GIVEAWAY if you follow me on Google Friend Connect

If you are getting this in your RSS feed, it is because you are still following my OLD address. This is my desperate attempt to lure you over to the new site. I would hate to lose you!!

So when my site switched hosts, I lost all of my Google Friend followers. I miss you guys! Followers have immediate access to survey announcements, reviews, and posts–so having several followers benefits everyone here because it makes sure that all of you have access to the latest PTS news AND you know right away when there is a survey that you can respond to.

Therefore, Michelle at Green Diaper Demos is hosting ANOTHER giveaway here (she is amazing, right? I am telling you, she is one of my favorite people in the Cloth Diapering business, and I am not saying that because she is hosting giveaways).

On November 30, I will select a Google Friend Follower at random to win a Softbums Snaps diaper.

There is also a referral form here. You just fill out the form if you were referred by someone and I will select one lucky referrer to get a Softbums Snaps diaper as well! So all of you better pass this on to your friends so that you can up the odds of winning a diaper!

Please switch feeds! Here is where you go to check out the new site: www.paddedtushstats.com

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Switch RSS Feeds!

This is just a friendly reminder that I have changed websites and you will need to go to my site to update your RSS feed. I would love to keep you around. Also, because of the switch, I lost all of my Google Friends. There were over 400 of you wonderful people...could you please go to the new site and add me?

Thanks!

www.paddedtushstats.com

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Please help me out

Hey you guys, so if you are reading this, you are linked to the old RSS feed for Padded Tush Stats. I am writing because I switched blogs so you will need to subscribe to the new feed over at www.paddedtushstats.com

But I am mostly writing to see if you can do me a huge favor. In my transfer, I lost all of my Google Friend followers. This number is crucial for me to get diapers from companies to review, so could you please take a second and "Follow" me? Thanks!

Come on over to www.paddedtushstats.com and check out the new digs! I hope you like it!

~Tara

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We've moved!

Padded Tush Stats has moved to www.paddedtushstats.com
Please edit your RSS feeds and links and follow me over there.
Oh, and come check out the new site! (it's still a little under construction, but I'd love a visit from you!)

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CJ's BUTTer Giveaway!

The owners of CJ's BUTTer have gladly agreed to host a giveaway on our website in celebration of the new article comparing Bath and Body Works scents with CJ's BUTTer scents.

Winner will receive a tub of the BUTTer in any of the fragrances discussed in the article discussed above.
Giveaway ends 10/25/11 at 11:59 PST. Winner selected via random.org.
No entries submitted after the time indicated will be considered.
Winner will have 48 hours to respond.
Good luck!

Please fill out the form below to enter. Thanks CJ's for the giveaway!

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Bath and Body Works Meets Butt–Comparing CJ’s scents to Bath and Body Works Scents

Little known fact about our household: we are a Bath and Body Works house. My husband and I worked there for several years off and on and when we married, we discovered that we breed Bath and Body Works products. Plus we are pretty much monthly regulars in our BBW store (yup, we are cool like that, we call it B-B-dub). Someone can walk past us and if they are wearing BBW, we catch the whiff like Edward Cullen within 30 yards of Bella and we can say what they are wearing. Our noses remember scents from years back, the ones they NEVER should have gotten rid of (ah-hem, Bergamot Coriander, White Tea and Ginger, Water Blossom Ivy, Green Clover & Aloe—by the way, did you hear Cucumber Melon is now bye-bye?). So when I am buying products online, I want to know how they measure up to the BBW. I thought it might help to compare the different CJ BUTTer scents with that of BBW scents. Since most of us have access of the local BBW, we can get a sense of how CJ scents might be before we buy them.

Image courtesy of www.cjsuniqueboutique.com

Before I get into the sniffing action, let’s first talk about WHAT CJ’s is and why it is great to use:

* It is a cream you put on diaper rash. Cloth diaper creams like Desitin, A&D, and even Vaseline are bad news for diapers. You will get some serious repelling if you use that stuff. CJ’s dissolves in water, so it is perfect to use.

* It is all natural.

* It is made from shea butter, olive oil, coconut oil, lanolin, beeswax, cocoa butter, Vitamin E and colloidal oatmeal.  The BUTTer PLUS formula (which you can use for yeast infections) does not have the lanolin and oatmeal, but instead sesame and neem oils.

* It comes in a little tub (like what vaseline comes in), or you can get it in a tube, a stick (kind of like deodorant). There is also a yeast formula that you can spray on so you aren't touching the yeast (this stuff is great if you have a little one with a painful rash as well, simply because you don’t have to touch the rash. I know my little one would jump through the roof as I put on the cream sometimes by hand, so the spray is very helpful!).

Other Uses for it:

* Put it on very dry skin

* Put it on skin after a sunburn to help relieve pain

* Baby massages

* Leave-in conditioner

* Hang nails

My Review: I bought this stuff to help fight my daughter’s rash. She was plagued with a terrible rash the first year of her life. This was always helpful to get her soothed. The only problem was….I got repelling. Like BIG time. I contacted the company, and at that time they said they hadn’t heard of this issue (there has since then been posted a comment on the site about how natural detergents may impact it --see footnote at end of this post). I whined on online forums, and people thought I was crazy, it HAD to be due to something else. A new detergent? Dryer sheets? But I knew the repelling happened the moment I started CJ’s. And every time I used it, I got repelling. FINALLY I figured out the secret: WATER. If your machine doesn’t spit enough water on your diapers (yes, I said spit, because my machine spits instead of sprays…weaksauce), CJ’s won’t work. And, may I argue, you NEED water to clean your diapers. I found out my diapers were not getting cleaned enough because my machine is EVIL—so whether or not I was using CJ’s, I really SHOULD have been using more water. Now I do a rinse, whitest whites wash setting (that includes an extra rinse). Ever since then I have had NO repelling and I can use CJ’s to my heart’s content. So maybe there is another one of you out there who is having repelling, and to you I say, “You aren’t alone. You aren’t crazy. You need more water.”

But this stuff is great. Once I discovered the water secret, I bought a bunch on my own. If I saw redness on either of my babies’ bums, I would put this on and most likely the rash was gone by the next diaper change. And it makes their bums smell MUCH better. I started digging on the scents and so I contacted CJ’s with this Bath and Body Works Idea and they sent me a loot to sniff through with my “trained nose.” They also sent me their Vegan Formula. I think the performance of this is very similar to the regular stuff, it just looks a little like craft paste in the jar. But once it hits the bum of my babies, it melts in a bit and starts to glide on like the regular CJ’s.

So my overall verdict is that this product is GREAT. I like that it smells good enough to be able to have multiple uses, so if it doesn’t work on rashes, you can use it for cracked heels, stretch marks, or whatever (I’d argue it would make a great smelling replacement to WD-40!).

 

So here’s what I did. I BLINDLY smelled these. I didn’t read the labels and I didn’t look at the list of fragrance titles before sniffing. I just sniffed away. All right, let’s get on to our sniffing…I have them categorized by scent type and the ones with asterisks (**) are my top picks for the categories. Don’t you wish we had scratch and sniff computer screens?

Sweet Fragrances

Sweet Memories - This kind of reminds me of kid perfume. It is very sweet, a little fruity. I would compare this to Sweet Pea, Cucumber Melon, and even a more perfume-like scent such as Black Amethyst. Definitely brace yourself for it being sweet.

Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey: This is a very sweet smell, but with a hint of spice in the background. it kind of reminds me of the smell of a vanilla frosting with a hint of lemon in it. It definitely is a great mix of clean and sweet. It has the sweetness of Warm vanilla sugar, but there is definitely a bigger dose of honey sweet, and there is a little acidity in the smell as well—a clean, refreshing acidity.

Cucumber Melon – this smells exactly like the BBW Cucumber Melon. It has the refreshing smell of cucumber, with the sweetness of the melon.

Monkey Farts - This one is sweet sweet sweet. If you like sun ripened raspberry, cucumber melon, or anything sweet, this is the way to go. It smells a lot like melon to me and very ripe banana. It reminds me a lot of tropical lip balms. If you like coconut lime verbena (coconut dream) or mango mandarin, this is the way to go.

** Blueberry Crumble – This smells hands down like Sun Ripened Raspberry, but with a little more blueberry scent to it. So delicious. It totally reminds me of freshly baked blueberry muffins

Pixie Pie - Ha ha ha, I smelled this and said, “What the crap!” This is STRONG and hard to pinpoint. My wild guess was coconut, but then I just HAD to cheat and look….and “My Pixie Pie” doesn’t help me too much in my cheating endeavors! It is really sweet. I just think of shaved coconut…I don’t know why. It definitely has a little soft lemon to it. But this is the most potent smelling one. So if you like coconut lime verbena, or your kid tends to stink (no offense!), maybe this is the way to go. (Post edit: The company clarified the ingredients…I wasn’t too far off! “It's mostly toasted almond, cherry blossom, vanilla, coconut and a few other secrets.”)

Mango Sugar Mint – Every time I put this on the little one, my husband says, “Ooh that smells good!” It isn’t an exact replica of Mango Mandarin, it is a lot more sugary, but also very refreshing with that touch of mint to it. It is a nice sweet, fruity, light scent.

Perfume Fragrances

Lullaby Baby - This is a very soft, perfume like fragrance. If my freshly bathed baby fell into a tub of my Mom’s perfume, this is the combo you would get. Tiere Flower, Cherry Blossom, Japanese Cherry Blossom, Moonlight Path

Madagascar - This totally reminds me of Tiere flower, which was a very perfumy scent from their Islands of Tahiti collection. It also smells like Black Amethyst. It is definitely a perfumy scent.

** Honeyed Patchouli - One word: WOW. This one is so beautiful. Perfectly sweet, perfectly clean. I’d wanna smell like this on my wedding day. I feel like it is the perfect balance of everything. If you like PINK Pretty and Pure or Sweet Wonderland, this is a great one.

Sensuality - This smells just like a jasmine plant. Just like it! If you like Night Blooming Jasmine, White Gardenia, Jasmine Vanilla, you may like this!

Love Spell – OK, I am not crossing enemy lines by saying this, because BB-dub and Victoria’s Secret are the same company, but this smells JUST like the Victoria’s Secret “Love Spell” (and yes, I knew that before checking the label). The scents are identical. But, I need to give you a BBW comparison, so I would have to say if you like Orange Ginger or White Tea and Ginger, this is a good one (ha, I just noticed I said Ginger for both scents, I wonder if there is even ginger in this!). It is both sweet and perfume-like.

Sweet Bay Rose – This stumped me so much that I finally had to pass it on to the hubby (don’t worry, his nose is well-trained, probably better than mine). He thought it smelled like baby. When we both looked at the label, he went, “aaaah, it does kind of smell like rose.” I’d say if you like the old Sandalwood Rose, this is a good call. Japanese Cherry Blossom, Moonlight Path, or P.S. I Love You would all be good cousins to this.

Refreshing

Lemon, Sage, and Ginger - This one is VERY lemony. It kind of reminds me of cleaner. If you like  Kitchen Lemon, you’d like this

Caribbean Therapy - This one smells a lot like a Vicks Vapor rub, but without the vapors. It has a clean, mediciny scent with a strong mint undertone. Eucalyptus Spearmint

Tea Tree Essential oil – This smells exactly like the tea tree essential oil. Exactly. (and yes, BBW once carried a whole line of essential oils!). If you like clean, medicine like scents, this is the way to go. Plus you benefit from the anti-microbial powers of tea tree oil. If you like Eucalyptus Spearmint, you may like this one.

Coconut Lime Dream - This one about knocked me over at first sniff. Very strong, but very good. It smells JUST LIKE coconut. If you like coconut lime verbena, this is the way to go.

Intrigue - This one is very lemony as well, but it also has a little freshness like the old Green Tea and Cucumber. In addition to that, there is a little grassy scent to it, kind of the like the Water Blossom Ivy. If you like Aqua Blossom, this might be a good one for you.

Warm Vanilla Cake - I initially thought this was unscented. It is a very very very soft scent. More clean than anything else, with a very subtle touch of sweet. I would put this in the Warm Vanilla Sugar category. The company told me that for some reason this scent sets weird in the container sometimes, so they recommend heating it up and stirring it again and it should be fine.

**Cherry Blossom - Oh frickin’ YUM. This one smells great. Another well-balanced fragrance. A little freshness, a little perfume. I don’t get any fruit in this one. Eucalyptus Spearmint is definitely it’s closest relative. A distant cousin could be juniper breeze. (POST SCENT NOTE: Ha! I guess Cherry Blossom might be a good call! I didn’t get that same experience, it smelled far more fresh than Cherry Blossom)

Bergamot Coriander – this is very citrusy. It smells a lot like grapefruit and orange. If you like Grapefruit Peppermint or Orange Ginger, you would like this one (don’t go into this thinking it smells like the GREATEST BBW fragrance ever, Bergamot Coriander. Sadly, it doesn’t, but it still smells good.)

 

Woodsy

Indiginous - This is a VERY grassy scent. A little bit like Fireside, but with a more grassy scent. If you like Twilight Wood, you may like this one.

Frankincense and Myrrh - This smells like hippie (no offense if you are one!). Not the unshaved armpits, no-deodorant kind (again, no offense!), but this is the GOOD smell that emanates from a Whole Earth Festival. It smells JUST like the smoke of burning incense. If you like the Wheat Bran Patchouli shampoo (I think that is discontinued), you’d DEFINITELY like this. I am not sure that BBW has a modern-day comparison! Maybe Jasmine Vanilla?

**Sea Spice – This smells manly. Manly cologne, but it also has a refreshing smell to it.  Could be a cousin to the BBW Noir fragrance.

 

Unscented – ha, this one really is. I had to check the container, I thought maybe I did so much smelling I burned off my nosehairs and lost scent. But alas, they are still in tact. This smells like….nothing.

 

Where can you buy these?

* There is a great thread at Diaper Swappers about places where you can get get free shipping.

* I also like Sew Crafty Baby. Shipping is free and there is almost always some kind of discount on the Facebook page. The link here is an affiliate link so if you purchase using that link I thank you in advance!

* I also have an affiliate link at Kelly’s closet, where they often have free diaper deals.

* Another affiliate: one of my sponsors, Green Diaper Demos, carrier CJ’s. I love the customer service of this company. Absolutely amazing.

 

Do you have any interesting uses for CJ’s? Share them in the comments below.

What about a favorite scent? Do tell!

Footnote: Here is what CJ’s had to say about possible repelling issues, “In our experience, anyone who has had repelling with cloth diapers, possibly due to CJ’s, has been using it in conjunction with a natural -baking soda based- detergent. While very few users of natural detergents (or any users at all for that matter!) experience problems, we recommend that if using CJ’s in conjunction with a baking soda based detergent and especially diapers made with synthetic materials, adding either a capful of bleach every so often to your wash routine, or adding an additional surfectant such as Dawn or Simple Green, combined with HOT water, will reduce the chance of any kind of repelling issues.”

DISCLAIMER: Not all descriptions or comparisons here may be 100% accurate. Remember that my nose has been tainted by 2 years of poopy diaper changes.

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Babykicks 3G One Size Pocket Diaper

Image courtesy of www.babykicks.com

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