4 Brand Baby Wipes Comparison

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Once you’re pregnant, you face a million choices as you prepare for your baby’s arrival: Which stroller? Glider or rocker? Breastfeed or bottle-feed? Cloth diaper or disposable? Which brand is best for this, this and this? One question I see a lot of moms ask is, “Which brand of wipe should I stock up on before baby comes? Huggies? Pampers? Parents Choice Wipes? Costco Baby Wipes? Does it matter?”

So today, I got four popular baby wipe brands and tried them all out, comparing and analyzing so I can confidently answer that question for you! The brands I worked with, from left to right, are: Huggies Natural Care, Pampers Natural Clean, Kirkland Signature Ultra Soft, and Parent’s Choice Fragrance Free.

I tried to keep them all similarly “natural,” though I’ve never seen Kirkland offer any other variety to their baby wipes and Parent’s Choice didn’t offer a selection with “natural” written on the package (at least, not at the Wal-Mart I bought it at) so I chose Fragrance Free. As you read this article, keep in mind that this was just my experience with each wipe. I’ve used them all individually before this comparison project on both my daughter and son so I’m drawing from personal experience as well. You may be a die-hard fan of one of these brands and not like what I have to say about it and that is okay. Ultimately, every baby, and how they will react to the wipes, is different.

Size:
Winner: Kirkland
Three-way tie: Huggies, Kirkland and Pampers

Kirkland’s wipe dimensions are about 7” X 9”. All the others were the exact same size at about 6 ¾” X 7 ¼” (yup, I actually measured for you guys). I know that’s not much more, but the fact that Kirkland’s baby wipe is a little bigger matters to me. When you’ve got a blow out diaper, you’re having to hold your baby’s feet up in the air, while trying to keep him from grabbing his junk and wipe all at the same time, more real estate to work with is important. It just makes things easier. And when you’re down to the last wipe and didn’t realize it so you’re having to try to make one wipe do the job of 5, having a little more cloth will help.

Price:
Cheapest: Kirkland
Most expensive: Huggies

Using Amazon.com, I compared each wipes’ price as closely as I could. For a Huggies box of 448, it cost $27.99. For a Parent’s Choice box of 500, it cost $18.58. For a Pampers box of 504, it cost $15.99 (right now, you can “clip” a coupon, making this box $11.97, which would make it the cheapest, but just in case that coupon goes away, I went with the original cost). A Kirkland box of 900 wipes is $26.99 (or less, which we have been hearing lately that it is closer to $20 right now), but to compare it more closely with the sizes of the other boxes, I divided the wipes and price in half and found 450 Kirkland wipes would be $13.50. So based on this very rough comparison, Kirkland gave you the most wipes for your money. 

Wipe ability:
Winner: Kirkland
Fell short: Parent’s Choice

For this test, I figured you guys wouldn’t want to see a poopy butt, so I used peanut butter smeared on my countertop. I got it as equally thick as I could, and then used one swipe downward of each wipe. While each will do the job (obviously), I still found that Kirkland took off a little more, in one swipe, than the others. The wipe that left the most peanut butter behind was Parent’s Choice.

Wetness:
Winner: Parent’s Choice Wipes
Fell short: Pampers

I expect my wipe to feel wet straight from the package. That way, I’m confident it will actually clean up my baby’s nasty, poopy bum. After inspecting each wipe, I found that Huggies and Kirkland were both similarly (and pleasantly) wet. However, Parent’s Choice was the clear winner in its moistness; it almost felt like it would drip as I lifted it up. My disappointment in this round fell on Pampers. I’ve used these wipe before and felt they were way too dry, but just brushed it off, thinking, “Maybe the box I bought is older and the wipes have dried more?” I gave them another shot for the sake of this article and once again, they felt very dry compared to the three other brands. When used on my baby’s bum, I felt like I could have saved myself the money and just used a rag instead. In fact, a damp rag you just quickly ran under water would probably be wetter, and thus wipe up better, than this Pampers baby wipe.

Durability:
Winner: Pampers
Fell short: Parent’s Choice Wipes

You know how sometimes, wipes will rip as you frantically try to pull them out of the package to catch the poop before it drips onto the changing table? It’s important that the wipe won’t rip as easily to avoid a poopy, annoying mess. So I ripped each wipe and found that this version of the Pampers wipes was really difficult to tear! It was like trying to tear a cloth! Unfortunately, Parent’s Choice ripped incredibly easy and left me with no confidence in it for this area. **Funny side note: The Kirkland wipe made noise as it ripped! Wonder why…

Mutli-functional Use:
Winner: Huggies Natural Care
Fell short: Parent’s Choice Wipes

Let’s all be honest: we use baby wipes for a lot more than just wiping our kid’s butt. I always keep a package of baby wipes in my car, my room, downstairs, every bathroom, and upstairs in each of the kid’s rooms. I never know when I’ll need to wipe a snotty nose, clean up a food spill, or dust my banister before taking pictures for a Baby Gizmo post.

So it’s important to me that whatever brand wipe I use can do a good job in other areas. For the purpose of this post, I used each wipe to clean a portion of my baseboards in my living room (something I honestly haven’t done since we moved in). I found that each wipe would work in a pinch, but I preferred Huggies for random clean up jobs. It seemed to grip the dust better and when I shook the wipe, very little dust fell off. It might be because the wipe is textured, with grooves and lines. The clear loser in this area was Parent’s Choice. The wipe didn’t hold any dust once I picked it up off the baseboard and I had to scrub more than I did with the other wipes to get the baseboard clean. This is probably because the wipe feels almost like wet paper, with a gloss over it or something.

Other notes/observations:

• Both Huggies and Parent’s Choice have a pattern/texture on these wipes while Kirkland doesn’t have anything and Pampers, you can see wavy lines, though it doesn’t have any texture to it.
• Just my experience: My oldest had sensitive skin as a baby and when she would get a diaper rash, the best wipe for her was the Huggies Natural Care. If I tried using Kirkland (the wipe I tend to favor because I can easily get them at Costco and the wipe size is bigger), she would cry as I wiped her and the rash would get worse. So for sensitive skin or rashes, Huggies seems to work better.
• Many times, I like to just grab the individual package of wipes and stuff it in my diaper bag for on-the-go use. I dislike using Kirkland for this because their individual packages are so fat, that unless I’ve used half the package already, it doesn’t fit in my bag very well and takes up a lot of space.

Overall, I felt Kirkland was the winner due to its bigger size, wipe ability for all things diaper and otherwise, and best price. But like I said before, every baby’s skin is different and what works for your first baby might not work for your next. It’s pretty much all trial and error. I hope this comparison was helpful! Which brand and type do you prefer to use? Did your preference change from kid to kid? Do you have any other observations about the wipes that I didn’t point out? Let us know in the comments!