Favourite Products: Naturals Beauty

As a little girl I would always get sweet smelling bubble bath in the prettiest Tinkerbell, Care Bear or My little Pony bottles for my birthday. After the party my mom would pack it away only to be taken out and used on days that she felt brave enough to deal with a red, irritated crying toddler.  I had very bad eczema as a child and couldn't wear nylon, wool or use any perfumed or scented products. I really struggled with it and doctors kept telling my parents that I would outgrow it at 16. Sure it did get better over the years but never completely went away. I was very worried about Ben getting my eczema and unfortunately he did. Luckily it doesn't seem to be as severe as mine was.

We started off using Epizone A on Ben and then switched to Cetaphil.  The Cetaphil is a bit pricey but Ben's skin started feeling less sandpapery and more baby like so I was happy.  Then a fellow mom posted a picture of Naturals Beauty RR Baby Range and I just loved the look of it. You see I'm the kind of person who buy wine based on how much I like the label which is why we drank Tall Horse for a very very long time even though I didn't really care for the wine. I'm all about the packaging. 

The RR Baby Range products sounded lovely and I was very intrigued but also not sure if it would work on Ben's eczema skin. I was offered a trial pack to see how it goes.

The Baby Set I got contains a 200ml Body Lotion, Body Wash and Shampoo and the Gentle Milk Wash.  I spoke to the lovely Tanya du Boys creator of Naturals Beauty and mom of two who told me the following: 

 

- We use only natural ingredients and we use as many organic ingredients as possible. There are 3 products in total.

No matter what the child’s age is I would recommend using our moisturising milk wash instead of a soap or a gel cleanser. Gels and soaps traditionally draw moisture from the skin and as you know this is not an ideal situation for eczema skin. The milk wash cleans the body and face but very gently (think of a milk cleanser for your face) and does not strip the skin of any natural oils. Our range is also VERY lightly scented with chamomile and we use no synthetic fragrances which are also known to irritate a sensitive skin. The lotion is light and has a lovely ‘slip’ to it which means you can  massage him (if he’ll lie still long enough!!) as well as use it as a lotion -

 

I LOVE these products.  There was no negative skin reaction to it at all. I love how gentle the Milk Wash is on his skin and the gorgeous shine and softness the Shampoo gives his hair.  There is a bit of scalp dryness afterwards but we have been battling with a bit of cradle cap since birth so dryness is to be expected.  The body lotion is silky soft and like Tanya said it does indeed have a nice slip to it. I just adore the healthy shine of Ben's skin after rubbing him in with lotion from head to toe.

 

 

The product is very reasonably priced and will last you quite a while. I honestly have no complaints and will definitely continue using it on Ben.

We'll learn as we go

We are part of a VERY small group of parents-to-be who decided not to attend Pre Natal classes even though we were ideal candidates as we knew VERY little about babies.  We decided to give the classes a miss as I was getting more and more panicky with each baby book I read. I felt SO overwhelmed by all the info. Husband probably knew my head would explode if I had to sit in a class while the process of giving birth was explained to me in full detail. So we ventured into the world of parenting with a ‘we’ll learn as we go’ attitude.

Roll on to 13 August 2013.  

The first morning in hospital as brand new parents to a gorgeous baby boy we had to attend a demonstration on how to bath your baby. I sat there deer in headlights trying to take in as much as I possibly could of what seemed like an impossible task. The next morning we had to do it ourselves.  I did not sleep at all that night. I walked the hall to the nursery like someone on death row. A terrified nervous wreck.  I couldn’t remember a thing the nurse said the previous day. I filled up the little baby bath with a sense of dread while they rolled my teeny tiny human over. It took me forever to undress him as I was petrified of breaking him. It took me even longer to bath him as I used a new cotton ball on every tiny part of his body worried about spreading infection. While washing his hair I honestly thought I was going to pass out from all the anxiety. This very long and very careful bath routine carried on for about 2 weeks. Now I cannot even believe bath time was such a terrifying experience as I plop my baby in the bath and wipe everything with the same wash cloth without even giving it a second thought.

 

Same goes for changing a diaper.  I made husband change the first 3 diapers in hospital as I just could not handle that kind of pressure in my fragile state. Now I change the diaper of a screaming baby trying to crawl off the changing table while banging the Sterimar bottle on the pretty porcelain bunny next to the change matt in seconds without even breaking a sweat.

The moral of the story is that yes being a parent can be scary, there will be tears, there will be moments of thinking ‘I can’t do this’ but you will adapt, you will learn, and soon it becomes second nature.  I now laugh at scared new mom me who took 20mins to top and tail her baby. What frightened me so is now my favourite time of day as I watch my baby splash in the bath and chew on a rubber ducky.