Wrapped Up Review Wednesday Nature's Baby Organics

I think y'all are used to my little rants about what we use on and around our body has a profound effect on our body. One of my biggest goals is to use all natural items on my daughter when she is bathing. My daughter has the most sensitive skin I've ever seen. She's 5 1/2 and we still have to use dreft because of her reaction to regular detergents. She randomly (but often) breaks out in hives, often without an apparent reason. My daughter is also a special needs child who has been through a whole lot in her little life and I want to do everything I can to make it easier for her. One of the things that I can do for her is to make sure she is using products that are safe. When I first looked at the Nature's Baby Organics website I was instantly impressed. One of the first things you see is that the products do not contain:
• No Parabens • No Phthalates • No Propylene Glycol
• No Sulfates (SLS)• No Synthetic Fragrances• No DEA
Nature's Baby Organics really did cover all their bases! I also love that Nature's Baby Organics gives a complete list of all of the natural ingredients and their use. Check out the ingredient list HERE. The products that I tried from Nature's Baby Organics are: Shampoo and Body Wash in Vanilla-Tangerine Scent, Conditioner & Detangler (Leave in or rinse out!) in Vanilla-Tangerine Scent, Aromatherapy Calming Spray, Organic Soothing Stick, Ah-Choo Chest Rub.

I've got to say that our experience with Nature's Baby Organics has been incredible! My daughter has been known to react to even all natural products so I'm very cautious and we always patch test now. She tolerated everything and had absolutely no reactions whatsoever. I was a very happy mom! The Shampoo and Body wash lathers nicely and cleans very well. The scent is so yummy! I used this as a body wash for myself and also really liked it and would definitely use it again! I LOVE the Conditioner & Detangler. I love that you can leave it in or rinse it out. My daughter has the craziest curly hair and she really needs a condition that works. Nature's Baby Organics Conditioner & Detangler works wonders for her hair! For my hair the Conditioner & Detangler left my hair looking greasy the next morning. I really liked the scent but this product is much better for only my daughter. If you asked my daughter which her favorite product was she would tell you the Aromatherapy Calming Spray. She loves spraying her pillows before going to bed. The lavender scent is so wonderful! As far as the Organic Soothing Stick I truly cannot rave enough about this product! Its so versatile! My daughters cheeks and lips are very dry so I applied this after bath time and it really helped! We've also used it on some of my daughters "booboo's". I love that I was able to put a product on her face and she didn't react to it! Last but not least the Ah-Choo Chest Rub. Another great product by Nature's Baby Company! My dad has actually used this since we've all be so sick here! I used it on my daughter and it was great for helping her breathe better at night! All in all I give Nature's Baby Company a big thumbs up! I will most definitely recommend their products and will continue to use them for my daughter and myself. If you are interested in natural bath & body products or have a child that has sensitive skin I would really encourage you to try Nature's Baby Company.

Tipster Tuesday! Bag & Container Gardening

I've been giving some thought to starting a garden with my daughter this year. It seems like a great project that I can do with her and the pay off is so good for you! Fresh veggies that you grew! No chemicals! Win win isn't it? I entered a blog giveaway for Burpee's Money Garden and decided that even if I didn't win that this might be a really good route to go. As described on the Burpee website each package contains seeds for 6 different veggies and is capable of producing $650.00 worth of produce- the package costs $10! It says that 1/10 of an acre is needed but since I don't have any ground in our backyard that is suitable for gardening I have decided to go the bag garden route. If you haven't heard of this before don't feel bad! I heard about it for the first time a few months ago in a Mother Earth News article. Basically you buy bags of soil and punch in some drainage holes in the bottom, split the top open and plant your plants or seeds! Sounds pretty easy, huh? I've compiled a list of websites that discuss bag gardening and container gardening in case you decide that growing your own veggies is something you're interested in!

http://localchoicescv.com/2008/10/08/whod-a-thoughtgarbage-bag-gardening/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2008-06-01/No-Dig-Garden-Beds.aspx
http://winddanncer.today.com/2009/01/14/bag-gardening/
http://www.plantea.com/coffee-bag-container-garden.htm
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf62353566.tip.html- Feedback & tips from those who bag garden
http://containergardening.about.com/od/containergardening101/ss/flowerpouches_2.htm
http://idigmygarden.com/forums/showthread.php?p=216995
http://www.gardenguides.com/how-to/tipstechniques/containerindoor/container.asp
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/container/container.html
http://www.containergardeningtips.com/
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/container/container-garden-plans/

Magic Monday Giveaway List Plan It!

I was given the pleasure of meeting Jennifer the owner of ListPlanIt. The description of lists to put your world in order is no exageration! ListPlanIt has over 350 lists! Right from the website is a great description of what you'll find on ListPlanIt
Find Grocery Lists and Menu Planning in Meal Planning
Holiday and Party Planning in Holidays & Special Occasions
Find Calendars and To Do Lists in Time Management
Back to School Planner and Homework Schedules in Student
Everything you need in one convenient location!

I'm a list person and I'll be the first to admit it. I use a Brain in a Binder and my life is much nicer and accomplished when I use my lists! I'm also a list junkie. I love very other peoples lists and organization schedules so when I started looking through the lists on ListPlanIt I was in heaven! Jennifer has been so kind to offer a Quarterly Membership to one very lucky Savvy SAHM Review reader! If you're a list person this is your lucky day!

For your first entry (this must be completed for any other entries to count)
- Go to ListPlanIt and take a look at the lists. Come back here and tell me what list you think would be the most helpful for you.

Extra Entries:
-how do you think ListPlanIt will help you? Leave a comment. One entry
-Leave your best organization tip. Leave a comment. One entry
-Become a Savvy SAHM Review follower. (no need to leave a comment)
-Add our button to your blog. Leave three comments with a link. 3 entries
-Blog about this giveaway. Leave three comments with a link. 3 entries
-Send an email to 3 friends and CC me at savvysahmreviews@yahoo.com for 3 entries
Giveaway runs through midnight CST next Monday March 16. Winner will be announced on March 17. Winner will have 72 hours to get in touch with me or a new winner is chosen. Please make sure you leave an email on your entries or it is accessible on your blog. Good luck!

Winners Wall

Giveaway winners for this past week!

Walmart gift card winner is:
Doreen from treasuredgiveaways.blogspot.com

Our PalmPalms winners are:
Casey
Christin

I will email all of you but if you see this first please drop an email to savvysahmreviews@yahoo.com with your snail mail addy!

Congrats ladies!

Sarah

Wrapped Up Review Wednesday HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool

One of the perks when you have a blog that does reviews is that you get a lot of products to try out. I love that companies want and trust my opinion! I have found that most of the time when a company cares enough to have a product reviewed they usually have a good product. Makes sense right? I also think that times are tough and we all make purchases and hope for the best. As consumers our voices are heard not by what we say but what we buy. I love reading reviews on websites when its available. It so much more comfortable to spend money on a product when other people have had good luck with it. Today I'm going to do a review on HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool. This review is completely my own and in no way has been solicited by the HoMedics brand/company. Let me preface this by saying I have a "thing" about feet. It absolutely makes me crazy to have dry, scaly, icky feet and I don't like it too much on others either! Now I live in Illinois where the weather in winter tends to be not nice. Cold, dry and generally not conducive to having nice smooth feet- especially if you run around barefoot indoors all the time. I saw the HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool at a local store and thought the price wasn't too bad and decided to give it a try. I was really keen on the fact that it was rechargeable with several different attachments. I'm a previous PedEgg person and wasn't totally thrilled with that. I brought home the HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool and promptly plugged that bad boy in to charge it up. Fast forward to the next day. Since I'd just gotten a spa pedi a few days earlier my feet weren't in horrible shape so I was able to use the finer of the pumice attachments. I was completely impressed! It works like a dream and left my feet completely smooth and soft. What more can you ask for?!!? I actually used the unit on my daughters feet since she's another one who is always barefoot. The unit holds a charge well and the different attachments are all great. Now I must say from the beginning I wish that the attachments could be replaced/reordered but that isn't an option. Once again lets fast forward. This time a month. Out of nowhere my HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool will not work at all. The charge light doesn't come on and its dead as can be. I'm so bummed. Now I'm sure that you could say that this is a relatively inexpensive product so what I got what I paid for. Personally I'd like to think that $15 can get you a bit more than a month of a product that wasn't put to hard use! So, if I had to go back and decide whether I would spend this money again on the HoMedics Rechargeable Spinning Pedicure Tool I would have to say "NO". My money is too valuable for me to be throwing it away. If I'm going to purchase something I would rather spend a bit more and have a product that lasts. So there you have it! While this worked wonderfully it didn't work nearly long enough!

Tipster Tuesday!

I will be the first to admit that I'm relatively new at the whole going green way of life. In some ways I've always been a fan of all natural but as far as making permanent lifestyle changes and researching what is best for my daughter and myself I'm still pretty much a newbie. I'm telling you this so you don't think by any means that I'm a "pro" at this. I also know that for many people that the most daunting thing about going green is that there is so much information and so many things that you can do that it can be a bit overwhelming. The way I've decided to go about this is to pick a few key issues and go about researching that and incorporating changes into my life. It isn't about going all green at once. I'm not even sure that's possible. Its about making positive changes a permanent part of your life. As those changes become habit you can then pick up new changes to work on until they become habit and so on. For me I decided that the two areas I wanted to concentrate on where the items I was putting on my body and my daughters body as well as what we were putting in our bodies. I was horrified to learn that up to 60% of what we put on our skin is absorbed into our skin. Our skin is our biggest organ and we need to be careful about the way we treat it. That knowledge led me to trying to eliminate SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and its close relative SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate) from the body products we use. In learning about SLS & SLES and the ways of eliminationg it from your daily regiments I kept on hearing about castile soap. Castile soap is a very mild soap that doesn't contain SLS & SLES. You can even use castile soap as a base to make your own shampoo. Dr. Bronners seems to be one of the most popular castile soaps. From personal experience I can tell you that Dr. Bronners is a very nice liquid castile soap. I use the Baby Mild Liquid for my daughter as her shampoo and body wash. My daughter has INCREDIBLY sensitive skin (I can't even begin to stress how sensitive she is.) and since using the Dr. Bronners Baby Mild Liquid we've had absolutely no problems with her skin whatsoever! For my own use I love the Lavender as an everyday body wash and in the summertime the Peppermint is absolutely incredible! It makes you feel cooler! Can't beat that! I also love the almond scent and use that as a base for many of the cleaning solutions I make.

The next area I'm trying to address for my daughter and myself is what goes into our bodies. The first change I made is that at home my daughter only gets organic milk. I see absolutely no need for her to receive growth hormones or antibiotics in her milk! I'm also trying to switch my daughter off of colors and preservatives as well as high fructose corn syrup. This is proving to be a bit more difficult than eliminating SLS & SLES from our lives. I don't feel as though I've made enough progress to really even write about this yet. In all actuality I would love to hear from parents who have made this changes and any advice they have.

In googling SLS this evening in preparation to write this post I came across an incredibly informative article that I'd like to share with you. You can find this article HERE I must also let you know that I have not tried any of the recommended products.

So, let me know what you think about this post? Am I an alarmist? Is this something you've not heard about? Have you made this changes already? Got any advice?

Magic Monday Winner

The winner of last weeks Magic Monday Giveaway is:
Whimsical Creations said...
I would like to see handmade toys and clothes for kids.=) melanie
http://melaniescrafts.blogspot.com

Thank you all for your great suggestions! You will see them incorporated into Savvy SAHM Reviews in the very near future!

Sarah

Magic Monday Giveaway

Well, now that we're back in the groove of things here I'm going to go back to a review/giveaway that was left open. Piggy Paints! That way some of our new readers can get in on this! So here it is word for word! I cannot tell you guys how awesome this product is!!!

Have you ever used one of those products that you instantly fell in love with?!!!? It works wonderfully, its good for you/your child, its eco friendly. All those things are very important to me. Its also very important that my princess gets to act like the princess she is. One of her favorites is getting her nails painted (it might be because I started painting her toe nails at 6 weeks of age!) I've never had a problem with doing her toe nails since she wasn't ever one of those kiddos who stuck her foot anywhere near her mouth. Unfortunately painted toe nails only wasn't enough to satisfy the Princess. This is where my dilemma came in. How could I paint her nails knowing that she would have her fingers near her mouth? I shouldn't have her brush her teeth or have any finger food? Not going to happen. That said I just couldn't get over putting all of those chemicals on her fingers and be ok it with. Drum roll please! Enter Piggy Paint!!! This stuff is amazing! Before I tell you about our trial run with Piggy Paint here is some information about it.Why is Piggy Paint™ Nail Polish the safe nail polish choice for children?Non-toxicOdorlessWater-based formulaHypoallergenicFun, vibrant colorsDries to a hard, durable finishPiggy Paint™ is specially formulated from God’s natural ingredients and dries to a hard, durable finish. There are no toxic chemicals; it’s free of formaldehyde, toluene, phthalates, biphenyl A, ethyl acetate and acetone. Click here to see how our polish compares!How is Piggy Paint™ as “Natural as Mud”?Piggy Paint is as “Natural as Mud” in the sense that every ingredient in the polish is biodegradable with no traces or residues left behind, thus it would make an excellent addition to your mulch pile or as a feed for farm animals.Our water-based nail polish is non-toxic, environmentally safe, hypoallergenic, with an odor that is extremely low, nearly nonexistent. It has the same look and durability performance as traditional kid polishes, but without the drawbacks of foul odors, toxicity, and damage to our environment and to your little ones’ nails.Honestly, does it get any better than that?!!!? Add to it that this nail polish is a pure delight to use and its truly amazing! My daughter has very ridged nails for some unknown reason and nail polish has never adhered well to her nails. The night we test ran Piggy Paint we sat down and put a coat on her fingers and toes. This stuff dries so quickly I was completely amazed! A few minutes later I put on a second coat and again it was super fast to dry. My daughter was thrilled with her matching fingers and toes and I had no guilt over it being on her precious little body! The polish stayed pretty for almost a week! This was the start of our love affair with Piggy Paint.The great folks over at Piggy Paint have given me a 3 pack of Piggy Paint Polishes to share with one incredibly lucky Savvy SAHM Review reader!

First entry (must have this completed for any other entries to be valid)-Go to Piggy Paint and take a look around.
After that leave a comment telling me what prompted Melanie to create Piggy Paints

Extra Entries:
-what is your favorite color Piggy Paint? Leave a comment. One entry
-who is the Piggy Paint for? Leave a comment. One entry
-Become a Savvy SAHM Review follower. (no need to leave a comment)
-Add our button to your blog. Leave a comment with a link. 3 entries
-Blog about this giveaway. Leave a comment with a link. 3 entries
-Send an email to 3 friends and CC me at savvysahmreviews@yahoo.com for 3 entries
Giveaway runs through midnight CST next Monday March 9. Winner will be announced on March 10. Winner will have 72 hours to get in touch with me or a new winner is chosen. Please make sure you leave an email on your entries or it is accessible on your blog. Good luck!