Thursday, March 15, 2012

All kinds of cloth and reusable goodness!



I am breaking my blogging silence again with a post about women's menstrual products. I have been meaning to write this for awhile but did not get to it untill today!

Anyway tax time came around again and I was able to make my "mama stash" a little bigger. :) I thought I would share my honest opinions again. If you would like to read my first post about menstrual related products including some brands not mentioned in this new post click ---> HERE! :)

As you can see from the picture above it may look like I went a little crazy BUT for a woman products to keep us clean and sane are VERY important and a necessity!

First up are my new mama cloth from Homestead Emporium! I have been wanting some of her mama cloth for a while now and I am in love! First I'll point out the obvious. Look at how AMAZINGLY beautiful these are!!!These are made by a WAHM and she hand dyes her fabric as well. These are SO soft, comfy and well made. No leaks even without my diva cup. LOVE them!
 


 And this beautiful duo came from MotherMoonPads (also made by a WAHM!) and are my second purchase from her. Of course I bought a second time because they are wonderful, soft, well made and great against leaks as well! Look at how cute they are, owls and pink piggies! :D



 Now I just threw these nursing pads from bamboobies in here because they arrived around the same time as everything else and are cloth and reusable. They were actually free for shipping! They are thin and work well for small leaks. Of course these were freebies and are meant to be very thin, they aren't made for major milk leaks. If you need more protection you are obviously going to need a breast pad with more then 2 thin layers.  They are so cute. :D



Now look at these! I will not pass up rainbows anytime I can find them! I have been looking for the right rainbow wipes for a long time now. And these wipes from Hazelbee Baby were it! But what is the purpose of all those wipes because there sure is a lot?! Family cloth. Yep I have finally joined the "gross hippie bandwagon". ;P Although as I am writing this I have not done anything but wash them yet.. But I did get them with the full intention of using them, and I will! It is just one more thing to add to my routine and have not fully jumped in yet. My goal at the very least was to use them for myself for #1. Nothing gross about that and considering I now have a wetbag for my mama cloth, they can be tossed right in too.




Look at how beautiful these are! Ahhhh the colors! :D She had them in neutral colors and girly colors. I got the girly for me (obviously!) and the neutral for my oldest boy. What about the husband and my youngest boy? Well I am all about saving the earth and making less waste. BUT my husbands "waste" is not something I can deal with yet. For a long time I said no way I could do family cloth and here I am trying to do it. But if my husband ever wants to jump on board he will have to wash his own.. Who knows maybe someday I will not be freaked out by that but for now, no thank you. And as for my littlest boy he is still in cloth diapers and has all those wipes I made for him already awhile back. :)



 And I super love that the other side is black on half of them. I figured these would be perfect for #2 wipes as stains would not show nearly as much! I know family cloth sounds ridiculous to some but it makes so much sense. And just the same as my mama cloth if there is some strange shortage of toilet paper someday, as long as I have my washing machine I can provide my family with a nice way to get clean.! Or even one of those rare days that you need to use the bathroom and realize you have no more TP! No worry grab some cloth.

We will still be buying paper toilet paper as I mentioned for my hubby so I am not too worried about anything. I just love the fact that we can reduce our household waste even more by doing this.



 And now for my first personal wetbag! Since my mama cloth journey I have just been throwing my cloth in this little fabric bag with a drawstring. This is so  much nicer! I got it HERE! It is well made and works great. And I love the print as well! Not pictured in this blog is the smaller wetbag I bought for my older sons family cloth. It has cute little dinosaurs on it and is very well made just as the others! And to add for the family cloth I just feel better keeping everyone's cloth separate so we all have our own wetbags now. :)




 And last but not least a new cup! Pretty huh? It is the Lunette cup. Well prettier then plain white I think (white is really not on the list of things I like). I am not sure on it yet though. I hear lots of people say they like this brand better then the diva cup. But I actually tried it for a day or 2 and went back to my diva.. I am going to give it another chance but maybe for my body it is just not right. It is stiffer then the diva. Or maybe the diva has gotten softer with use and I just don't remember it being that stiff? I leaked worse with the Lunette.. I felt because it was stiffer it didn't mold to my body right. But maybe with use it will get softer. I am definitely going to give it some more time. Just hard when something else works better for you...

 I try to buy handmade products as much as possible if I don't make it myself. Stop feeding the corporations and start feeding the people! Now obviously there are no WAHM menstrual cups (that I know of, feel free to let me know if there is!) but buy from families when ever you can!

Switching to cloth may seem like a big scary issue at first but it really isn't hard once you have nice things that work for you! And I would NEVER go back to anything disposable ever again by choice! Any questions, feel free to ask and I will answer to the best of my knowledge/experience or direct you elsewhere that I may know of! <3