Oh man I feel for her
I moved from hard water TO soft water.... absolute BLISS!!!
Our water was treated bore water (gotta love central west town water aye).
Yep hard water is horrid on nappies. Mine stained and kept the smell.. it also damaged the elastic quick.
Unbeknown to me, I though having abit of smell after a strip wash must have been normal (I started using MCN while in hard water area).
When I moved here to soft water OMG the difference!!!
My nappies are soft and awwwwww. A strip wash really DOES strip wash!!
Little squirt & hot water made no difference.
I would use both.
Yeah the squirt got the poo off, but it didn't 'rinse' at the same time because the water you were using for the LS is still hard water (does that make sense?).
I used to use slightly more detergent.
I did try a water softener for a little while (can't remember what it was called sorry), it made no difference
So I just dealt with having hard water.