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Laura Morley, left, and designer Bex Dellar of Hellobrand, have been working with like-minded mum entrepreneurs.
A group of entrepreneurial mums in Mahurangi has made a business out of designer nappies.
Sassy Pants has now launched its third collection of designs and has sold thousands of nappies since the business was launched in December last year.
Founder Laura Morley says she saw an opportunity for cloth nappies with personality that would also benefit the environment.
Somewhere between 700,000 and one million disposable nappies are sent to landfill in New Zealand each year.
Auckland Council reports that single use sanitary products, including nappies, account for 12 per cent of the domestic waste it collects and it is estimated that they take between 300 and 500 years to break down.
At around $26 for a Sassy Pants nappy, Laura says cloth nappies can save young parents money and the environment at the same time.
A parent might spend $590 a year per child on disposables, based on 30 cents a nappy and five nappies a day.
She says a child might need 15 to 20 cloth nappies if they were to use them full time.
“Even using one cloth nappy to replace a single disposable each day would save 365 nappies from landfill.”
The Sassy Pants design uses velcro and is much easier to put on than a conventional cloth nappy with a pin.
It also has snap buttons, which can be used to adjust the nappy size as the child grows.
“It is just as easy to put on as a disposable nappy, but you throw it in the laundry after use instead of in the bin,” Laura says.
The nappies are suitable for children between 3.5kg and 16kg and last up to two years.
Laura says that designer print bloomers are currently a trend to cover disposable nappies, but a cloth nappy does the same job and has added environmental benefits.
Five mums from the Mahurangi area have contributed with designs for Sassy Pants’ limited-edition collections and Laura has turned down approaches from overseas design firms for collaborations to keep it local.
“I want to build it up to get as many local mums involved as possible,” she says.
So far, Sassy Pants has been selling to Australia and New Zealand via the looloo.co.nz website.
Laura is an established businesswoman and parenting coach, specialising in toilet training for nine years.
Sassy Pants also has a range of toilet training undies.
