Baby Care: The Pampus Diapers Comparison

Is the Pampers Premium Care (left) better than the Baby Dry (right)?
Image from Locky's English Playground

Ever since my baby Muse arrived to this planet, numerous relatives and dear friends have offered their best wishes in the forms of baby clothes and baby products. One form that is always welcome is of course diapers. There are many brands available in Hong Kong but Pampers is one of the best choices out there. For the purpose of gifting, the general impression is that it is best to buy the more expensive version.

The question is, is the more expensive version necessarily better than the standard?

In this post, I would like to share not only my opinions, but also opinions gathered from friends about the two versions of diapers -- Baby Dry and Premium Care.

Price Difference

Image from Locky's English Playground,
Source from Consumer Council

Hong Kongers are smart, particularly when it comes to saving money. Let's assume you are able to get the cheapest of each version from the supermarkets listed below, then the cost per diaper as of 10th Feb 2014 will be,

Premium Care (NB):  $49.9  / 36  = $1.39

Super Dry (NB):          $44.9  / 40  = $1.12

Premium Care (S):     $108.5 / 62  = $1.75

Super Dry (S):             $108.9 / 76  = $1.43

Premium Care (M):     $129.9 / 56  = $2.32

Super Dry (L):              $121.9 / 54  = $2.26

Super Dry (XL):           $121.9 / 46  = $2.65

Several key points worth noting here:

1. everyone of the version and size above comes with different number of diapers. Tricky!!! 
2. premium care is more expensive than Super Dry by roughly $0.2 to $0.3 per piece.
3. sizes not listed for Super Dry (M), Premium Care (L) and Premium Care (XL) are available but prices are not listed in the Consumer Council Price Check webpage.
4. 
   

Packaging

Pampers Premium Care
Image from Locky's English Playground

Premium Care has a white packet with 5 golden stars and a "Imported from Japan" emphasis in Chinese to make sure that you know this is a more superior version. The English words on the packet are at its minimal, showing only "Pampers Premium Care".

Pampers Baby Dry
Image from Locky's English Playground

Baby Dry has a green packet showing a baby sleeping very well, a couple of cartoon giraffes and human baby and a mother(or maid?) without a face. The only English word on the packet is "Pampers".

From this I can conclude that they do not care much about the non-Chinese customers and they assume that you know what you are buying anyway.


Size

Baby Dry (left, M) and Premium Care (right, S)
Image from Locky's English Playground

My baby has used both version of Pampers from newborn (NB) to small (S) to now medium (M), I can say that the difference between NB and S aren't that much different, that the overall length and width is about 0.5" longer. If you are thinking that you want to save more money, then of course go for the NB first and then upsize when your baby gets bigger. However, if you are getting discounts to buy then obviously you should get the S to avoid not having the right size diaper when you suddenly realise your baby has grown much bigger overnight. Generally speaking, I don't look at the suggested age part, I simply go by how comfortable it looks on my baby.

That being said, the M is really much bigger than S, yet you should still get some M for your baby when you realised that the S is not containing all that faeces. My baby girl started using M at less than 3 months old.


Quality

Microhooks that attaches to furry material but does not scratch baby's skin
Image from Locky's English Playground

Microhooks, not so magnified
Image from Locky's English Playground

Both versions have identical resealable tapes in the form of microhooks that attach to fibrous material but does not scratch baby's skin.

Baby Dry (left, M) and Premium Care (right, S)
Image from Locky's English Playground

Both have the same elasticated leg cuffs, both have the moist indicator line running through the middle of the diaper in NB and S size.

Baby Dry looks less detailed in manufacturing than Premium Care as you can see simple piece of cotton on the left diaper whereas the net pattern is prominent on the right. Surprisingly, the liquid absorbent in the Baby Dry version seems to perform much better than the one in Premium Care, so much that when the diapers are wet, the Baby Dry one remains dry inside while the Premium Care one soaks the buttocks, causing diaper rashes.


Conclusion

Needless to say, I prefer Baby Dry than Premium Care because it costs less and it more comfortable for my baby.

If there is a complaint to make, I would pick the absence of the moist indicator line in M (probably in X and XL). Why is Pampers going stingy on a line like that?



Vocabulary:
gifting -- (n) [U] The act, right, or power of giving.
faeces -- (n)[plural] formal (mainly US feces) the solid waste passed out of the body of a human or animal through the bowels:
elasticated leg cuff -- (n)[C] the material at the end of the diaper near the legs
resealable tape -- (n)[C] a tape that can be use multiple times to seal a diaper at the waist level
fibrous -- (adj) made of fibres, or like fibre


Resources:

Baby Dry @ Pampers
http://www.pampers.com/baby-diaper-baby-dry

Premium Care @ Pampers
http://translate.google.com.hk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-TW&u=http://www.pampers.com.hk/&prev=/search?q%3Dpampers%2Bhong%2Bkong%2Benglish%26espv%3D210%26es_sm%3D122

Consumer Council 消費者委員會 － Supermarket Price Watch @ Consumer Council
http://www3.consumer.org.hk/pricewatch/supermarket/index.php?keyword=pampers

Diaper @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feces

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gifting
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/faeces?q=+faeces
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/fibrous_1?q=fibrous