Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Young children don't need anything in the bath. They don't sweat, their skin is not oily.

We started doing shampoo after the first birthday and my child was born with a head full of hair!!!!

Our pediatrician warned us about the use of mineral oil in the LO's skin and I'm shocked to see that not more people know about this.

A little shampoo once a week helps avoid cradle cap...which is caused by a build up of excess oil. And no one is talking about using mineral oil on their baby's skin in this thread. I use a few drops of OLIVE oil to help with my son's dry skin. Agree with you that soap is not necessary though.

Just read the labels, almost all baby lotions have mineral oil, what's a shame!

BTW, I never washed my child's hair until her first birthday and she never had a problem with cradle cap. Once the problem starts you should address it but there's no reason to do anything to "prevent" it.

It's caused by a imbalance in oil production + yeast infection. You should keep your child's scalp clean but you don't need to scrub it with soap. BTW, it's believed to run in the family so you should watch for that too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Young children don't need anything in the bath. They don't sweat, their skin is not oily.

We started doing shampoo after the first birthday and my child was born with a head full of hair!!!!

Our pediatrician warned us about the use of mineral oil in the LO's skin and I'm shocked to see that not more people know about this.

A little shampoo once a week helps avoid cradle cap...which is caused by a build up of excess oil. And no one is talking about using mineral oil on their baby's skin in this thread. I use a few drops of OLIVE oil to help with my son's dry skin. Agree with you that soap is not necessary though.

Just read the labels, almost all baby lotions have mineral oil, what's a shame!

BTW, I never washed my child's hair until her first birthday and she never had a problem with cradle cap. Once the problem starts you should address it but there's no reason to do anything to "prevent" it.

What is so bad about sodium benzoate?

We used CB, but stopped after the whole fiasco with the formula changes---honestly it had less to do with the changes to the product (though I wasn't psyched about those, since I see no need for additives in baby products) than with the fact that they lied about it and hid it when customers started calling trying to figure out what was causing children's rashes.

For what it's worth, the last time I was in Whole Foods I also compared the old to new since they had bottles with both labels on the shelves---and was somewhat dismayed to see that there were also stickers on the *old* version listing additional ingredients that had been omitted from the original ingredient list, too. (I presume this came out of the whole debacle---don't know if WF or CB made the stickers, though.) Not cool.

It's too bad, because we liked their old formula shampoo fine...but we're switching to Dr. Bronner's. I trust that their ingredient list is accurate.

Anonymous wrote:Young children don't need anything in the bath. They don't sweat, their skin is not oily.

We started doing shampoo after the first birthday and my child was born with a head full of hair!!!!

Our pediatrician warned us about the use of mineral oil in the LO's skin and I'm shocked to see that not more people know about this.

A little shampoo once a week helps avoid cradle cap...which is caused by a build up of excess oil. And no one is talking about using mineral oil on their baby's skin in this thread. I use a few drops of OLIVE oil to help with my son's dry skin. Agree with you that soap is not necessary though.

Young children don't need anything in the bath. They don't sweat, their skin is not oily.

We started doing shampoo after the first birthday and my child was born with a head full of hair!!!!

Our pediatrician warned us about the use of mineral oil in the LO's skin and I'm shocked to see that not more people know about this.

I used their calming wash on my baby but I will not buy again since it has sodlium benzoate (or however you spell it). I do use their calendula cream on my excema infested hands, b/c its the only thing that works. Check out ewg.org --their skin deep cosmetic database will rate all products according to toxicity. I know fragrance of any kind (unless an essential oil) is a big no no

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the general parenting forum a week or so ago about how California Baby reformulated its products, and when customers called to complain, it denied that it had done so. It looks like the products are not as good for sensitive skin as they used to be and contain some common irritants like sodium benzoate. I am very disappointed.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/212581.page

That said, there are tons of natural product lines for kids, so I'm going to try something different.

Yeah, I was very disappointed in CB after reading about the way they handled the reformulation fiasco. I currently use Mustela (not very 'natural') wash and CB lotions, but I think I'm going to try Earth Mama Angel Baby products after I use up what I already have.

JSYK, the mustela produts actually score very well on the cosmetics database. All of the "stelaprotect" line are a "1".

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread in the general parenting forum a week or so ago about how California Baby reformulated its products, and when customers called to complain, it denied that it had done so. It looks like the products are not as good for sensitive skin as they used to be and contain some common irritants like sodium benzoate. I am very disappointed.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/212581.page

That said, there are tons of natural product lines for kids, so I'm going to try something different.

Yeah, I was very disappointed in CB after reading about the way they handled the reformulation fiasco. I currently use Mustela (not very 'natural') wash and CB lotions, but I think I'm going to try Earth Mama Angel Baby products after I use up what I already have.

10:04 poster- which line of California baby do you use?

There was a thread in the general parenting forum a week or so ago about how California Baby reformulated its products, and when customers called to complain, it denied that it had done so. It looks like the products are not as good for sensitive skin as they used to be and contain some common irritants like sodium benzoate. I am very disappointed.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/212581.page

That said, there are tons of natural product lines for kids, so I'm going to try something different.

I use them and love them, especially their calming bath wash and their sunblock. That being said, there is a bunch of buzz going around that they have re-formulated many (if not all) of their products to include sodium benzoate (sp?). If you google it, there is some mom-run website you'll find that talks about how many customers are unhappy with the reformulation, that it resulted in rashes, and that California Baby's customer service has handled the whole deal very poorly. I went to Whole Foods and checked out the ingredients on the new labels, comparing it to my current bottle. Sure enough, there is this new, not-so-organic sounding ingredient at the end. If you go to a brick-and-mortar store, you can still find products with the old ingredients (they've changed the typeface slightly on the new formula bottles, which is an easy way to distinguish the old and new products, if you were a customer previously). Anyway, I plan to keep using their products as long as I can find the old formula.

I like the calendula cream a lot for various rashes/scratches, and I use the calendula body wash/shampoo for myself!. That said, there's no reason to really use any soap on your kiddo, except for maybe his hair...

My DS has very sensitive, dry, eczema prone skin. We were using the CB very sensitive wash all over and it made things worse. Now we just do daily baths with a few drops of olive oil, and we use Mustela foaming shampoo on his head once a week. We use the leave-in CB calendula conditioner on his scalp too.

Can't recommend the Mustela products enough. They have a fragrance free line called Stelatopia and we use the moisturizing cream. All of their products are paraben, phthalate, and phenoxyethonal free.

i use california baby - after even aveeno baby gave my LO a rash. it's good stuff, absolutely no scent. and her hair comes out very soft and shiny.

Has anyone used them? I am expecting soon my first, and I am interested in using low toxicity/organic type products for bathtime/shampoo/lotion etc. Friend recommended the super sensitive line from California Baby. any experience or other recommendations appreciated.