diaper.

Do any companies have any plans for this? Or am I in a large minority of AB's who would buy a diaper like that?
 
Well, 1 thing is with specific characters come licensing fees and legal problems if there is any reason they cant/wont comply with licensing laws whereas less specified and unused more Generic looking designs are basically free range (harder to claim any damage done to you about a generic character you havent used in 30 or 40 years), plus I would guess theres a larger population of people those designs they currently use appeal to.
 
BabyTyrant said:
Well, 1 thing is with specific characters come licensing fees and legal problems if there is any reason they cant/wont comply with licensing laws whereas less specified and unused more Generic looking designs are basically free range (harder to claim any damage done to you about a generic character you havent used in 30 or 40 years), plus I would guess theres a larger population of people those designs they currently use appeal to.

Yeah, I know I'm not lucky enough to likely ever have my dream Sofia the First diapers, but surely some AB company could design their own princess characters and the like.
 
Also upon doing a quick bit of research it appears I probably would have been in late plastic backed diapers when I wasnt potty trained yet as I was born in 1991 and probably would have been in diapers from.93 or 94 before potty training, though I have no memory of those diapers.

I suppose I just like plastic backed anyways as it seems like the more correct thing than cloth-backed (though I did like Seni Quatros and those are cloth backed, and Tykables have cloth-like covers on certain part)
 
PaciPilot said:
So, I'm 24 years old. I've been an AB since I was just a B. Now, however, I have the ability to fund this rather expensive habit.

The fact that you are just 24 years old and can afford premium diapers is awesome, but very atypical. The market goes where the money is, and you personally are not a good demographic .. yet. Even still, ABUniverse offers 'clothlike' backing sheets on their PreSchool diapers, so i think you may not have long to wait until your dream diaper gets here.
 
I started wearing diapers again with frequency around 1997, I was 11/12ish, I would buy pampers size five, shortly there after pampers came out with there size 6's and luvs soon followed, I also remember buying a pack of huggies size 6 (they already switched to cloth like cover) around the 1st half of year 2000 pampers switched to the cloth like cover, it sucked, luvs and generic store brands were the only game in town that had plastic covers, luvs switched over in the later half of 2000 and that was it, also around the same time I had a growth spurt and grew out of baby diapers entirely.
Fast forward to 2005ish the stretch sides started coming out, I bought a pack of luvs with the blues clues design and was immediately saddened that obviously the diaper length didn't fit, but the stretch sides made it to the taping panel, I really wished at that point that these diapers were available in year 2000, it would have been an awesome switch over for me.
Today i'm a plastic back adult DL, I have tried cloth like covers and each time suffered performance issues, usually because the tapes loosen up or I have excessive sag issues, plastic back diapers seem stronger, have better elastics and taping methods, the diapers I wear today are totally awesome, nothing like the adult diapers of the mid 2000's.
 
I'm 45 and I want that too.

In the 70s, I was diapered with cloth diapers and rubber pants. But these aren't what I'm into now - my tastes have kept up with modern design trends. At puberty in the mid-80s, I was surrounded with commercials for plastic Pampers and Luvs and Huggies, so that's what I fantasized about. As a DL adult in the 90s, these are what I bought.

Now, though, I want modern diapers. I see them evolving in the TV commercials, and on my friends' children. My fetish has adjusted with the times - the more modern, the better. I've bought a few baby diapers over the years, just to see what the technology was like (and to use for stuffers).

Big cartoon art - yes! Give us huge character faces that dominate the diaper, like on the PeekABUs. Of course we'll never have the characters we see on TV - the owners will never license these - but original characters done by DL-aware artists are the next best thing.

Soft outer surface - yes! Plastic is so very 1980s. Modern baby diapers just don't feel like that.

Velcro tabs - yes! that's what today's fashionable toddlers are wearing.

Stretchy, colorful sides - yes, yes! This is so very important, and (perhaps for engineering reasons) almost nobody does it. (I've found that Tena Stretch has wonderful stretchy sides, but their appearance is otherwise rather boring).

So, it's not just the young that want this. I was born in the 70s but my diaper tastes agree with the young DLs of today.
 
GDNTSKID said:
It sounds like from the description of the diapers you wore with Barney on it, they were Luvs when they first transitioned over to cloth-back disposables. If you would be willing to pay up to $5/diaper, check eBay or Etsy. Sellers will generally provide a modded diaper that are either a hybrid of adult and baby diaper (with the baby diaper on the outer shell) or diapers that are 2-3 baby diapers put together. You will pay a premium, but you will find designs that are what you are looking for. I always wished that I could wear a diaper like Huggies with Mickey on them or Pull-Ups with characters on them, but most likely would never happen.

I actually have some of those packages of Luvs still. Both the plastic backed ones, and the ones when they switched to cloth-like covers. Yeah. They sell for some crazy money. I've even seen some sell in the $20 - $25 range for a single diaper, like the Blue's Clues ones.
 
Hmm this is interesting. im also the same age(born 1994) as the op and i know my parents used both pampers and luvs but i distinctively remember them being plastic backed even for my brother who is 4 years younger than me. i also know many generic brands stayed plastic backed into the mid 2000s i never knew that any major diaper brands had a transitional period with cloth backing and tapes(if im understanding that correctly). I also might ad that the reason that so many diapers are plastic backed may be due to manufacturing limitations/using existing machinery for making the diapers? i have heard that a lot of the abdl diapers are produced either on the same production lines that make adult diapers or are made overseas where their adult diapers havent switched over to cloth backed. from what it looks like plastic backed diapers are a lot simpler to make requiring simpler raw materials and older/more simpler equipment.

i should also add that i find it interesting how some people like what they used to wear as a baby/toddler and some people are totally different. it shows that any generation of diaper could have some demand at any time in the abdl market

- - - Updated - - -

i wonder if there is much demand for the older disposables from the 70s and early 80s? nobody really talks about them but im sure there are some older generations like mentioned above who are old enough to have more disposable income to drive the market? although im sure the tooling to make them is long gone
 
My preference doesn't seem to relate to what I wore as a child. My first years were spent in ordinary washable terry nappies, although I hardly remember the nappies themselves - only the plastic pants. Today, I much prefer traditional plastic-backed disposables over anything else. I can't deal with the logistics of washables and have no particular desire to wear them, although I do recognise their superior performance in certain ways, and quite enjoy the feel of the bulk between my legs. I dislike cloth-style disposables both aesthetically and functionally, and would consider them a very poor alternative to plastic-backed.

I have a theory that my overriding desire for a thick, crinkly, plastic backed nappy comes from jealousy of what younger children were wearing when I was first getting interested in nappies again. I'd be walking along the street wearing my boring underwear, I'd see a little girl in her lovely thick Pampers or whatever, and knew that was what I wanted. Fast-wind to now, and that is what I still want, although as I say the appeal of cloth-style disposables, if there was one, would be negated by my experience of using them.
 
they tend to target the audience they think has the most money, and right now that adult babies/diaper lovers who grew up in the early 80s-mid 90s.... which is namely made up of people who grew up in plastic backed disposables.
 
It’s gotta be right around the corner. Yeah they totally go after the older generation but Velcro tabs are becoming really common for a lot of premium diapers. Any day now someone is gonna release something like a modern pampers or huggies. Abu is close, tykabkes is close, Bambino is close. Someone will do it.
 
BabyLink9 said:
It’s gotta be right around the corner. Yeah they totally go after the older generation but Velcro tabs are becoming really common for a lot of premium diapers. Any day now someone is gonna release something like a modern pampers or huggies. Abu is close, tykabkes is close, Bambino is close. Someone will do it.

What do you think of Bear Hugs?
 
bambinod said:
What do you think of Bear Hugs?
I haven’t gotten to try them. I also haven’t looked into them. What’s the specs of them?
 
BabyLink9 said:
I haven’t gotten to try them. I also haven’t looked into them. What’s the specs of them?

Reskin a Tykables Overnight / Galactic with possibly the best AB pattern on the market. Oh, and don't forget to double the price :p
 
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