Jodi Allen is the Vice President for North America of Baby Care products under Procter & Gamble brands. Allen has served as the most public face of the company in addressing consumer concerns over Pampers' new formulation, a design change which has led to widespread consumer complaints of skin irritation and severe diaper rashes that now fuel a Facebook group nearly 11,000 members strong, near-daily reports in television, print and web news outlets, and multiple lawsuits seeking class-action status.

Pampers has relied on a range of voices, from R&D team member and "regular mom" Kerry Hailey to community manager and social media face "Tricia@Pampers," to tout the benefits of the Dry Max absorptive core, which uses less paper pulp and significantly more petroleum-based superabsorbent polymers. But when the BM hit the fan, the brand began relying heavily on statements from Jodi Allen as well as from P&G Baby Care external relations director Bryan McCleary.

We first contacted both Bryan McCleary and multiple colleagues of his several weeks ago, when we first began researching the Dry Max issue. So we were pleased to get a call back from McCleary late last week offering us a chance to speak with McCleary and with R&D director Lisa Sanchez - and, as it turned out, Jodi Allen herself.

We grilled Sanchez for details on Pampers adult skin testing protocols, because our Pampers Dry Max research proposal has now been fully funded by consumers - and, in a public gesture we aren't overlooking, significantly overfunded - and we are working hard to be ready to do the bulk of our testing this weekend.

We also collected official comments from Jodi Allen (we have done the same, in times of crisis, with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik and Carter's CEO Michael Casey), because interview opportunities like this offer a rare chance to get company heads on the record on details that have been swirling about (and swirl still). Getting CEOs "on the record" gives us a fix on the facts as the company sees them, which we can then research independently to confirm or refute.

Here's what we got from Jodi Allen. If you've read our previous reporting on the Pampers Dry Max story, you'll see some statements that surprise you - statement's we're working to corroborate as you read.

ZRecs: Tell us how you rolled out Pampers Dry Max. Our readers are very interested in understanding the transition.

Allen: By the fall of 2008, we began shipping Pampers Dry Max diapers [in packaging that did not promote a new absorbent core]. We did not ship both types of diapers within single packages - every package had either one or the other [i.e. the old or the new]. We converted one manufacturing line at a time until we had converted them all. By November 2009, we had fully converted our production. We have two U.S. plants, and a small percentage of Pampers are made in Mexico - those sourcing the West Coast.

ZRecs: Interesting. Have you found any patterns of complaints that might be tied to a particular distribution chain or factory?

Allen: We have mined the data in every way we can. Every single diaper we sell has an individual code we can track not only to a given facility but to ingredient lots, the crew on the line at the time the diaper was produced... There was nothing done for supply chain reasons. Some consumers indicate that we did this to save money. It was a major investment on our part! We planned it out so we could absorb the cost effectively without raising prices.

ZRecs: We heard complaints that Pampers were being sold in the "original packaging" with graphics or marketing copy indicating a mesh liner was present, but that Dry Max diapers inside did not have the liner.

Allen: We changed the packaging so that is not the case.

ZRecs: You removed references to a mesh liner?

Allen: Yes. But this idea of new product in old packaging, this is standard industry practice. It is a product improvement, and product improvements do not require labeling changes. We would never put features on a package that is not in the diapers - we have never had a feature advertised that is not in there.

ZRecs: So there were no diapers sold without the mesh liners in packaging that showed the mesh liner as a feature - even diapers that had had the mesh liner removed but did not have the Dry Max core?

Allen: Any [Cruisers] diaper with a mesh liner has the previous core. There is no interim design with the old core but no mesh liner. There is one change we made later in the development - the coloring of the core. The dye used is a very safe product, and passed all the safety tests. Dry Max is a great new invention, but the materials are the same materials we were already using. [Update: After questions from readers, we asked for and received clarification from Pampers on this point. Cruisers have had the mesh lining removed, but Swaddlers still contain it.]

ZRecs: I'm curious to hear your views on the role of Facebook and other social media channels in communicating with consumers. We've heard stories of people being banned from Pampers' Facebook "fan page" after complaining about the new diapers.

Allen: The only reason anyone has been banned from our page is for violating stated policy, and our policies are clear and public and consistent with Facebook recommendations. We believe social media is an important tool for us to engage with parents. Our Pampers.com site is robust and useful to interact with parents on. We have a great relationship with consumers there starting three years ago when we created the site to interact with them. ...

Interestingly, the [Facebook group "Bring Back the Old Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers"] was created out of frustrations that we put new product in old packaging, and it had a very low membership. Then it shifted to the fact that the diapers leak. Then it moved to cost savings, accusing us of making the change to the diapers in order to save money. Then it moved to diaper rashes. Sometime in April the term "chemical burn" was introduced. That's when things started taking off.

ZRecs: We read that you initially joined the group and discussed the issues with them.

Allen: We want to talk to consumers. I thought the right thing to do was to engage. But they kicked me [out of the group]. Over time the membership grew and I felt we needed to re-engage, but I had been blocked from the group. So I created a second ID, very transparently, then joined again, and tried to join the discussion. [Allen was kicked out of the group again.] Honestly I wish we still could engage.

ZRecs: We received a written response to a question we posed to Pampers through one of the bloggers you brought in for your Dry Max tour, addressing the discrepancy between numbers of rashes we had seen reported. Pampers stated that the two per million figure was the number of complaints of rashes, while the one in five million figure was for "severe" rashes, and that you do track rash severity in your complaint reporting. Do I have that right?

Allen/McCleary: Yes.

ZRecs: Do you know how many consumer complaints the Consumer Product Safety Commission has received regarding Dry Max diapers? Do they share those numbers with you?

Allen: We do not have those numbers. When they call the CPSC, the CPSC gives them a special number they can call to follow up with us. I don't have the exact number of those calls, and we don't know if every consumer who calls the CPSC then calls us. But the number of calls we've received on that line has been less than 2,000.

Lisa Sanchez, R&D (also in on this call): The level of complaints has not been unusual. We have a baseline level of complaints that occurs with any product change. When we changed from non-Sesame Street to Sesame Street graphics, for example, leakage complaints went up. Based on over ten years doing this I can predict how the change in any feature of our product will affect the level of complaints. And the number of complaints we have received for Dry Max has been below my predictions.

Allen: Regardless of that, every consumer who calls us, we take their complaints very seriously and we follow up. Diaper rash in babies is a quite common occurrence. Disposable diapers significantly decrease the incidence of rashes. And 10% of all diaper rashes are quite serious.

We're all parents - the large majority of our team here are parents. If I thought there was one iota of a chance that our diapers were causing diaper rashes, we would be doing something about it. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that Dry Max diapers are not causing diaper rashes, and they certainly are not causing chemical burns.

ZRecs: Will you be adding Dry Max technology to Baby Dry diapers? To any other Pampers products? If so, when?

Allen: I don't feel comfortable making statements that would indicate our future plans, for reasons of competition. But I can say that different moms want different choices. Our Baby Dry product does not have Dry Max technology in them, and we want to make sure we offer choices to moms.

ZRecs: I guess the same would go for Luvs?

Allen: Again, I am not comfortable making statements regarding our future product plans.

Stay tuned for results from our DIY Pampers Dry Max tests, which we'll be starting Sunday to test samples of Pampers previous Cruisers diapers and the new Dry Max version on one lucky adult volunteer (me) to check for differences in skin reactivity. And yes, we will ultimately be commenting on the impact of social media on this issue, as promised! There is a bit more information we'd like to gather first. All we can say for the moment is that this story has not ceased to yield interesting avenues for exploration...

You might be surprised to hear about the launch of a sunscreen by a company currently known for its infant feeding gear and adult water bottles. But if you know much about Think Operations, you won't be very surprised at all. A quick glance at ZRecs Guide listings for thinkbaby and thinksport products should make it clear that we're pretty impressed with everything we've seen - the 750 ml double-walled Thinksport bottle and game-changing BPA-free feeding set, which now has its best components sold as separates as well (you can find both of them in the ZRecs Guide). And the company does its research, and then some; thinksport water bottles were among the latest on the market with colors, because of their exacting paint requirements (they are now available in blue, green and purple as well as their original black and silver), and thinkbaby infant feeding bottles have not just BPA testing behind them but broader biological testing to verify the nature and quality of materials they're using.

We were excited to try out Think's new sunscreen, which has been in the works for roughly a year now. The zinc oxide-based sunscreen is sold in 3 oz. bottles branded as both thinkbaby sunscreen and thinksport sunscreen, on the logic that both athletes and parents care more than the average consumer about what they put in, and on, their bodies, and those they care for.

Ingredients

The ingredient list may come as something of a shock for consumers familiar with sunscreens rich with long-named chemicals; in fact, it reads more like the lists you'd find in a natural skin product, full of Latin and common plant names.

Active Ingredient: Zinc Oxide 25%. Inactive Ingredients: Distilled buffered water, vegetable glycerine, whole leaf aloe vera (Barbadensis) gel, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Rubus Idaeus (Raspberry) Seed Oil, Doucus Carota, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Oryza sativa, oryzinol, Olea Uropaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, cetaeryl glucoside, phosphatidyl choline (not soy lecithin) Lactoperoxidase, Glucose oxidase, aribinogalactan, arginine, vitamin E (Tocophero), vitamin C (ascorbic acid) Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Peel Wax, Beeswax, Boswellia carteri, Potassium sorbate, rosemary (Rosmarinus Officinalis), cornstarch (Zea Mays), Maranta Arundinacea Root, Carageenan (Chondus crispus).

The sunscreen scored a 1 out of 10 for potential health hazards in the Environmental Working Group's annual sunscreen rankings. It uses no PEGs, not even sneaky ones from "natural" sources.

Equally impressive is this sunscreen's avoidance of nanomaterials. Many sunscreens use undeclared nano-sized active ingredients (titanium dioxide). Think's sunscreen uses zinc oxide with particle sizes over 100 microns.

Performance

The biggest question we had prior to receiving samples of thinkbaby/thinksport sunscreen was whether it would rub in cleanly or leave your skin ghostly white. But zinc oxide usage has come a long way since the white-nosed characters from 1980s beach comedies. With titanium dioxide, the main way companies have made it "invisible" on the skin is by using the ingredient at nanoparticle sizes. We have serious concerns about the use of nanoparticles in skin products, and recommend against them.

Think sunscreen does apply a bit differently from other sunscreens, which we consider par for the course for a product that has gone through this kind of reinvention. It has a slight tackiness or chalkiness to it, more like traditional zinc oxide sunscreens than like nano titanium dioxide sunscreens. You have to rub it into the skin to make its white color disappear. It does virtually disappear when rubbed in, although it leaves a very slight, faint, paleness - pale enough that you probably can't make it out in these photos.

Here's a small application of the thinksport-branded sunscreen on our daughter Z's arm.


And here's how it looks after rubbing it in.

Protection

Think's sunscreen has an SPF rating of 30+; as Julie Deardorff at the Chicago Tribune, among others, has reported, there has been a surge in sunscreens with dubious claims of SPF of 50 and above. More importantly, thinksport and thinkbaby sunscreen strikes a balance between UVA and UVB protection that should be checked in any sunscreen you intend to use. Some sunscreens with a high SPF have most of that protection in one form of UV light, leaving you more exposed to the other than you realize.

It is also very long-lasting. The FDA is putting guidelines into place that will ban the use of the term "waterproof," as it encourages users to go too long without reapplying sunscreen. But we have used this sunscreen at the beach, at swimming pools, and sweating out in the hot sun, and have noticed that it seems to remain on the skin for quite a while and through a lot of activity.

Price and competition

Think's new sunscreen retails for $16.99 for a three-ounce tube. This is comparable to Badger ($16 for 2.9 oz.), whose own mineral-based sunscreen scores well in EWG's assessments and another of our favorites. Consumers know that natural, mineral blocking sunscreens are more expensive than chemically protective sunscreens, which means the reapplication rate becomes the final judge of value. A $17 sunscreen that lasts several hours in one application is a better value than something that costs less per ounce but has to be applied every hour or two to protect your skin. Again, we feel neither qualified nor licensed to make any claims about how long this or any sunscreen lasts, but our own experience has us applying this sunscreen less frequently during an outing than some others we've used.

Many "natural" sunscreens rule themselves out of our safety book based on their reliance on nano-sized titanium dioxide. This material is euphemistically referred to as "sunscreen-grade" on ingredient labels, but that means the ingredient is used in the sunscreen at sizes less than 100 microns in size, which has potential health risks that are still being studied.

For more quick sunscreen recommendations, check out the ZRecs Guide's section on safer sunscreens. Please note that TruKid's Sunny Days sunscreen, one of our standbys last year and a product we still highly recommend, still is; its listing in EWG's Skin Deep database is out of date and includes several ingredients not in the sunscreen's current formulation.

You can buy thinkbaby sunscreen and thinksport sunscreen directly from thinkbaby and thinksport.

That's right, folks - we only need $100 more in donations to fund our proposal to subject yours truly (and anyone else I can convince) to repeated patch testing using Pampers Dry Max and previous Pampers diapers. Thanks to consumers like you, we now have our:

• Urine money: We've identified a brand of synthetic urine which "contains all the ingredients normally found in urine and is balanced for pH, specific gravity, creatinine, and several other urine characteristics," as well as satisfying the very important criteria of probably not smelling like urine!


• Dry Max diaper money: One small package should do it.

The other $100 we need to fund this project will cover bandages and medical tape to construct patches, a dermatologist co-pay to address any nasty rashes, and the cost of having a reader ship pre-Dry Max diapers to us to use as our control group. Our goal is not to replicate the kind of heinous rash parents are reporting from using Pampers Dry Max diapers; we aren't even sure that would be possible to replicate in adult skin testing (elbows and wrists, thank you very much). Our aim is to do comparative patch testing of pre- and post-Dry Max diapers under a variety of conditions - dry, wet, and wet with synthetic urine - to see if either of them cause a rash on an adult subject and, if so, if one of those rashes is worse than the other. If Dry Max diapers cause bigger, longer-lasting, or faster-acquired skin rashes, we think we'll have some significant user experience and a compelling story to contribute to the Dry Max debate.

But this project can only move forward if concerned consumers can chip in another $100. The $130 we've raised so far has come in five, ten, twenty, and twenty-five-dollar increments. If you're interested in seeing this proposal become a reality, click here to join us. The funds raised are used solely to cover our material expenses for this project, not to pay us for our time or efforts. That's on us. All donors will be provided access to a private newsletter sharing our ongoing progress on ZRecs Research projects, and we'll seek advice from the group as we develop new ones.

A few readers have written in to ask for a PayPal payment option for our project fundraising for ZRecs testing of SIGG and Pampers Dry Max. Anji writes:

Would you be able to add Paypal to the payment options? I'd love to contribute a bit to each project. My sister and many friends and family use Pampers, (I use cloth at day and Huggies Supreme at night), and am always looking for the best option for drink containers. Not to mention, I appreciate EVERYTHING you guys do!!!! But our credit card is maxed, and the e-check thing is very unfamiliar to me. I pretty much only spend online, if I can debit from our bank account with Paypal, which is essentially no different from using my debit card for everything else I pay for in real life. Thanks!

Happy to oblige! We will suggest to our fundraising host that they add a PayPal payment gateway, but in the meantime, you can donate to either our Pampers Dry Max Skin Reaction Testing or our SIGG EcoCare Liner Flake Testing via PayPal, click this donate button:

There is a "special instructions" field you can use to specify whether you'd like your donation to go to the Pampers testing or SIGG testing or both; you can also leave it blank and we'll use it to fund whichever project is in greatest need. We will probably turn around and donate the money into the fundraising page on your behalf, so everyone still has a sense of our real progress towards our goal - even if this means losing another small percentage that the fundraising host charges for donations.

If, on the other hand, you're happy to pay by credit card or e-check, you can do so directly through any of the SIGG or Pampers links above, where you can also learn the background and goals of each project.

Thanks to those who have donated so far - and to everyone considering a donation, we hope this PayPal option makes it that much easier to help us do more to help you!

So, we had an idea.

We frequently come across consumer issues that require some hands-on research. We work hard, and sometimes even spend a little of our own money in the process. Sometimes readers do, too - spending their own money to ship things to us, sending us photographs, dissecting diapers. What we do already feels like something of a team effort, and we get a lot done. When the cost of research (buying a product here or there) is low, it all works out; we make a little money from our blogging, and readers' frequent willingness to send us a product at their own expense is a sign of just how passionate ZRecs readers are about bringing out the facts on issues that matter to them. But there are also projects that are simply beyond our financial means to justify, times when we could do much more if consumers pooled their resources to do something ambitious.

What if, we wondered, instead of going hat in hand to ask readers to contribute to a general fund to fuel our consumer reporting (not that there's anything wrong with that), we could actually pitch specific research projects to our readers and ask them to fund them if they are interested in seeing us conduct them?

Yes. That got us very excited indeed. Would it work? We weren't sure. But we wanted to find out. And here we are.

Pampers and SIGG

We have two proposals for your consideration. Both are timely, and both have practical benefits to consumers as well as an investigative, "let's-find-out-the-real-truth" bent. Both will, if funded, offer both useful consumer information that will be collected no other way, and a shot at consumer justice.

If you have been touched by either of these potential product issues - burned by a product that harmed your family or just your pocketbook, please consider donating to make these projects a reality. We don't claim to be scientists, but we do claim to be thorough, credible, transparent, and objective.

• Pampers Dry Max Skin Reaction Test: Will Dry Max diapers cause a more serious skin reaction than previous Pampers diapers?


• SIGG EcoCare Liner Test: Does SIGG's new, BPA-free liner still chip away from bottles, even though the company declares that this "cannot happen"? (Click through for details)

Each pitch linked above includes a background on the problem, a proposal for a specific experimental test, a breakdown of project costs, and a form to fill out if you would like to donate. For our Pampers research project, you can even donate on behalf of someone else and send them an e-card.

We won't lie to you - we are using these two projects to pilot our idea for making engaging, grassroots consumer research a reality. We have even bigger projects than these in mind for future research, including some that would require outside experts, laboratory testing, or whatever else is necessary to create movement where there is stagnation in public discourse on consumer issues.

I guess what we're saying is, if you get the gist of where we're going with this and what the future possibilities might be, and you're saying to yourself, "This is brilliant and exciting! I totally trust ZRecs to do this and I want to read about it!" then we encourage you to seriously consider helping to give these specific projects - as well as this broader idea - a future at Z Recommends. These are our pilot projects that will prove whether we've touched on a viable model for getting direct consumer funding for consumer research that can impact not only your consumer intelligence but public debate and awareness.

A bit of fine print:

• Donors of any amount will have the opportunity to sign up for exclusive email content documenting our projects in progress and get early notification of our results, before they're published on ZRecs. Donate once and you can receive the updates as long as you want.


• If we cancel the project for underfunding, or if events change and testing is no longer needed (even the prospect of a project getting funded and conducted could spur a company to act where it might otherwise choose not to), donors will be offered the option of allowing us to use their donation for another project, or receiving a full refund.


• Donations are not tax-deductible. Our current organizational structure is an LLC, not a non-profit. We will consider non-profit status for our "research unit" if this takes off, but at the moment it feels premature.

Like this idea? Then read our Pampers Dry Max or SIGG project pitches and see what moves you. And if you have any problems with the donation form, please let us know at zrecsmedia {at} gmail {dot} com.

Thanks for your support and readership! Someone has already chipped in for the Pampers Dry Max testing - care to join them?

Editor's note: Thanks to generous donations from concerned parents, we've done our own amateur skin patch testing of Pampers Dry Max diapers. You can learn what we discovered here.

Now that we've discussed how and why Pampers brought Dry Max into the world and made an argument for three ways Pampers is understating the Dry Max problem, we're ready for the third installment of our four-part investigation into Pampers Dry Max. In this post we will address differences we see between Dry Max and the previously sold Pampers diapers, and how the reformulation might create potential hazards that could explain the widespread reports we are seeing online of unusually severe rashes associated with the use of Dry Max diapers.

Dry Max is different, unless that bothers you

Throughout the nearly month-long debate over the safety of Pampers' new "Dry Max" diaper design, Procter & Gamble has walked a tightrope between two contradictory claims.

The first of these ideas is that Dry Max is profoundly different than previous diapers, that its impact is significant and meaningful to consumers and that it represents a technological advance that makes Pampers stand out from its competition.

The second is that any criticism or questioning of Dry Max technology is either naive and misinformed, or vindictive and self-serving, because Dry Max is similar to previous diaper designs in every meaningful way.

As we have watched the drama unfold - first with mainstream media attention, then with government regulators and plaintiff's lawyers getting involved - Pampers has shifted from one to the other of these claims as it dealt with competing constituencies, placating mothers with "all we did was" while crowing to the press that they have invented the future of disposable diapering, then going into damage control mode and mixing up their messages even further.

This yin-and-yang approach to a product launch is remarkably flexible; given the position of perpetual cultural amnesia from which major newsmakers engage with transitory public stances of corporations, Pampers may, if forced, abandon one of these themes entirely for the purposes of self-preservation, and call the other a public misreading of their corporate message. For the moment, however, the company is maintaining that they have created a game-changer without breaking any of the old rules. Our task today is to take a closer look at these new diapers and, in the process, address that apparent paradox.

How (most) disposable diapers work

To examine the diapers with us, you'll need to become an armchair expert in disposable diapering, a ZRecs-acquired skill that will serve you well alongside your abstruse knowledge of bisphenol-A leaching levels, your ability to identify unlabeled plastics and their associated properties, and your familiarity with drop-side crib politics. Once we're all up to speed with our newly-acquired knowledge of disposable diaper engineering, we'll compare Pampers Dry Max to the company's previous design in a comparative diaper dissection, to see what clues we can find to identify what might be causing such serious reactions in babies.

A disposable diaper is like a miniature aquifer designed to channel and control the flow of human waste.

In the typical disposable diaper, a top layer of plastic, or "nonwoven fiber," is treated with a surfactant that helps draw liquids into the diaper and away from the skin, and this one-sided coating also makes it more difficult for those liquids to come back out. The chemical composition of this surfactant is not publicly shared. Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are available only to those buying the chemical (like Pampers).

A hydrophobic (water-resistant) material, typically polypropylene, is used around the leg cuffs and at the top of the diaper, to discourage liquid from exiting the diaper.

An "acquisition and distribution layer," or ADL, creates a path that shifts liquids from areas where the liquid is most likely to be deposited towards other areas of the diaper.

Wood pulp (cellulose, also called "fluff pulp"), typically from U.S. pine sources, is layered below the ADL as an "absorptive core" to store the liquid, with small pieces of sodium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer, mixed into the pulp.

Since the introduction of SAPs in the 1980s, manufacturers have played with the ratios of these two absorptive materials, as each has its own benefits. The pulp, which actually absorbs liquids into the capillary spaces between the fibers, naturally distributes liquids throughout its mass, and can hold several times its weight in liquid. But the liquid also squeezes out of the capillaries when the cellulose is put under pressure (which a baby is constantly doing from one angle or another, whether sitting or lying down), which means liquid can be pushed back through the hydrophilic top layer or leak out the sides of the diaper.

To simplify the chemistry involved, SAPs like sodium polyacrylate are curled up in their dry state and have salts hanging onto them. When exposed to liquid, the salts dissolve, the sodium polyacrylate chain unfurls, and the hydrogen in water molecules takes the place of the salts, thus becoming "locked" to the SAP. Polyacrylates are "cross-linked" to create longer chains and help distribute wetness along their length.

Sodium polyacrylate can hold much more liquid in suspension than wood pulp can, forming a three-dimensional gel-like structure, but it isn't as "cooperative" as fluff pulp - it isn't able to shift liquids around to areas that are not yet saturated as easily as fluff pulp.

The diaper is finished with a backing layer (the outside of the diaper) made of polyethylene or another plastic.

Layers of the diaper are glued together with "hot melts," mixtures of resins and oils derived from wood and/or petroleum-based sources. These adhesive cocktails are applied to the plastics in a molten state, and their composition is also a closely guarded trade secret. Again, Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are available only to those purchasing the actual materials from chemical companies.

So there's your crash course. Now we can look at the diapers, and identify both what has changed and what hazards it might expose infants and toddlers to that could be behind these rashes. Ironically, many parents whose children have not had reactions to Pampers Dry Max diapers are also frustrated by them, based on how they function; this no doubt makes up a significant portion of the social media advocates clamoring for a return to the previous design. We'll address some of those criticisms along the way.

Dissecting the diapers

Pre-Dry Max diapers are a rare commodity these days; since Pampers began gradually substituting the old diapers for the new ones a year ago, we are now at a point in the transition when diapers appear on many store shelves both with and without the Dry Max seal and marketing information, but contain the same reformulated diapers. So when we learned that Alexis (one of yesterday's two Dry Max case studies) still had some of the old Pampers Cruisers on hand, we quickly asked her if she'd do a side-by-side dissection of the two versions of the diapers. Here's a breakdown of what has changed in both Swaddlers and Cruisers; you'll find these changed diapers both in boxes labeled as "Dry Max" and boxes that look like they should have the old version of the diapers in them.

Below are two versions of Pampers Cruisers, side by side. The lefthand diaper is a Pampers Cruiser with the mesh lining from about April 2009, size 4. Alexis has had it in a storage bin (along with outgrown baby clothes) since that time. On the right is a Pampers Cruiser, size 5, from a recently opened package. Many parents, including Alexis, have reported to us that these diapers are much stiffer than the previous ones, and (at least on the exterior) are rougher to the touch.


Here is what the two diapers look like when opened. Note the color difference between the two diapers.




The removal of the mesh liner, shown in the older diaper, above, is one of the biggest non-rash complaints parents have expressed about Dry Max diapers. The liner was designed to contain bowel movements, keeping them from leaking up the back of the diaper and controlling their spread throughout the diaper's interior. Note its absence below.


In the photo above you can see that the color in the interior of the Dry Max diaper is not from a dye on the skin-contact surface of the diaper, but is inside. Is the color present in both, but simply showing through better when there's less fluff pulp? Alexis cut open the two diapers to separate the inside layers and see what's going on in there.


With the image below, we arrive at the other key functional criticism parents have of Dry Max diapers: Pampers put total faith in its superabsorbent polymer for the back section of the diaper, and removed all fluff pulp. Hello, BMs up the back.


Here is the inside of the old design of the Pampers Cruiser, and here's where your new disposable diaper engineering knowledge starts really coming in handy:


From right to left (interior to exterior) we see the mesh liner, the acquisition and distribution layer, the fluff/SAP layer, and the backing. The hydrophilic layer might be classified as the mesh itself, or the outermost portion of the ADL.

With your newfound knowledge of disposable diaper engineering, you should now see that the above represents a significant departure from the layering you'll find in every diaper that competes with Pampers.


First, there is no acquisition and distribution layer at all. There is a top layer that brings the liquid in, and then a thin layer of fluff pulp that is itself affixed to a backing layer with a markedly different color.

The sodium polyacrylate SAP used in Pampers Dry Max diapers is actually adhered to the bottom layer of the diaper. "It was difficult to remove the pulp from the new version of the diapers," Alexis reports. "I was scraping it with my nails…but managed to remove most of it. These did not have the numerous layers like the mesh diaper did. Really had to pry these apart."

The main benefit to this is that it can then be distributed in a pattern and held in place, rather than mixed into the fluff pulp in a uniform distribution. Thus specific areas of the diaper can have more or less, in theory reducing the need for an acquisition and distribution layer to channel liquid to different areas of the diaper.

We believe the Dry Max absorptive core is made in one of two ways: Either an additional (and no doubt differently formulated) hot melt adhesive is used to affix smaller particles of sodium polyacrylate to the backing layer of the diaper, or the acrylic acid used in the production of sodium polyacrylate was itself affixed to the diaper, and then polymerized on the material itself. We'll explain a bit more about that in a minute, but suffice to say this is the area of the diaper that has changed the most and is the most likely possible cause of the "extreme rashes" parents are reporting after using Dry Max diapers.

Here's the amount of wood pulp found in each diaper.




As shown above, some of the beads of SAP can be separated from the fibers in the old version of the diaper. None can be separated from the Dry Max diaper, because they are not mixed in with the fluff pulp.

Possible sources of the problem

What follows is our shortlist of the changes that could potentially cause a child wearing a Dry Max diaper to have a significantly more serious and debilitating diaper rash than experienced with most diapers. Everything else in this post - the explanations of how diapers work, the teardowns - have been leading up to this, so feel free to reference the above as we discuss these potential hazards.

1. The missing mesh liner

Why did Pampers remove the mesh liner? The company's public explanations of the change dismiss the liner as "unnecessary," but surely it was put there for a reason. Was it really removed just to make the diaper thinner?

We'd like to propose an alternative possibility: The reliance on SAP and a small amount of fluff pulp without the use of an acquisition and distribution layer was incompatible with the layer of mesh; the hydrophilic top layer just didn't love water enough to successfully draw wetness away from the skin and/or far enough into the diaper, or the mesh layer interfered in some other way with the manner in which the liquid could best be distributed using a SAP-coated backing layer. Removing the mesh layer puts the baby's skin directly in contact with the top layer (treated, remember, with a surfactant), which could change the chemistry of the diaper-to-skin contact considerably from the old to the new diaper.

2. The hot melt adhesive

If the SAP is directly applied to the backing of the diaper, it seems likely that Pampers had to turn to an additional adhesive in order to attach the SAP to the backing layer; if the color is a guide, the design uses it quite liberally. Adhesives have long been a suspect ingredient contributing to diaper rashes, particularly because they are present in large quantities at the elastic leg cuffs of the diapers and this is a common area for diaper rash to spread from. We have no idea what the adhesive that Pampers has added actually is, but it could be derived from either wood or from petrochemicals, and is clearly a new substance in a diaper that has raised concerns with consumers for causing severe diaper rashes. There is also less fluff pulp to potentially shield the skin from whatever is on that bottom layer. Also, if the extent of the adhesive is indicated by the presence of the bluish color that is absent from the old Pampers diapers, this material is also present in the leg cuff areas of the diaper, further extending the potential area of exposure.

3. Fragrances

Pampers has stated in private emails to consumers that "small amounts" of "masking perfume" are "Added between the core and backsheet to mask the natural odors of diaper ingredients." Many parents (with or without infant rash issues) have complained about Dry Max diapers having a very strong chemical smell. If this odor comes from the sodium polyacrylate or the adhesive now used in the backing layer, it is possible that a larger amount of fragrances are used in an attempt to mask a stronger chemical smell. These fragrances might be irritating to the skin and lead to more severe rashes.

4. Acrylic acid

Sodium polyacrylate is made of acrylic acid that is polymerized using any of a number of other chemicals. Although Pampers officials have stated that they are using the same superabsorbent polymer they've used in the past (and admitted separately that sodium polyacrylate is indeed what they use) it is possible they are polymerizing the acrylic acid using a different chemical. Since polymerization of any substance is by definition incomplete, traces of the nonpolymerized substances remain in the material.

In addition to potential irritation from a new polymerization agent, if Pampers is polymerizing the acrylic acid on the backing layer itself rather than applying already produced sodium polyacrylate, the polymerization might result in differing levels of residual acrylic acid, or in acrylic acid being left in the material of the diaper, which could then mix with urine and create a more acidic environment in which diaper rash might be more severe. Sodium polyacrylate itself is classified as a non-toxic chemical, but acrylic acid is corrosive. Infant and toddler skin might have differing abilities to adjust to this higher level of acid.

5. Excessive dryness

Pampers have promoted Dry Max diapers as being "their driest ever," and discussions of diaper rash cite moisture against the skin as the leading cause of diaper rash. However, many parents who have reported severe diaper rashes with the use of Dry Max diapers (like Casey's story discussed yesterday) tried more frequent changes to see if it would solve the problem, and it failed. Could it be that the power of so much SAP being used in a diaper makes a baby's skin too dry? This might be consistent with the raw, cracked, and bleeding skin described by many Dry Max users.

We have other theories of possible hazards, but the five areas above are the ones we feel are most plausible, based on our research and understanding of the issue to date. Our point in presenting them is to show how simplistic statements like "we have not changed the superabsorbent polymer" or "we have not added any chemicals" are insultingly simplistic.

Conclusions

We believe that the most reasonable explanation for what is happening is that something in the design or materials used in Dry Max diapers are likely to be causing a dramatically increased severity of diaper rashes among users. We believe this because we believe mothers (and their doctors) can tell when a diaper rash is significantly worse than what a child has had previously, and believe that there are many cases in which linking causes and effects are far less complex than interested parties might like us to believe.

We base our opinion on our long-term reporting on how toxins introduced from multiple environmental sources can contribute to larger and longer-term health effects. We also suspect that in at least some cases individuals exhibiting allergic responses to products may be the "canaries in the coal mine" that alert us to underlying exposures that some of us do not exhibit symptoms of, but may be affected by nonetheless. We have no way of knowing if Pampers Dry Max is such a product or not, so have focused our reporting on what might be causing the symptoms described by parents using Pampers Dry Max - namely, more serious diaper rashes than they have seen with competing brands or, most tellingly, after switching from the previous version of Pampers to the Dry Max formulation.

We are not doctors, and our opinions should not be substituted for medical advice. That said, we believe that the best solution for any parent is to avoid Pampers Dry Max diapers - if not now, then when it's time to buy diapers again.

In our fourth and final installment of this series, we'll discuss the social media component of this story and its implications for the future of consumer activism and consumer research, as well as the future of disposable diapers.

Update: An update and safety note, and the results of our own in-home skin patch testing of Pampers Dry Max diapers.

Miss a previous installment of this series? Read Part 1 and Part 2.