Appearance, Size, and Features

Performance and Fit

Price and Final Thoughts

Crinklz is a printed ABDL version of German manufacturer Thrust Vector's Better Dry medical diaper, which in its second version was released in 2015 and for which upgrades to materials including tapes and leak guards were announced in mid-2016.Thrust Vector originally produced the ComfiCare diaper, but in 2015 announced that they were moving production from China to Europe citing economic factors. As part of that process they discontinued their ComfiCare product and released an entirely new diaper under the name BetterDry. This was a massive design change that included removing the landing zone, changing the backsheet, and making the diaper simultaneously much thinner and more massive. Crinklz, which had a first version based on the old ComfiCare, had a new, second version released at the same time based on BetterDry.In the last few months of 2017, Crinklz began large-scale distribution in the United States through NorthShore Care Supply which dramatically improved accessibility and affordability of this diaper. It was previously available in North America primarily through Rearz and some US resellers at substantially higher prices.I am reviewing the medium size as purchased from northshorecare.com in January 2018. The medium is listed as fitting waists of 29"-43" and the large is listed as fitting waists of 43"-59".The Thrust Vector Crinklz has a true all-over printed package that gives off a much greater aura of professionalism than any other printed ABDL diaper package I have yet seen. All sides of the package are printed differently. The front has an image of one of the characters from the print in a meadow with Crinklz logo and inset images of the diaper and sizing information. The two sides have different labeling information including a prominent "Made in the EU" logo and the company address, the back has a faded picnic scene with the print characters behind contact information in more than 3 dozen languages, and the top has some of the inset information from the front.This printed package is, frankly, authentic in a way that other ABDL diaper packaging isn't. Real baby diaper packaging is typically printed on all sides and focuses on advertising to the parents buying it off the shelf alongside including all the various fine print. Printed packaging from other ABDL suppliers so far has tended to be an afterthought or full of oddities and mixed messaging which tends to signal their small business startup origins. Real world baby diaper packaging looks like it comes out of a corporate marketing department because it does. The Crinklz package looks professional, being essentially a modified version of the BetterDry packaging.Crinklz have an all-over print which has a semi-transparent off-white backsheet such that the visible white center in fact the visible underlying padding. In the center, it features 6 different animal characters playing at various activities drawn by prominent babyfur artist Marci McAdam, on a backdrop covered with many stars. Adjacent are two waves that run at the sides, which include a pale green with purple squiggle wave and a and thinner solid green wave with the Crinklz logo and size. The wings have a field of stars on white with larger stars lined up at to guide in taping the diaper.The diaper has a wetness indicator in the center made up of the printed text of the name, size, and lot number of the diaper. The print, in general, is not very authentic; it's a rescaled and reworked use of same print used on the original Crinklz and it comes across as ham-fisted. The whole thing comes across to me exactly as a medical diaper with an odd print, because there's so much about this diaper that only exists on adult medical diapers.The outer plastic has a thin, soft, and oily feel to it. It feels very similar to that of Abena M4.To test their dry thickness, I stacked three diapers on top of each other, placed a heavy book on top of them, and measured their height. Together, the 3 diapers had a height of approximately 9.2 cm (3.6 in). Thus, the dry thickness of a single folded diaper is 3.1 cm (1.2 in). These diapers are remarkably thin and compressed to such a degree that 15 fit into an otherwise typically-sized pack.Crinklz uses a double-tape design with double-layer, "second-chance" tapes that measure 4.1 cm (1.6 in) wide each. There is no landing zone on this diaper. You can tape them anywhere on the backsheet, and due to the double-layer design, you can retape them once.This is a useful feature, but it's also another thing that only otherwise exists on high-end medical adult diapers and which feels very out of place on an ABDL printed diaper.The inside of the diaper is all-white and the padding is arranged in an hourglass shape. The padding feels soft and dense. The diaper has standing leak guards and features elastic waistbands in both and back.With the diaper outstretched, it measures 76.8 cm (30.2 in) in length, 60.4 cm (23.8 in) in width at the wings, 29.1 cm (11.5 in) in width at the center, and 19.5 cm (7.7 in) in width between the leak guards.To test the capacity of this diaper quantitatively, I performed two tests.First, I weighed a diaper and put it on. I then repeatedly dosed water into the front of it in 100 mL increments using a metered laboratory bottletop dispenser, followed by sitting down in a chair for 30 seconds each time to give the diaper a chance to absorb the liquid, then checking for leaks. When a leak occurred, I weighed the diaper again, and recorded the change in weight.Over 3 replicates of this H2O capacity test, the Thrust Vector Crinklz averaged 3196 mL with a standard deviation of 293 mL. This is an extreme result, more than 600 mL greater than all other diapers that I have tested. Crinklz is a far outlier on this test.During one trial of this test, I recorded qualitative information about the diaper as I added water to it. After 500 mL of water, there was a very clump-like expansion at the top of the diaper. At 1100 mL, the front was balloon-like and starting to feel wet. At 1400 mL, the front felt continuously wet. At 1800 mL, I started feeling wetness at my legs. At 2000 mL, the entire front of the diaper forward of the area being sat upon had expanded greatly. At 2300 mL, I started feeling constantly wet at one leg. At 2400 mL, I started noticing the upper tapes curling badly and at 2500 mL one of them popped. At 2600 mL, the region of the diaper underneath where I was sitting was noticeably expanding. At 2700 mL, I felt like I was sitting at the edge of a puddle. At 2900 mL, I felt like I was sitting in a puddle and the top tapes had were shifting position. At 3000 mL, I felt like I was sitting on the edge of a lump and could feel liquid at one leg. At 3100 mL, the second top tape popped, and I could feel moving liquid underneath me. At 3200 mL I could feel liquid at both legs and the diaper leaked.I folded the diaper back up to compare its thickness to a dry diaper. It had expanded to roughly 13.6 cm (5.4 in), about 4.4x its original size. This too, is an extreme result.I then performed a second test in which I made normal saline (0.9% NaCl in H2O), weighed a diaper and put it on, then used a metered laboratory bottletop dispenser to dose 160 mL saline every 5 minutes until it leaked, sitting down between increments. I weighed the diaper afterwards and divided the resulting change in grams by 1.0046 to account for the density of saline to determine the change in milliliters. 160 mL is approximately equivalent to half of an average adult urine void, and this increment is loosely representative of a "half-flood".Over 3 replicates of this saline capacity test, the Thrust Vector Crinklz averaged 1561 mL with a standard deviation of 90 mL. Rounded to numbers of integer "half-flood" doses, the diaper averaged 9.7 "half-floods" with a standard deviation of 0.6 "half-floods". Yet again, this diaper broke the curve on my tests. It exists on a new tier more than 400 mL and 3 "half-floods" greater capacity than all diapers other than ABU PeekABU/Simple Ultra – which Crinklz topped by a narrow margin.The average dry mass of this diaper, based on 6 replicates across both tests, was 210.2 g with a standard deviation of 3.3 g.I weighed and put on a fresh diaper and wore it while going about ordinary activities. The diaper lasted a total of 9 hours before beginning to leak. During my test, I had about 8 wettings and 2 floods. I weighed the diaper afterwards and recorded a difference of roughly 8.6 half floods, slightly below but consistent with the extreme results in my testing.With a 36" waist, I am in the middle of the size range for the medium Crinklz. I normally wear size medium in other diaper brands. This diaper seemed to fit my size well. Given the thinness of the backsheet and the outsized changes in size of the center, the diaper has a less rigid fit to it than other high-end diapers.I had numerous issues with the tapes pulling as the diaper expanded; the "second chance" tapes do help with that because retaping once seems to be enough to get through the rest of the use of the diaper, but this is less ideal than just having tapes which work well the first time. It also feels really out of character for a baby diaper to ever expect the person wearing them to make adjustments.I bought a pack of these diapers for the purposes of a review from https://www.northshorecare.com/ . They are available in 15-diaper single-packs for $25.99 and 60-diaper cases for $94.99 before shipping. When I put them in the cart and add shipping, the 15-diaper single pack is $34.94 and the 60-diaper case is $107.94.At the case size, this works out to $1.80/diaper and based on my test results this diaper holds 5.4 "half-floods" per dollar. This price is below that of other top-end ABDL diapers and when combined with its curve-shattering capacity result means that Thrust Vector Crinklz breaks the curve on cost-efficiency too.As of this writing, Crinklz the best ABDL diaper by performance, existing at the top of a tier it only even shares with one competitor, and it is the most cost-efficient ABDL where there's nothing even remotely close. This was not a result that I was expecting at all, and one that I fully expect will land with some shock in the ABDL community. This is not a diaper that gets a lot of attention, having been in existence for years but which priced expensively and available from only a handful of resellers in the US until very recently. Frankly, most conversations I'd had about Crinklz prior to this involved people lamenting the fact that they liked the first version better, and unopened packs of those seem to be a point of pride for those who've hoarded them.Crinklz is by the metrics alone an overwhelming champion with the highest capacity sold at a price point that actually beats most ABDL options on the market today including most of its nearest competition. Furthermore, I'd say to any ABDL diaper manufacturer who is interested in having all-over packaging prints: take notes. This is another area where Crinklz is just doing it better than everyone else.Crinklz is, however, generously an "imperfect champion" and ungenerously "a Frankenstein's Monster of a diaper". It has a print that is intended to be babyish but which lacks realism, and is then is further undermined by numerous features only ever seen on medical diapers like having a wetness indicator that is literally printed text that includes the lot number and a tape design exclusive to high-end medical adult diapers. Moreover, the tapes just aren't engineered for the extreme case this diaper presents for diaper tapes, and are very prone to curling, pulling, and popping, and the fact that are "second chance" tapes that can re-stuck is a half-remedy functionally and a further detriment to realism. It's a truly fantastic diaper functionally but it's completely nonsensical as an ABDL-specific diaper.Given these trade-offs, I think as of this writing that the title of the best overall ABDL diaper remains hotly contested. I think though that is little question that Crinklz has earned the strongest recommendation I can give because they straight-up break the curve. They're the both the current highest-capacity ABDL diaper and (by a 28% margin) the most cost-efficient ABDL diaper that money can buy.