Trade It Tuesday

This week's topic:  SOAP!

No, you can't eat soap.  Even the all natural kind.  But did you know that the artificial ingredients in mainstream soap can harm your kids as much as if they ate it?!?  Products that make contact with their skin, or get into their system via scents can cause issues for our babies.  For this reason, Feingold families switch to all natural, unscented, products when they first start the program.

The biggest things you want to switch are hair and body wash, hand soap and laundry detergent because they make direct contact with skin.  But if you clean your house when your kids are home you will also want to trade out bathroom cleaner, floor cleaner, etc.  I'll cover cleaning products in a future Trade It Tuesday post.    

I've tried a number of different products since we started Feingold, and there are some I love and some I can't stand!  Below are a number of my products of choice:

Laundry Detergent:  Use any product that is "Free and Clear".  I use Tide or All depending on what's on sale at Target.  But even Costco makes a free and clear Kirkland detergent.  This is one category (unlike food) that you don't have to pay extra for the good stuff!  I also use Bounce unscented dryer sheets.  It does take some getting used to the fact that your laundry comes out smelling like. . . .well, clothes, and not fragrance.  But trust me, these products work - even on Ben's clothes which are covered in whatever he was eating/using/touching.

I've tried many products for the dishwasher and my favorite are these Method Unscented Smarty Tabs.  They work fantastic and can be found at many different places, including Target.  

Hand soap is a big deal, and most that you find in the store have tons of artificial fragrance in them.  This soaks right into your kiddos' hands!  My favorite all natural hand soap is by Seventh Generation and again is unscented.  It is a great price and usually pretty easy to find at Target.  They also have a few all natural scented flavors, but we stick with this one below.  

Hand sanitizer was pretty difficult for me to find, and I ended up ordering it online on Amazon.  This is the product we use and I stock Ben's daycare and his classroom with a bottle (especially since he can't use the nasty pink soap in the school bathroom).

There are a number of choices these days for all natural, scented and unscented bath products.  In fact, there are so many more choices now than even a year ago when we started Feingold.  I've experimented with a few products from Toys R Us (now that they carry a whole section of baby products), Target, Henry's (Sprouts) and Whole Foods.  Below are a couple of my favorites.

California Baby can be found at Target, Toys R Us, and many other grocery stores, including Whole Foods.  

 The BabyGanics line is carried at Toys R Us and there are a ton of products, including shampoo/body wash, hand soap, bubble bath, hand sanitizer, cleaning products and more.  The price is reasonable, too.  I really like this line of products and they are cheaper than the California Baby products.  They also sell giant refill bottles to help minimize the cost.

I like the Vanilla Tangerine scent of the Nature's Baby Organics products, but I can't use tangerine on Ben (Stage 2).  I like the shampoo and conditioner for Lia's hair, however.  I find this brand at Sprouts and recently noticed that Bel Air started carrying this line as well.

There are A TON of all natural products in very mainstream stores these days.  It is very easy to find a soap product that will not harm your babies while you are cleaning them.  Soap is just one more piece of the puzzle for keeping our kiddos in a chemical free environment!