Posts Tagged ‘nappies’

Are premium nappies worth the money?

Friday, March 3rd, 2017 | Family & Parenting

With most products you can find in the shops, there are premium brands and supermarket brands. Is it worth paying the extra money for? It varies from product to product, but often the answer is no. Can you tell the difference between Kellogg’s corn flakes and supermarket corn flakes? My guess is that if you did not have the box there in front of you, you couldn’t.

Sometimes, the supermarket own brand products are made by the premium brand companies and simply re-packed. This is not always true, though: some products there is a measurable difference and the only way to work it out is to try them. Bare in mind though that there is also the placebo effect. You may think something tastes better simply because you paid more for it. It is clear that people cannot tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine for example.

But what about nappies?

According to the independent consumer magazine Which, the answer is yes and no. Based on their surveys, Pampers do indeed come top being rated as the best nappies you can get. However, they do not score well in one category: value for money. In comparison, some supermarket own brands, including Aldi, score almost as well while being much, much cheaper. How your supermarket fares depends on where you shop: see Which Magazine for full details.

My personal experience mirrors the findings of Which. Pampers are great: they have a wetness indicator on the front and the mesh lining inside them means the waste seeps through while Venla’s bottom is given a bit more protection. For us, it is worth the extra £3 a week we spend to upgrade.

It may come down with how much you want to spend. The premium brands do seem to be slightly better, but for the increased cost means that it is certainly worth trying the cheaper versions first.