Green soap and cloth nappies

When I bought my first cloth nappies, I was trying to find out with what should I wash them. My first choice was the greek well-known green soap "Arkadi", considering that such a natural and pure product would be nothing but proper for the job.

Wrong wrong wrong....

The residues built up, the nappies were smelling very bad and I had to do my first stripping!

I asked the company that produces this soap for info but the people there had no idea about cloth diapers, so they couldn't be more specific with them...As I was searching, I found very specific information regarding the use of green soap for washing cloth nappies, on an expert's site:

(You see I am using only the "nappies" word at this article... Because of The Nappy Lady...)

Here comes the analysis:

Pure soap flakes, rather than detergent, give a much softer feel to nappies and wraps. They are particularly useful when washing wool wraps, because they retain the wool fat, or the lanolin we add.

 Soap flakes leave cotton very soft to the touch, but not as absorbent, as well as with all the other nappy materials. Here comes the reason why:

 Soap is primarily made of fat, animal fat, or vegetable oil (e.g. olive soap) and sodium hydroxide. This explains why soap is alkaline and not great for sensitive skin. 

It can leave a film that can affect absorbency. But the main factor seems to be hard/soft water. Hard water will leave a "fatty scum" on the fibres, no matter how much you rinse, and that will affect absorbency. Soft water is better, as the soap disolves more completely. 

 As for clogging the machine, it's back to the hard/soft water thing. It shouldn't be a huge problem in the dispenser drawer, but can be in the waste pipes, because you are getting rid of the scummy water at that stage. The inside of the pipes can get clogged until they are totally blocked.

However, a good dose of very hot water and washing soda crystals does wonders for that. It declogs the machine as well as the pipes. 
Too much froth in the washing machine inhibits the cleaning process, which is why you should be really sparing when using soap flakes instead of detergent. Adding them direct to the drum rather than in the dispenser drawer makes sure that all the flakes get to the nappies rather than stuck on the path from the dispenser drawer.

If you have a toploading machine, there is less of a problem, presumably because there is more room for the froth to get to the top of the water and out of the way. 

 My conclusion: just do not use green soap to clean cloth nappies!