Arbonne's Baby Care
I love supporting the businesses of friends and family, so last year, when I learned that my high school pal Ashley was an Arbonne consultant, I started purchasing my FC5 skin care products from her. And when Ashley found out I was pregnant, she sent me Arbonne's Baby Care Set. Not only was I touched by this kind gift, but since Violet's birth, I've been happy to discover that I dig these products for Violet (save the body oil, which I haven't yet had occasion to use) just as much as I do the FC5 collection for myself.
As I wrote about earlier, I love FC5 for its light (yet effective) composition and delicious (yet not overpowering) smell, and the same goes for the baby care line. The hair + body wash produces a gentle lather that gets Violet clean (oh, those milk encrusted baby rolls...) while still leaving her smelling deliciously like a baby, and the body lotion is similarly gentle yet softens any chappy bits.
However, the two major winners in this collection for me are the diaper rash cream and sunscreen. We haven't had a lot of diaper rash to contend with, but when we do, this is my go-to cream. I find many diaper creams thick and difficult to spread -- I understand wanting to create a barrier, but thick pastes also make for friction inducing multi-wipe cleanups. In contrast, the Arbonne diaper rash cream is light in composition (more lotion-like in thickness), which makes it quick to apply -- a handy thing when you have a squirmy baby or are trying to work quickly to avoid mid-diaper change emissions -- and quick to clean up. I've also found the cream excellent at clearing up Violet's diaper rash quickly.
I haven't used the SPF 30+ sunscreen on Violet yet, but I've used it on Laurel (now having two kids, I'm thrilled when one product works for both...yay for less bottles to tote around!) and, like the diaper cream, love that the sunscreen isn't thick and pasty. It's easy to work in quickly, thankfully absent of bizarre and overpowering tropical scents, and doesn't result in greasy residue.
My only constructive criticism is that I'd like Arbonne to redesign the bottle shapes in this collection a bit. The diaper rash cream comes in a traditional tapered squeeze tube that works great, but the shape and stiffness of the other bottles in the collection offer a bit less finesse when squeezing out the contents. It's not a huge deal -- if I squeeze out too much sunscreen I can unscrew the top and put the rest back in, but a little tweak in the bottle design would make usage perfect.
So if you're looking for a gentle, effective, and safe baby care system to use or gift to an expecting mama, I recommend checking out Arbonne's Baby Care Set (and I recommend connecting with Ashley -- she's a really nice person and is an RN with a deep knowledge about and passion for Arbonne). A little product goes a long way so these products will last. Also, Arbonne doesn't label all of their products explicitly in this way, but Ashley confirmed for me that as a company, Arbonne is paraben and phthalate free (in addition to other nasties such as mineral oil and petrolatum byproducts, chemical dyes and fragrances, etc.), so you'll feel peace of mind, whether you're using these products on your kids or yourself.