Knocked Up – Knocked Over

my journey through pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum

Category Archives: My Favorite Things


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Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs – The Answers

Last week, in celebration of Easter, Gabi and I dyed eggs using food-based ingredients.   Here’s a quick link in case you missed that post.  It was so much fun and a few of the colors were so surprising that I decided to make a game of it and let you guess which ingredients produced which colors.

Here’s that list of dye ingredients again:

  • Spinach
  • Beets
  • Turmeric
  • Purple Cabbage
  • Yellow Onion Skins
  • Blueberries
  • Paprika & Chili Powder

And here’s that picture with the numbered eggs:

Which egg is which?

 

I had a few people guess in the comments and several guess in real-life and via email.  So here are the answers!

# 1 - Onion skins. I love how the membranes of the onions left that pretty pattern on the shell.

#2 was blueberries. Look at the polka-dots left behind where the berries rested against the eggs!

#3 was spinach. I think if I had processed the spinach in a blender I might have gotten a greener color. But it's still so soft and pretty.

#4 was a blend of paprika and chili powder. Juan said that this one looked like marble.

#6 was beets. This one actually changed pretty significantly as it dried. It turned into a beautiful green and purple marbled effect which you can almost see in this picture.

#6 was turmeric. I loved how speckled this turned out!

#7 was purple cabbage. This one was such a pretty surprise! Who knew that the purple cabbage would turn blue!

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week!  Happy Easter, happy spring!

SAMSUNG


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Hippie Hygiene Experiment # 1: Why (and how!) I wash my face with oil

I haven’t used soap on my face in over a month. Yeah, you read that right.  I haven’t washed my face with soap or any kind of cleanser at all in four weeks!  I haven’t had to use heavy moisturizers, I haven’t had breakouts, and my skin looks absolutely radiant.  How do I manage it? 

Oil.  That’s right.  Oil.  That’s all I use on my face.  No soaps, creams, toners, masks.  Just oil.

My favorite olive oil

Shortly after Katie was born, I started noticing that she seemed to break out when I put my fancy, expensive, anti-aging moisturizer on my face.  The days I didn’t wear the moisturizer, her face was clear.  The days I did, her cheeks broke out in itchy, red pinpricks that she would scratch and rub on. 

I had to do something.  Obviously, I wasn’t going to continue using something that my baby was clearly sensitive to.  For a while, I used coconut oil on my face with mediocre results.  She still broke out a little, and my face always felt kind of gritty.  My skin looked tired and dull.  I was perusing the Trader Joe’s toiletries section one day, and I came across a bottle of Jojoba oil.  “Good for oil cleansing,” the back of the bottle said.  I didn’t get it, but I did go home and do some googling.

And thus did I discover the Oil Cleansing Method.

Here’s the idea: Your skin is covered by natural oils that it needs to protect and nourish itself.  When we constantly strip the oils out with soap the skin either gets dried out or reacts by overproducing oils and breaking out.  It doesn’t make sense to strip out your skin’s healthy, natural oil only to replace it with a synthetic oil.  Instead, what if we simply gently released the excess oils, dissolve the dead skin cells clogging in pores, and allow your body to maintain its own natural level of moisture?  And what gently dissolves excess oil?  More oil!

Okay, do you think I am insane yet?  I’m not.  This really does work better than any skin care regimen I’ve tried.  To put things into perspective, I used to work at a cosmetics counter, and I’ve always used high-end department store skin care lines.  None of them ever worked as well as a cheap bottle of oil!

If you’d like to try it for yourself, here’s how

Before you get started cleansing your face, you need to mix your oil.  You will mix castor oil with a nourishing oil of some kind.  The castor oil releases the dead skin and unclogs pores while the nourishing oil moisturizes and soothes. 

Nourishing oil and castor oil

Some ideas for nourishing oils include:

  • Olive oil
  • Avocado oil
  • Sunflower oil
  • Jojoba oil

Don’t use coconut oil.  It will clog your pores!

Start with a 1:1 ratio of castor oil and nourishing oil.  If you find your skin is too dry afterwards, cut the amount of castor oil.  If you find your skin is too oily, increase the castor oil.  The beauty of this is that you can customize this so that it perfectly meets your skin’s needs.

Right now I use a 1:3 ratio of castor oil and avocado oil. I mixed it in a pretty glass dropper bottle that I got at my local natural food store so it’s easy to work with.

Please ignore the background and focus on how pretty the blue dropper bottle is

Once you’ve mixed the oil, it’s time to start cleansing!

  1. Put a quarter sized amount of oil into the palm of your hands and massage it into your face.  Pay attention to those really oily bits like your chin and those crevices behind your nostrils.
  2. Leave it to sit while you do something else like brush teeth, wrangle a kid into the tub, or change a diaper.
  3. Wet a wash cloth with very warm water (not so hot that you scald yourself, but as warm as is comfortable) and lay back on your bed with it over your face to steam your pores.
  4. Accept the belly slapping, wet willies, foot tickling, and zerberts that your family bestows upon you as they sense your helpless state.
  5. When the wash cloth has cooled off (a minute or so), sit up and gently wipe the excess oil of your face.  This is the hardest step.  Your instinct will be to wipe really hard to take all the oil off.  Don’t do this as this will dry out your face.  There should still be oil on your face.  This will soak in after a few minutes, leaving your face feeling comfortably fresh.

I do this every night.  Even with the kids and husband piling all over me, it still feels so luxurious.

In the morning, I just rinse my face very briefly in the shower.

Simple.

Some things I’ve discovered while doing this

  • Use old, cheap wash cloths, preferably ones that are big enough to cover your entire face.  They will get oily and the oil does leave stains on them.
  • Drip a few drops of blue Dawn dish detergent into the laundry cycle if you are having trouble with the oil not coming out.
  • Unless you are much more graceful than I am, don’t try to oil cleanse in the shower.  There’s nothing like stepping on the oil patch on the shower floor at 6 AM and busting your butt.
  • Don’t leave out the castor oil.  I tried this for a couple of days thinking it was the castor oil drying my skin out and my pores got really clogged and my skin started looking dull.  Turns out I just needed to wipe off the oil in a more gentle way.
  • Expect an adjustment period.  I don’t know if this was more about my skin adjusting to the oil cleansing or me needing to adjust to the way skin should feel in the wild.  Regardless, it took a few weeks for things to work themselves out and for me to feel really comfortable with the way my skin feels with all of this.
  • If you have trouble with dryness during the adjustment period, just use a little bit of the nourishing oil on its own to give your skin a moisture boost.

Have you tried cleansing your face with oil?  How did you do it and what was your experience?

 


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5 Things to do with Nipple Cream that Don’t Involve Nipples

Nipple cream is wonderful stuff.  It’s gooey, sticky, and it feels so good on sore nipples.  I have a variety of nipple creams.  I’ve put all kinds of things (in addition to babyspit) on my nipples: the MotherLove Herbal Nipple Cream, the MotherLove Diaper Rash and Thrush Cream (on my nipples), the lanolin cream in the purple tube, plain old olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil.  But I’ve found that nipple creams are great for more than just nipples!  Here are my top five non-nipple-related uses for nipple cream. Specifically, I’m going to be talking about the nipple cream in the purple tube since it’s fairly inexpensive and I don’t mind slathering the stuff all over creation.

  1. Lip Balm!  This is, hands down, the best lip balm around.  The tiniest bit of nipple cream can protect, moisturize, and heal your dry, cracked lips. It doesn’t tingle and sting like certain lip balms do. It just leaves a smooth, rich, protective barrier. After I’m done putting lanolin on my nipples, I rub whatever is leftover onto my lips. Feels so good!
  2. Ointment for Scraped Knees.  Gabi can be so sensitive sometimes on her wounds.  If she falls and skins her knees, even taking a gentle bath stings the wounds.  I hate seeing either of my babies cry.  Enter the lanolin.  It gives a soothing, non-stingy barrier, and helps it heal faster.  We save it especially for the rug burn-type wounds where the skin gets abraded off and every little touch burns like the dickens.
  3. Drool Rash Ointment.  We are approaching teething-time with little Miss Katie, and her poor chin has seen better days.  She gets dry, chapped skin from all the slobber flowing down over her chin to her bib.  Enter the nipple cream. A few applications later, and the dry, red rash is completely gone.  I always rub a little up on her cheeks, too. It keeps her skin smooth and fresh. And I don’t have to worry about her rubbing a little into her mouth.
  4. Diaper Rash Cream.  Just like on the chin, lanolin makes a great barrier.  It protects the bootie from the wets and dirties, and it heals the chapped area.  Are you seeing a pattern here?  Any time something is chapped and rashy, stick some lanolin on it!
  5. Razor Nick Ointment. Not only does it sooth the sting and promote healing, but it stops the bleeding too. Handy!

And what if you get lanolin on something?  Yes, it stains. And no. You can’t just toss it in the washer to get the stains out.  So what do you do if your favorite bra, nursing pads, or sheets get lanolin stains on them?  Break out the blue Dawn! The grease-fighting action gets the oily lanolin out. Squirt some on the stain. Rub, rub, rub. Leave it to sit for a while. Overnight is good. Toss it in the washer, and voila! The lanolin stains are gone!

Do you have any odd-ball uses for nipple cream?  I’d love to hear!


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Letting go of the Stress with Cozi

As you all know, I’ve been stressed lately.  I’ve felt like things are spinning completely out of control and that I just can’t get my arms around everything I need to do.  Too many things to do, too many things to get, not enough time.  AAAAAAGH!

 Enter one of my local radio DJs.  One of our local radio stations runs a segment on Must Have apps for your smartphones, and on Friday, they talked about this thing called Cozi.  Some kind of family calendar software or something with shared calendars and whatnot.  Hmmmm….

So I downloaded it, and asked my Facebook friends for tips and hints, which landed me an awesome link to a blog post about it!  This is the kind of info I’m looking for!  A basic overview to give me an idea of how a family has made it work for them.  Fantastic!

So I started playing with it a little more seriously, and here’s what I discovered:

I really like this because it works across multiple platforms.  Juan has an iPod touch and I’ve got an Android phone.  We both use Outlook at the office.  There’s not a lot of “talking” that goes on between these systems.  But after I downloaded Cozi onto  my phone and his iPod, I was able to connect both effortlessly.  We don’t have to worry about it being Apple/Android-specific.  It works cross-functionally.  Apparently you can also sync Outlook with Cozi, but I haven’t tried it.  I don’t want all of our daytime meetings showing up on the family calendar.

Because the thing lives on a 3rd party website (unlike our outlook calendars), we can access it anywhere we’ve got an internet connection.  If I make a doctor’s appointment for Gabi at the office, I don’t have to wait till I’m home to put it on the home calendar. I can pop open the website from my browser and enter it right then and there.  It’s then ready to view on Juan’s iPod, internet browser, or whichever device he happens to use.

We can also keep personal stuff off of our office calendars. Our Outlook calendars are viewable company-wide.  The last thing people need to know is that I’ve got an Midwife appointment at 2 pm on Thursday.  Blocked time?  Fine.  Details?  Not fine.  Plus, it’s difficult for Juan because, while he may need to know that something is going on at a certain time for carpool planning purposes (like a 6 pm La Leche League Meeting or a 3 pm Dentist appointment for me), he doesn’t need to have that time showing as blocked/busy on his work calendar.  This way, we can coordinate the carpool without blocking time or inviting embarrassing questions.

Sounds pretty good in theory, right?  How about in execution?  How does it work?

So far, it seems to be working well.

Our Calendar

We’re able to enter all of our family activities here so we can plan our carpool and schedule appointments without having to guess at what is going on with the other person.  We tag the family members involved to make it clear which appointment belongs to which person.  We’re also able to schedule reminders for events if we wish.  Since my phone receives text messages, I set a reminder for Cozi to text reminders straight to my phone.  Juan doesn’t have texting on his phone, so it will email him.  Convenient!

The things I’m really liking about Cozi, though, are the lists.

There are To Do lists and Shopping lists, and within those lists, you can separate out individual lists.

Our Shopping Lists

For example, I’m able to maintain both a grocery shopping list for Juan to have when he goes to the store, and a separate list for things that we get at other places, like Target.  We’re even able to create custom lists so I can keep track of the little odds and ends that we still need to get before the baby is born.

Our To Do Lists

 Just like the shopping lists, you can create your own custom lists.  In this case, I created a Baby-Related To Do list (of course).  You can tag the To Do lists for a specific family member or make it a shared list for all family members to see.  In this case, I tagged the Baby list as shared.  As you complete items, you just check them off.  Simple.  If you want to get fancy, you can group items by headers like I did here in the Baby-Related To Do list:

All of these screen shots are from the Cozi website that I’m accessing from my PC.  Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a way to take screenshots from my phone so I can’t show you what the Android app looks like.  I will tell you, though, that it’s pretty spiffy.

Accessing Everything

My phone lets me install widgets to my screens.  This is more than just a little icon.  Instead, I can see an updated version of my calendar right there on my screen!  I’ve got widgets showing the calendar, the baby shopping list, and the baby to do list.  All right there in front of me.  I can simply touch to start adding or making changes.  No need to let the app load. It’s running right there on top and updating live.

I also took the… ahem… liberty of installing the app onto Juan’s iPod.  So he’s got it, too, although, I don’t think Apple lets you do widgets quite like Android does.

Has it Helped?

Juan was a little concerned that this list-making was stressing me out.  Really, though, I’m finding the opposite to be the case.  I’m able to write things down as they pop into my head and then set them aside.  Part of my stress came from intense worry that I would forget something vital.  Trying to keep track of all of this coordination in my head was making me feel a little unhinged.  I feel like I’ve been given a dose of sanity.

There are more features than what I list here.  I can’t really see myself using the journal feature very much.  That’s what my blog is for.  I’m also not too sure about the photo collage thing.  I’ve got Picassa for that and it works just fine.  There does seem to be a whole lot more to this program than meets the eye, so I’m sure there is a lot more for me to explore.

How Can You Get It?

For those of you curious about Cozi, you can access the computer version from www.cozi.com.  We got our mobile device apps from the Android app marketplace and the Ipod app store just by going through our mobile devices.

Want to know the best part?

It’s Free!

Yeah, you read that right!  It’s free!  I’m all about free stuff!  There does appear to be an upgrade option that offers more advanced scheduling options, but for us, I think the free version is perfectly sufficient.

So talk to me!  Who out there uses this?  How do you use it?  What do you find the most useful about it?  Do you have any tips or tricks for new users like me?


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Look what came in the mail this week!

I went ahead and ordered the rest of my JustFussy cloth pads.  Remember, these were the awesome bamboo velour cloth pads I was trying out to see if I wanted to use for postpartum.  And remember how I fell in love with them?

Well, I ordered enough for postpartum, and they arrived on Thursday!

Aren’t they gorgeous?  And that bamboo velour is so, so soft.

And feel free to admire the quilt below as well.  My mom made that!  Nice, eh?  Love those batiks!

So here is my cloth pad count right now:

All in the most gorgeous colors!  I love, love, love those deep, saturated colors.

She was also sweet enough to send me an extra wool-backed panty-liner as well.  I love the wool backing.  For some reason, it stays much cooler and feels more breathable than a cotton-backed liner.

Depending on how often I find myself doing laundry, I’m hoping that this will be enough to cover my postpartum needs.  I don’t remember how much lochia I had to deal with last time, but Christy’s got a fantastic turn-around time.  If I need more, I can always order more!

One more thing I can check off my to-do list.


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DoubleDave’s Pizzaworks comes through for me in a huge way!

Quick word of warning to anyone currently suffering from HG:  I’ll be talking a lot about food in this post.  If reading about foods is a trigger for you, just skip this post.

I grew up in College Station, Texas, which is home to Texas A&M University.  In my hometown, there is a restaurant called DoubleDave’s Pizzaworks.  DoubleDave’s is an institution in my hometown, and the biggest reason for that is a menu item called the Peproni Roll.  (Yeah, I know. They spell it funny!)  Basically, you can think of a peproni roll as a rolled up slice of pizza, except without the sauce.  They roll pepperoni and provolone cheese up in the pizza dough and bake it.  Then you dip it in ranch dressing or marinara sauce to eat it.

 Peproni rolls are quite simply the best thing ever.

A few weeks ago, I had one of those pregnancy dreams.  You know, the really vivid kind.  All night long, I dreamed that I was in DoubleDave’s with my family.  They ordered pizza, but I, of course, ordered the rolls.  In my dream, everyone else’s food arrived, but my rolls just were not coming out of the oven.  They kept forgetting to bring them to our table.  In my dream, I finally lost my temper, grabbed the kid behind the counter by the front of the shirt, and shouted, “JUST GIVE ME MY GODDAMN PEPRONI ROLLS!”  I never got my rolls in the dream, and I woke up feeling miserable.

All day long, I obsessed about the rolls.  I tweeted about it.  I posted about it on Facebook.  I even learned about the history and origin of pepperoni rolls.  There’s actually a fellow out in West Virginia (the birthplace of the roll) with an entire websitededicated to them!  DoubleDave’s is listed under his Pepperoni Rolls Variations page (scroll to the bottom).

Finally, after looking at pages and pages of pictures of tantalizing rolls, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  Look, with the HG, it’s not too often that I get food cravings, but when I do, it is serious business.  I went to the DoubleDave’s website, and wrote them an only very slightly hyperbolic letter:

Dear DoubleDave’s,

I’m writing as a life-long customer. I grew up in College Station eating at DoubleDave’s. We’ve moved to Ventura, California, and there are no DoubleDave’s. I feel bereft without your peproni rolls. I’m 7 months pregnant and I’m afraid I might wither away without some peproni rolls. Last night I dreamed about them, even. In my dream, my family got their pizza, but my peproni rolls just didn’t come out. I waited for hours for those rolls. It was really sad.

Please. I’m begging you. Pleading with you. Open a DoubleDave’s in Ventura. Without your peproni rolls, I don’t know how I can go on. I miss you DoubleDave’s. Please come to California. The weather’s great. Ventura is great. You could go surfing every day. You’d love it here, I promise.

With Love,

Molly

Within a couple of hours they wrote me back!

Molly,

You have no idea how big a grin came across my face while reading this!  I don’t know, you may have already received replies from the rest of our gang as well.  We wish you were back here now!  In fact I would love to have a town full of pregnant DoubleDave’s fans right here in BCS!  :)

Years ago we would occasionally ship Peproni rolls in dry ice.  I’m going to have Joe experiment a little and see how we can get some rolls out to Cali for you!  Maybe you could send us an In N Out burger?   I have to admit, Ventura sounds pretty good when it’s 104 degrees here!  

 I’ll bet you anything Double Dave Miller would sell you as many franchises in California as you could handle!  

 Thank you so much for the kind words and good luck with that baby Texan!

 We will be in touch!

Larry*

This kicked off a flurry of emails and activity that culminated in Double Dave’s shipping me 3 dozen–that’s 36!–peproni rolls, 2 t-shirts, a beach ball, stickers, magnets, and a whole bunch of other DoubleDave’s-related goodies.  And you know the cool part?  The t-shirts they sent were a size large and a size medium.  This means that I can wear one now while I’m pregnant**, and then after I have the baby, I’ll be able to wear the other one!  How awesome is that?

I’ll admit: When I opened that cooler full of rolls, I shed a few tears.  I couldn’t believe that I was standing in California looking at a taste of home.  It was pretty overwhelming think that these people I had never met had taken the time to be so kind to me.

As an added note, I discovered that DoubleDave’s has a sense of humor!  They shipped those rolls in a University of Texas styrofoam cooler!  Juan is a maroon bleeding Aggie, and insisted on putting the empty cooler into the trash bin right away.  I fished the cooler out, and it’s providing plenty of family entertainment.  Hey, I went to UNT.  Longhorn coolers don’t bug me!  I make it appear in various unexpected places to assault his delicate Aggie sensibilities.  So not only did they send me a bunch of rolls and a ton of swag, they sent me ongoing entertainment!

The night those rolls arrived, I feasted.  It was heavenly.  The rolls they shipped were about half-way baked, so that means that when they come out of my oven, they don’t taste like re-heated, leftover rolls (which are still pretty good, by the way!).  These rolls taste like legitimately fresh and delicious, hot-of-the-oven, DoubleDave’s Peproni Rolls.

Gabi, my three-year-old, has also developed a taste for rolls, unfortunately, which means I have to share.  Hmpf.  I was able to teach her the proper Texan way to eat the rolls, which means dipping them in ranch dressing, not marinara!  Juan is stealing bites here and there, but mostly leaving them to me, which is very big-hearted of him. 

I just want to send a big, huge thank you to the folks at Double Dave’s.  Thanks to Larry, Lily, Joe, and whoever else was involved in shipping me these rolls and all the DoubleDave’s swag.  There are a lot of foods that I can’t eat right now because of the stupid HG, but peproni rolls are just the right blend of awesome and deliciousness that they stay down just fine.

People of Double Dave’s:  You are amazing.  You serve great food, and you go above and beyond for your loyal fans.  Some time, probably next year, when I’m back in College Station visiting, I’ll come by, and I will find you guys (or Larry at least since Lily and Joe are, I think, in Austin), and I will thank you in person.  In fact, I’ll probably come in a few times while I’m there.  That’s usually the way it goes.  We fill up on Double Dave’s, Freebirds, and Blue Bell Ice Cream while we can!

And Readers, if you happen to be going through Texas, and you see a Double Dave’s, stop in and try the Peproni Rolls.  You will not be sorry!

 

*Turns out, my mom is pretty sure she knows Larry from way back when I was a kid in 4H because he also owns one of the copy stores in town.  So look out Larry!  My mom may be trying to track you down!  That’s small towns for you!

**I’ll try to get some pictures in the t-shirt at some point to post.  I had planned to take a few pictures on the beach this past Saturday specifically for this post, but I tried to do too much Saturday morning and I felt too sick to go out Saturday evening.  We’ll try again this weekend.


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My Favorite Things Green Edition: JustFussy Cloth Pads

To my gentleman readers: If feminine hygiene makes you squeamish, you may want to skip this post.

I mentioned greening your period way back when I first started doing the Green Sunday thing.  Menstruation isn’t really an issue right now for me, but with the birth coming up, I wanted to go ahead and order a few cloth pads to try them out.  Since Diva Cups and the like aren’t an option postpartum, I need to find an alternative to dealing with lochia and other postpartum discharge.

With this in mind, I acted on a tip I received from a fellow poster on the Kellymom.com forums and contacted Christy of JustFussy which is a mom-owned business specializing in cloth menstrual pads, cloth diapers, reusable nursing pads, and undies.

I wasn’t completely sure.  I’ve used Gladrags before to back up my diva cup, and they were nice, but I didn’t love them, if that makes sense.  What I wanted was something more like the really nice cloth diapers with the ultra-soft and cushy insides.

JustFussy delivers the cushiness I wanted and more!  I wasn’t sure what I should get, so I emailed Christy directly and explained that I was looking for something for postpartum.  She was fantastic.  She recommended trying a few of the pads first to get a feel for them and decide which ones worked best.  So that’s exactly what I did!

Here’s what I ended up getting from her:

Christy was also kind enough to throw in

With the exception of the ultralight daily liner and the cloth rounds, the pads I got from Christy are made from bamboo velour with a wool backing.

This worried me.  First of all, the only velour I’ve ever worn was polyester and it tended to be hot.  Also, wool?  ’Scuse me while I drop an ice pack down my pants! *phew!*  Too much heat!  I’m a cotton girl all the way!  But I trusted my cloth diapering friends and I decided to give it a shot.

I am so glad that I did!

Let me tell you first of all how well these guys breathe.  Both the bamboo and the wool keep me feeling much cooler and fresher than even just my plain underwear!  When it comes to moisture (and yes, this is a serious issue during pregnancy), the bamboo wicks the moisture straight into the very absorbent wool backing.

What I’ve discovered is that the cotton pads I was using had been holding the moisture against my skin.  This left me feeling… not so fresh, let’s say.  It was quite a revelation to wear the Moonbow pads.  A very different  and much more pleasant experience.

Another thing I like about these pads is how they feel on.  I simply do not wear pads.  Before I switched to the Diva Cup, I used tampons.  Pads just were never something I liked.  For me they were hot, itchy, and smelly.  Gladrags were better, but they were bulky and still left me feeling gross and stinky.

I was pretty worried that these would be so bulky that I wouldn’t be able to deal with them.  Once again, Christy proved me wrong!  None of these pads feel particularly thick and bulky.  The velour keeps them soft and cool feeling on the fanny, and the wool allows them to be very absorbent without adding to the bulk.  Even the large, which really is overkill for right now, is still as comfortable as the thin little Moonbow liner.  I tried the XL pad last week because the others were all in the wash, and while that one certainly was bulky (4 layers of absorption anyone?) it was no more bulky than the Gladrags and definitely cooler and more comfortable.  I’m glad to know I don’t have to be scared of that one for postpartum.

The wingless Moonbows are really nice.  Later on they’ll act as boosters, but for now, I can just stick them in my undies like a regular pad.  The wool on the back keeps them from crawling out the back of my jeans, which has happened with the Gladrags when I use the boosters alone as a liner.  I have to be careful when I use the restroom so that they don’t fall in the toilet, but like the others, they do the job.  Right now they’re back up pads, later they’ll be boosters.  Christy also recommended soaking these in witch hazel and placing them in the fridge to help soothe that sore postpartum bottom.  Sounds like a fantastic idea to me!

Aside from the comfort, these pads are really pretty.  I’m such a sucker for color and JustFussy Moonbows deliver on that end as well.  I mean, it’s in the name!  Get it?  Moonbow?  Rainbow?  The fabrics are all hand-dyed, and I can tell you that several washings later, they’re still the same rich jewel tones that they were in the beginning.  Now I’m not saying you should throw your raspberry pads into the washer with your white shirts.  That’s just never a good idea.  But they have, thus far, not caused a problem in our laundry.  If you prefer, there is an undyed option as well.

I really, really love these pads.  I can’t wait to get more.  In addition to the one that I tried there is a Large Extra Moonbow pad that looks like it would be great for those heavier days.  It’s the size of the large, but has the same four layers as the XL.

All-in-all, I really can’t say enough good things about these pads.  I’m so glad I got brave enough to give them a shot.  They really are wonderful and you should definitely give them a try.


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My Favorite Things – Kiehl’s Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter

I’d like to begin periodically posting a segment on things that I love.  Those little items that I’ve discovered that just make my life easier and that I love to recommend to my friends.  Please understand that while I will probably be making product recommendations here, I’m not receiving any kind of kick back.  Not even any free stuff!  Humph!  These are just things that I happen to really like.

I’ll kick off my Favorite Things series by talking about a product that I discovered this weekend: Kiehl’s Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter.

Okay, I’ve been a Kiehl’s fan for a while.  After Gabi was born, I decided that I needed to get back into a good skin care regimen, and after doing a lot of digging around and reading, I decided to give Kiehl’s a try.  It’s not an inexpensive line, but it’s not outrageously expensive either (La Prairie and Chanel, I’m looking at YOU!).  Above all, it seemed like the quality of the product (as opposed to packaging and marketing efforts) was the main focus of the line.  Their focus is specifically on skin care.  They seem to stick to what they’re good at and focus on doing that really well.

The skin care line turned out to be phenomenal.  The customer service?  Excellent.  It helps that I got it at Nordstrom where customer service is a primary focus.  The lady who helped me obviously loved the product line, and having worked previously in cosmetics myself as a Chanel girl, I can tell you that line loyalty says a lot about the product.  It’s easy to just want to go out there and make a sale on whatever line there is, but this woman loved her line and wanted to promote it even over more expensive products from other companies.

At any rate,  she not only sent me home with a full facial-care regimen, she gave me a ton of samples.  Not just fist-fulls of things pulled out of drawers like some folks will do, either.  She tailored her samples to items she thought I might be interested in. 

I’ve been hooked on Kiehl’s ever since.  I’ve tried and loved tons of their products.  I could rave about all of them probably, but the one I tried this weekend just really took the cake.

A year ago, one of the counter girls out here in California handed me a fist full of samples (the old grab and go trick).  She included a sample of the body butter, which normally I would have declined.  I don’t like body butters as a rule.  I’m not sure why.  I just don’t like them.  But she just popped a bunch of stuff in my bag, Gabi and Juan were fussy about being in the cosmetics department, and I just had other places to go.

I finally got desperate this Saturday and gave it a try.  Ever since going through the HG fun with the needle jabs and the dehydration, the backs of my hands have been horribly rough and dry.  They don’t crack and they don’t hurt, but I just can’t seem to get them to feel moisturized.  They just stay in a perpetual state of rough flakiness.

I’ve tried Cetaphil.  Nope.  I’ve tried Avalon Organics lotion.  Nope.  I’ve tried pure shea butter (from L’Occitane).  Not even close.  I’ve tried straight coconut oil.  Helped for a bit, but then the flakiness came right back.

Then, on a whim, I pulled out the little packet of Kiehl’s body butter.

I expected to hate it.  I expected the smell to give me a headache.  I expected it not to work.  I expected my hands to feel greasy.  I expected to have to re-apply it over and over and over and over.

Boy was I wrong!

It soaked into my skin immediately and it definitely did not hang around on the palms of my hands, which would have made me nuts.  And it really did moisturize my hands.  Immediately, the rough skin and the flakes disappeared.  Completely and instantly.  I could not believe it.

The scent was… pleasant.  Really pleasant.  And believe me, I hate scents.  Even when I’m not pregnant, I don’t like smelling like things.  Even good things, but this…  It didn’t smell frangranced.   It smelled like the scent came from the materials used to make it.  Now, when I flipped over the packet, I saw that there is “fragrance” listed in the ingredients.  So it does contain an added fragrance of some kind.  I can tell you this, though, the scent doesn’t cling or linger.  I appreciate that because part of the reason why I almost never use hand lotion is because the smell lingers and invariably gives me a headache.  Not with this one.  The scent is there for a bit and then it just sort of goes away. 

I also loved that my hands felt moisturized the entire day.  I am way to lazy to re-apply moisturizer, and with this one, I didn’t have to.  I put a little on in the morning and then a little on before bed and the feeling of being moisturized stuck around all day long.  That says something because with this pregnancy, I’m having to pee a lot and help a kiddo go potty which adds up to a lot of hand-washing.  That it was able to keep my hands moisturized through that without leaving me feeling greasy  really impressed me.

So, gosh darnit, I went out and got my own tub of the stuff.  Yes, I had to go to Nordstrom to get it, which means having to walk past their way too tempting shoe department, but you know what?  It’s a treat.  I’ve been through a lot, and sometimes you just have to treat yourself.

I only have a few caveats with this product.  It does contain soy (says so right in the name), so if you are sensitive to soy, you should probably steer clear.  It also does have a scent which sometimes causes people to have allergy issues, although, for me it doesn’t appear to trigger an allergic response.  And I am allergic to just about any fragrance.

The tub itself was $35.  Pricey?  Yeah.  But a little goes a long way, and that it was able to take care of the dry hands I’ve been fighting for months in less than five minutes makes it worth it to me.  The little sample packet lasted me four days.  How long is that big 8 oz jar going to last?  A very long time!

So if you find yourself in need of a special gift for someone (or yourself!), consider the Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter from Kiehl’s.  It’s luxurious and lovely stuff.

Pros:

  • non-greasy moisture
  • immediate relief of chronic dry skin
  • moisture seems to stick around through multiple hand-washings
  • pleasant, light, natural smell that dissipates quickly
  • a little goes a long way

Cons:

  • $35 per jar
  • scent might bother some people with sensitivities
  • contains soy

Where to find:

  • Most Nordstrom, Saks 5th Avenue, and Nieman Marcus stores sell Kiehl’s, which is surprising because it is often less expensive than other cosmetics lines carried by those stores.
  • Kiehl’s has their own stores in some cities (store locator)
  • The Kiehl’s website - be sure to check out the sometimes hilarious pronunciation guide in the key ingredients tab for the products.

Reminder – I’m not being paid or compensated in any way to endorse this product.  They don’t even know I’m writing this, because I’m not that important.  I just really like it!

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