Grandma El's Review and Coupon

I was glad to be able to try Grandma El's diaper rash remedy and prevention! Unlike coconut oil, Grandma El's creates a barrier to protect baby's skin.  

The texture of Grandma El's is similar to Vaseline. 

And now for the important part: It works and it can be used with cloth diapers!! 

There is one more thing I should mention: Whereas coconut oil doesn't have much a scent, Grandma El's  has a sweet smell that I didn't care for at first, but then it grew on me. My daughter LOVED the scent, something I learned when she managed to pull down the diaper bag (how I don't know) and began to eat the Grandma El's. Three years into motherhood before I had to call poison control. They told me to give her something to drink and then wait half an hour... she was fine, but unhappy I had taken away her snack. :)

If any of you are interested in trying Grandma El's for your own, you can get a discount of $5 by using the discount code "clay" at grandmaels.com. That's about 50% off!! 

Check out my comparison chart below!

Grandma El’s                                                   Coconut Oil

                    $9.99 for 2 oz.                                     PRICE                                    about $8.99 for 31 oz.                       

                       

        Y                                         NICE SCENT                                                N

           Y                                     CREATES BARRIER                                       N

           N                                    CAN BE USED WITH CLOTH                          Y

          Y               BEGINS WORKING AFTER FIRST APPLICATION     NOT ALWAYS

          Y                         CONVENIENT, EASY APPLICATOR TUBE                  N

Don't Leave Your Two Year Old Alone with the Cloth Diapers

Don't leave your two year old alone with the cloth diapers, or this may happen:

I was given a roll of liners recently. 

These photos were taken AFTER I had spent 20 minutes rolling up the liners that were in his bedroom and all down the hallway. 

This is the culprit. My guess is that he was communicating, "Mom, it's 8 o'clock and I'm hungry and bored."

My diapering accessories have been under attack lately. Sweet Pea (pictured below) got a hold of a sample pack of Grandma El's diaper rash ointment yesterday, and ate some of it. We got to talk on the phone with the nice people at poison control (She's fine).

Have your kids ever gotten into your cloth diapering products and made a mess of anything? 

CJ's BUTTer® vs. Coconut Oil

This will be a short review of how CJ's BUTTer® and Coconut Oil compare when used for diaper rash.

Coconut oil: 

Texture: Solid until you massage it a bit with your fingers, then it turns to a liquid. Greasy.

Smells like: Not anything really

Price: $8.99 for 31.5 oz. HERE (possibly cheaper at your local grocery store)

Barrier: Doesn't always provide a good barrier since the oil can be "rinsed" off when baby urinates

Reason you might choose it: Cheap, all natural, works with cloth diapers

Did it work for me? Yes! It took about a day and a half to clear a rash  

CJ's BUTTer®:

Texture: Nice spread-ability, greasy at first but soaks in to make skin soft

Smells like: Any of THESE options, or unscented

Price: $19 for 12 oz HERE

Barrier:  Provides a better barrier to help skin heal than coconut oil provides

Reason you might choose it: All natural, works with cloth diapers, can choose scents, better barrier protection

Did it work for me? Yes! It took almost a day to clear a rash 

Neither of these options worked as well for me as a medicated cream, but a medicated cream cannot be used with cloth diapers (unless you take certain precautions--like liners).

To learn about CJ's BUTTer®, see THIS post.

To learn more about coconut oil, see THIS post.

What's your favorite cloth-friendly rash cream??

(See, told you it would be short!)

CJ's BUTTer® Review and Giveaway

CJ's BUTTer® graciously sent me samples to try! They came in cute little 1/2 oz jars. I love the sample size, because I have one in the diaper bag, one in my purse, one by my bed, one in the bathroom, one on my desk, and one... that I've lost (if you know me you won't be surprised!).

The texture of CJ's BUTTer® is unique. It's thicker than lotion or cream, yet it goes on just as smoothly. Right after putting it on your skin feels oily, but after a few minutes the BUTTer® dissipates and soaks in and the oily feeling vanishes. The Vegan formula was the same texture as the original. If you prefer a lotion, CJ's also sells Creamy Body Lotion. 

The first day I used CJ's on every person in our family:

-On my son's diaper rash (See HERE)

-On my daughter's eczema (more about that below)

-On my sunburn (soothed it)

-On my husband's grease burn

CJ's can also be used as a lip balm. For a (more) complete list of uses, go HERE. 

CJ's comes in a number of scents you can check out HERE. Below is a list of the ones I was able to try, and my opinion of each. 

Sensuality (ylang ylang and myrrh)- Although this scent is CJ's favorite, this one is probably my least favorite. But that's only because it smells just like the face cream my grandmother uses. If it were my husband who used it, I'd probably like it better. 

Lavender and Tee Tree Oil- I love this one! It smells exactly like the title says, and is my second favorite scent. 

Monkey Farts- This is another one that I do NOT like. According to the scent page, it "begins with top notes of fresh banana and juicy grapefruit, middle notes of kiwi, bubblegum, and strawberries; and a hint of vanilla as a base note." I'm pretty sure it's the banana and bubble gum that bothers me. My husband, on the other hand, loves this one! 

Pink Sugar- I love this one too! This one is hard to describe, and it's tied for second place with the Lavender and Tee Tree Oil in my opinion. Here is the scent combination: lemon drops, cotton candy, red fruit, fig leaves, caramel, raspberry, and vanilla-musk.

Blueberry Crumble-This one is my favorite! I could eat it right out of the jar! (and therefore do not dare use it as a lip balm). It smells like fresh blueberry muffins. (WARNING: It doesn't taste at all like it smells!)

The only problem I had with the CJ's cream is that my daughter's eczema became much worse after using the CJ's. According to her doctor, scented creams can worsen eczema. A CJ's Representative suggested trying the Lavender Tee Tree BUTTer®: 

The Lavender Tea Tree is one of our essential oil scents, so it does not contain any fragrance oils (like the Monkey Farts, Pink Sugar & Blueberry Crumble). Instead it contains both Lavender & Tea Tree essential oils, which are both known to help with treating eczema in and of themselves. In fact the 4 options that we recommend to people with eczema are Unscented (Natural), Lavender, Tea Tree & Lavender Tea Tree. If the Lavender Tea Tree seems to aggravate her eczema it may be that she actually has an allergy to one of the essential oils or another ingredient, which I just wanted to point out so that you can compare the ingredients to anything else that may cause irritation for her in the future. 

So if you want to use CJ's for eczema, go for the one of the four scents she recommends (I had been using the Blueberry Crumble... you know, because she's so cute you could just eat her up?). 

Use the Rafflecopter below to win some CJ's BUTTer® of your own! The winner will receive a 4 oz. Tube of BUTTer® in the fragrance of your choice!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rockin' Green Review and Giveaway

I received Rockin' Green detergent in two scents: Earth, Wind & Orchids and Bare Naked Babies (unscented). Rockin' Green is quite different than  Eco Nuts, the product I usually use for my cloth diapers.

Eco Nuts (aka soap nuts) are explained in this post, and here is a picture of the two products side by side:

Whereas soap nuts are little berries in a baggie, Rockin' Green is a powdered detergent. I liked using the detergent, perhaps after using powdered detergent for most of my lifetime makes me feel like my clothes are cleaner when the cleaning agent is in a powdered form. 

The first few days I washed my cloth diapers in the Bare Naked Babies (unscented) detergent, and the diapers came out smelling like... nothing. Which was to be expected, of course. :) The detergent worked well and removed all the bad smells from the diapers. 

The next few days I used Earth, Wind & Orchids, which smelled awesome in the packet. Once the diapers came out, they smelled the same as with the other detergent: like nothing. However, it is possible that I didn't use enough detergent to give my diapers any scent (I only used 2 TBSP, when they advise using 2-4). The important thing is that my diapers were (1) clean and (2) did not smell bad.[*Update*: The scent is supposed to wash out. I stand corrected. :) ]

Rockin' Green carries several different scents, from fruity sounding scents like "Smashing Watermelons" to the smooth "Lavender Mint Revival." 

One awesome thing about Rockin' Green is that their detergents are formulated for different water types. It doesn't matter if your water is hard, soft, or in between, they have a detergent for you!

Another product Rockin' Green carries is called Funk Rock- an ammonia bouncer- that takes care of nasty smells caused by ammonia in your diapers (I want to try this!). 

They also have Femme Rock for menstrual cloths and Dog House Rock for washing chew toys and pet bedding. And did I mention that Rockin' Green is eco-friendly? 

Sign up for a giveaway below!

Four Cloth Diapering Products that Surprised Me

Most of cloth diapering came very easily to me. You put the clean diaper on, take the dirty diaper off, wash it, and dry it. Easy peasy. But I have had a few surprises along the way. Here are four products that each surprised me in their own special way. :)

1. Wet Bags

The Planet Wise wet bag that I purchased has a zipper on it. So I thought that the zipper would contain the bad smells. However, our bathroom began to stink more and more. Someone on Facebook suggested that I leave the bag unzipped. Presto! No more bad smells!

When there happens to be a particularly nasty diaper in the bag, you can always add a sprinkle of baking soda to keep the odor away.


2. Soap Nuts

When looking for an economical, eco-friendly diaper detergent, I found Econuts soap nuts. I thought I would get granules of soap, but it turns out I received something far different:

My first thought was, "What IS this stuff??" It looked like actual nuts, not like detergent! According to this website, soap nuts are the fruit of a Himalayan tree. I was a bit skeptical about them at first, but I followed the directions and put 4-5 of the nuts into the included baggie and tossed it in the wash.

This baggie of nuts can be reused until the nuts disintegrate, sometimes up to 10 times. And can you believe that my diapers smelled wonderful!? There actually wasn't any scent at all... no smell of detergent, mustiness, or anything nasty either! Just... NOTHING! I highly recommend using soap nuts.


3. Coconut Oil

My daughter, who never had problems with diaper rash while she was in disposables, began to get rashes. I wanted a cream to put on her that would work with cloth diapers. After doing some research, I found that one of the best products out there was available at my local grocery store!

Coconut oil is a solid, but becomes a liquid once it warms to your skin. Aside from helping with diaper rash, it can be used to moisturize hands and to... um... lubricate other things. I've heard that it helps with eczema as well. And, of course, it can always be used in your cooking, although it's high in saturated fat. Here is a list of other uses.


4. Microfiber Inserts

Soon after I began to treat the problem of my daughter's diaper rash, I discovered the cause of it. Microfiber inserts are incredibly absorbent. So absorbent that when placed against baby's skin, it sucks up all moisture from baby's rear and causes a diaper rash. You need to have a layer between the insert and baby's skin. Who knew?

I was putting the microfiber inserts in her gDiaper, and directly next to her poor little bottom. When I discovered the problem, I began using prefolds in the gDiaper instead of the inserts. Now I know: inserts go with pocket diapers, and never against baby's skin.

Has anything surprised you about cloth diapering?