So, I know I haven’t posted in a while – been busy with some family things and personal issues. But, hopefully all that is done and I am good to go. I wanted to write a post on the premium adult diaper industry in general.
The adult diaper industry is huge. I mean huge. The premium adult diaper industry though is big but not big as in variety. There are only several huge adult diaper companies that actually put out a “premium” adult type diaper. When I refer to premium, I am referring to the heavy duty type adult diapers that are meant for big messes 😉
If you really think about just how many truly “premium” adult diapers there are – it really is not that many and you start to see the lack of variety. You can probably name them on one hand: Abena X-Plus, Bambino Diapers, Secure Personal Care, ABUniverse, Molicare, and maybe Unique Wellness Brief and Dry 24/7. Those are the big time premium adult diapers on the market. What is also funny if you look at this list is that only 3 of those are truly American made adult diapers (Bambino and Secure)…which raises a question on why there are so few premium adult diaper manufacturers in the United States? Abena I believe is German, ABUniverse is manufactured outside of the United States, Unique Wellness Briefs are out of I believe Australia originally, etc. I left out Tranquility ATN because I don’t consider it on the same level as these adult diapers. I believe Molicare may be manufactured in the United States but was originally created over seas somewhere…at least I remember someone saying that somewhere…so don’t quote me on that.
I recognize that the premium adult diapers are made for a special population and not everyone needs such a heavy duty adult diaper. But, I think the manufacturers are really missing out on a specialized and focused group. Now, the one thing I can think of that may keep some manufacturers away from producing a premium diaper especially for the ABDL type people is the mass complaint system and small room for error. Consider this, Bambino Diapers does just that – they created a specialized adult diaper for the ABDL community mainly – fortunately, there product is really good and amazing but that does not keep the few that despise them for some reason to make it their mission to badmouth Bambino Diapers. When you have a specialized group and one person chooses to be immature that can really hurt a company that specifically caters to a smaller selection of people. So, it is risky for companies I would imagine to create a premium adult diaper for such specialized communities and/or groups when a few people who decide to be immature just plain don’t like the diaper or prefer another one over that one but want to badmouth about it to others for no reason. The same can be said for Abena – some people hate Abena products because of the tapes but the fact is that Abena makes very good products as well but a minor issue such as sometimes their tapes can be difficult cause people to go off on tangents about how terrible of a diaper it is – which is obvious not true. So, I would imagine that some companies think it is a risky operation to cater to such specialized groups which is why you don’t find so many “premium” type adult diapers.
Fortunately, the ABDL community and others can be thankful that a select few companies have decided to either cater to us or continue to manufacture a good premium product that can be used in the adult baby and diaper lover community. I know my thoughts are a bit sporadic today and you will have to forgive me on that – I sort of just type out what I think sometimes. And, I just think sometimes we may be a little too harsh on certain companies when it may be just because of a bad batch of adult diapers or small little inconsistencies that are normal in the manufacturing process. Little problems like that should not cause us to hate a product. I can understand big problems like a diaper ripping all the time, switching to cloth, poor customer service, etc. Those reasons I can understand for complaining but we as a specialized community should not be so quick to complain and crucify these companies that actively support us and provide great products whether it is specifically for us or not. I mean can you imagine what diapers you would be stuck with if we didn’t have Bambino Diapers, Secure, Abena, Molicare, or the other premium adult diapers. I am not hating on Depends or anything but I don’t know about you – but I don’t want to be relegated to using Depends or Attends the rest of my life and always worrying about leaks and all the other problems that come with the cheaper adult diapers. Just my thoughts!.
Greetings. Hey, nice to see you back in action, was worried something bad happened. I heartily agree with you on all points here, and especially agree that people need to be a bit more tolerant of inconsistancies. Sometimes a given company will change something that does not work or that most customers do not like, which is sometimes inconvenient and/or irritating. However, the more logical course would be to simply notify them politely of ones dislike for the new feature rather than bashing it or complaining. Easier said than done obviously, but still, it works. Have a pleasant day.
I think you should do a series of ABDL/Adult Diaper documentaries based on your blog. Seriously.
Yea, bashing leads to no where and when the premium industry is trying hard to create a great product that heavy duty diaper users use regularly. I mean i personally am kinda perturbed that when i went to order some secure xplus today that they were out of stock of my size for 3 weeks but its understandable. It speaks to the nature of their product and how well it is and how many people are buying it. Im not mad i just hope that they will make a larger run this time seeing that they have run out of stock before they could make another run. Either way im sure i will be happy with their product once i finally get to use it. Anyways, happy to see another post by you, your blog is enjoyable as well as informative and I hope to see many more posts in the future. P.S. You are a great writer who engages her readers as if you did not get a degree in science but in english. Keep up the good work!
Hello there.
You have a very interesting site. 🙂
Just a short info to this topic, Molicare are the diapers from Hartman. It’s a german brand. They also made the Fixies baby diapers, but they sold this line to concentrate on adult diapers.
And one premium brand is missing in your list. The Tena Maxi and (new) Ultima. For an dl, the Tena Ultima might be one of the best diapers on the market. It’s so thick, you can’t get your knees together anymore. And it can hold up more urine than any other diaper I’ve ever tried. A dry one weights exactly 200 grams. Then I soaked it 3 times till it did weight 1500 gram (that makes 1.3 liters). It was pretty squishy, a lot thicker than a dry one, but still not leaking, even when sitting on a chair. Only downside might be that it doesn’t have a plastic foil on the outside but the now common fabric stuff.
The Tena Maxi is somewhat similar, just not so thick when dry (but swelling more 😉 ). And it just can hold a few drops less than the Ultima. But it’s made with plastic foil on the outside.
So, that was just my two cents here.
Keep up your good work here, and thumbs up for your courage 🙂
Greetings
Schorse
I ordered one case of the Bambino Blanco. I do like them but they are out of stock till the middle of next month. This is exactly the same problem I had with Abena till I found a different supplier. In this case there won’t be a different supplier so I’ll have to order more Abena to fill in. For me being able to get what I need when I need them is a BIG consideration as I can’t just go buy more at the corner store!
Hope they can cure the supply problem for good.
http://www.providerschoicemed.com This website offers a free sampple of a new diaper that I have not tried untile recently and I would suggest atleaset be tried. The price for a case is on par with bambino. Its a completely free samle no charge for shipping.
I have to agree with adrian on this, manufacurers do not seem to see a need for a premium quality diaper.
Abena is not German, but Danish.
Molicare is German (from Hartmann)
And there are other premium brands in Europe like Tena (Swedish I believe)
Yeah the sites listed are the big guns of the adult diaper industry as Pampers and Huggies, and Luvs for baby diapers. What about corner drug stores that have their own adult diapers like Walgreens or CVS. They have fair quality for the most part not knowing ones diaper budget Ha!Ha! Yeah if not for the most part of all of us AB/DL’s in the world I think we all like the Big Guns of the Adult Industry. No worries if you have personal or family and or health problems. Taking care of those first is more important than updating your blog here as clean on nice as it is. Take care and have a nice day and go to the gym and get a good work out in for the day. Take it easy.
today i had a leak in a tena slip maximum absorbency, ver happened to me :O
First of all: I like your site verry much!
Why is it that you don’t mention the European “Tena slip(brief) maxi” Is it because it’s not available in the US? I’m from the Netherlands and the ABDL community here gives it verry good reviews. We have to do it without the bambino’s… To bad! they don’t sell in Europe.
Greets from Holland!
@nico: They do sell “bambino biancos” in Europe, they are just called differently (search for Cuddlz sold in GB, I don’t have the link). One guy actually ordered american biancos to compare them to some cuddlz and posted pictures of everything so others could be sure that it isn’t some faker. Dunno how they compare after the quality change of the bambinos, though (if that one is even permanent) 🙂
Back to topic, I really hate it when companies change their products for the worse, especially if it’s because they want to save money by reducing quality. When I buy premium, I expect premium, and if it is possible to sell a certain diaper I like the way it is now, I don’t expect them to only be able to do this later on by lowering the quality. I’d rather have them go up in price, they can’t save that much money anyway if they don’t want to make a completely different product.
IMO, this is especially true if the diaper is made for a certain audience that doesn’t have a lot of brands to choose from on the “high-quality-plastic-backed-high-absorbancy” side. Seriously, nowadays I just buy diapers that are plastic-backed, soft and that fit me well and put a pampers inside that diaper by cutting it open, putting the stuffer inside the stuffing of the diaper and taping it close again. Superior absorbancy, no wet skin if the pampers is OVER the original lower-quality-stuffing, close to my skin, and reasonably priced if you don’t count the work involved. This isn’t the best idea for incontinent people, of course, but if you only wear a diaper a day or less like me, the extra effort pays off double 🙂
Quote:
“What is also funny if you look at this list is that only 3 of those are truly American made adult diapers (Bambino and Secure)…which raises a question on why there are so few premium adult diaper manufacturers in the United States?”
My most recent bag of Secure X-Plus has ‘Made in China’ printed on the bag. So while they’re a US-based company, the diapers themselves are not made in the US now and AFAIK, they never have been… I would say it’s a fair to assume that Bambino is in the same situation. I’m not saying that’s a good/bad thing, but they’re not made in the US 🙂
premium adult diapers i If all AB/DLs qit wearing diapers. the premium diapers would fail and go bankrupt. they should cater to is more
I was talking to someone “in the know” one day, and they indicated that Abena would like to expand their presence in the US because what we currently use per year is only about 3% of their market share. In other words, we are lucky that they even take the time to ship us containers of diapers at all, since what we use as a country in a month they produce every hour or so at their facility.
So if the AB/DL community stopped wearing the premium diapers from overseas like Molicare and Abena, I seriously doubt if they would even notice. I would be happy just to see the availability of more European diapers here, I would love to be able to have access to Tena and Attends Slip, as they are a completely different diaper then they are here.
http://www.providerschoicemed.com/site/freesample.html
The company called Providers Choice has an excellant adult diaper. To my knowledge it is fairly new. They are absorb alot, alot. I put a link to the web site. If you notice the link has free samples in it. You can get 2 witout any shipping costs. I think that you will see that they are very good at keeping you dry, leak free (even when they are full and you have to sit down), and moisture away from the skin. And they do hold alot. In my opinion they hold more than Abena or Molicare. The capacity is very similiar to Bambinos. You should check them out. Any company that is so comfindent in their product as to send free samples like this is worth the time to see for yourself.
LOL you left out a TON of diaper brands in this category. There are probably at least 20-30 brands I can name that you didn’t mention, but you are dead-on correct that almost none are American-made. Because of this, they have to be imported at a high cost, with the exception of those offered at XPMedical because it uses a unique distributor to get those certain European brands at a minimal extra cost.
Tena Slip Maxi is one that fits this category for example, and is available at oneclickpharmacy.co.uk to be shipped internationally. Again, shipping is expensive but there IS variety available. Saveexpress.de is one site worth checking out as well. They have most of the heavy-duty European-exclusive brands like Riboslip and European-version Attends (the Attends in Europe are a completely different product line than America and much closer to the “premium” level). You should check em out yo.
On a side-note: Abena is in Denmark. Molicares are made in France.
-diapersFTMFW
3G, I had also seen the free diaper offer from
http://www.providerschoicemed.com/site/freesample.html
I received my sample yesterday, I’ve gotta say I’m real impressed. I’m actually real picky about my diapers, I usually use Abena’s X-Plus but I really love these, absorbs more in my opinion than the XPlus, but more importantly I love the Velcro Tabs on a Plastic Diaper, never seen one like this, really a super diaper. I’m probably going to switch….
We missed you posts, keep posting… thanks for the updates!!
Got my Providers Choice Samples. Very cool. These are the first real adult *diapers* I have tried. Only complaint I have is that the tapes don’t stick real well. If I could find something close to this that wouldn’t hurt my wallet so much, I’d switch.
Just curious,
I had never heard of bambinos, are those actual adult diapers, or children diapers forced into the role?
Marcus