Anonymous wrote:

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.

My lotions do NOT contain mineral oil....including the CB stuff.

Good for your kids!

Anonymous wrote:
So anyway, even if they are still better than many, they're not the best and this kind of corporate behavior is NOT okay. I will never buy their products again - even the ones they haven't changed.

This. It's the behavior more than the formula change that I take issue with. Lying about baby products is never, ever okay (and the funny part is that I would have been fine if they'd said "hey, we're adding preservatives because we're distributing nationally now and really need a longer shelf life for our products.") We use Weleda and other products with similar additives, but they're listed right there on the label so I would know how to track down a problem ingredient if we had a rash.

Ack! Sorry for the repeat offense of "mislead" vs. "misled."

Anonymous wrote:What is so bad about sodium benzoate?

It can cause allergic reactions and rashes in people who are allergic to it. It can react with other ingredients to form benzene, which is a carcinogen, and since it's also used as an insecticide and fungicide many aren't comfortable using it on the skin, but it is approved for cosmetic use. However, since many parents were using CB products for babies with sensitive skin or skin conditions, adding something known to cause reactions without notifying people was the big issue. The new labels do list it, but the old labels didn't, even though it had been added to the formula. It's in a LOT of products, but if you were specifically buying CB because it wasn't in there...adding it is a huge problem.

you know, it's funny. A few weeks before the whole fiasco with the CB ingredients list, we FINALLY had to replace our shampoo (we don't shampoo often, usually just scrub with water, and we had the huge size). Anyway, for whatever reason, DS had a freakout when we were using it, which we did not think much of because he's not a fan of being shampooed in the first place. But the next morning he had red patches all over. We had no idea it was linked, didn't even think to suspect the shampoo because we've been using it forever. I thought maybe we'd used too warm of water or he had had dairy (he's sensitive) or that the water company had treated the water with chloramine instead of chlorine, which causes problems for me and DS both. Anyway we noticed it occasionally over the next few weeks even though we didn't notice a problem with our water. When we saw the news about CB, we immediately made the connection, stopped using the product and haven't had a problem since. Granted, it's only been 2 weeks or so, but I think we have our smoking gun. I'm really upset that the formula change was not marked. It really puts parents like me in a box (my kid is sensitive to EVERYTHING!). When you make changes to a "supersensitive" wash, that is used by families like ours, you have a responsibility to note formula changes.

I wanted to chalk this up to a small company mistake, but it seems clear that the founders and management intentionally mislead. The other thing is parents were apparently posting on their FB page saying "did your formula change? it smells different" or even worse "yikes, we had a breakout did your formula change?" and the founder was all "nope, same great product as ever." Then they issued an "apology" of sorts, acknowledging a formula change but defending their responses saying "I guess our definition of 'change' is different. We stand by our claims that it is still the same great product." Total intentional obfuscating. So I went from feeling mildly annoyed to simply pissed and totally disappointed in what I thought was a great company. They are probably still better than 90 percent of the other products out there if your kid doesn't have major allergies, but I'm not going to reward a company that traded on people's desire for natural and chemical-free and then changed the formula and mislead people in their desire to reach a larger market (this whole thing coincided with huge increase in the product's availability and a more prominent placement at Target, btw, just something I've personally noticed). Perhaps Target wanted a more shelf-stable product so it didn't have to deal with mainstream people unused to the product saying "it's milky" or "why does it expire within a year?"

So anyway, even if they are still better than many, they're not the best and this kind of corporate behavior is NOT okay. I will never buy their products again - even the ones they haven't changed.

I hope Earth Mama Angel Baby gets a huge boost out of this. I like their products but they are harder to find.

The NICU recommended that we bathe our twins every 3 days and use a couple of dabs of gentle/mild soap. We do this. Although they don't sweat, it helps clean up after 3 days of diapers and spit-up and drool and anything else they might get into. I find it helpful.

And the funny thing about cradle cap, we started to have a problem with cradle cap. We tried several products recommended by our pediatrician to combat the oil and it didn't change the cradle cap and just made the skin very irritated. I found the following page (http://justtoyia.hubpages.com/hub/HOW-TO-CLEAR-CRADLE-CAP-ON-YOUR-BABY and followed the instructions. It definitely helped with the cradle cap and now I only have to repeat once every 2-3 baths instead of every time. I don't leave it on for one hour anymore, but more like 10-15 minutes. I rub the oil on, then get the bath supplies and bath ready then bathe them and then wash the oil out of their hair. It definitely makes a difference for us.

Back OT, we were using the CB Super Sensitive body wash and shampoo, but DW has reacted badly to items formulated with Sodium Benzoate, so we decided not to risk it. I just purchased BABYGANICS BODY WASH FRAGRANCE FREE and we're going to try that. Until this thread, I had forgotten that we got a sample of the Mustela FF at the hospital and used that for the first couple of weeks and it worked well. If the Babyganics doesn't work well, we'll go back to the Mustela.

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.

My lotions do NOT contain mineral oil....including the CB stuff.