Olivia's Room Dryer Ball Review and Giveaway

Ok so I took a tad longer to get this up than I had planned.  We passed our 10k pageviews and are now at 12k!  I love my fans and we're going to celebrate with a few giveaways. 


First up is a set of 4 dryer balls from Olivia's Room Boutique.  

Do you use fabric softener?  Do you know how bad it is for you and for the environment.  Here's a quick article.  

Ok, so now you're wondering how to soften your clothes.  Enter dryer balls!  Not only do they make your clothes softer, but they reduce static and drying time.  

Here's what Brittany, the owner of Olivia's Room Boutique, has to say about her wool dryer balls:

Dryer balls are amazing! Wool dryer balls are even better. With just 4 dryer balls in a load of laundry, it can cut your drying time by 40%! More balls, better drying time! By using wool dryer balls, it can eliminate the need for artificial softeners also, which are not recommended for use on your child's bedding or clothing. Keep in mind, that when using artificial softeners, it builds up on your clothes and in your washer/dryer, reduces fire retardancy of clothing, reduces absorbency of towels, and can cause allergic reactions in those with sensitive skin. My wool dryer balls are made from 100% wool, with the core being all natural wool roving, and dyed or natural wool yarn for decoration and durability. I make every dryer ball by hand, and each are needle and wet felted to ensure proper felting of the wool. Felting is what keeps your dryer balls together, so I double up just to be safe!! I am a [work at home mom], so when you purchase my products, it helps my family! I also stand behind every one of my products, so if you have an issue, you contact me directly, not a huge company who might defer your concerns down the line.

Olivia's Room Boutique has a Facebook Page and an Etsy store.  Feel free to check out her great products!  I would like to extend a huge thank you to Brittany for sponsoring this giveaway.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Coconut Oil-My new best friend

When I made the decision to use cloth diapers, I discovered that you can't use regular diaper rash creams, since the thick formula can ruin the diapers ability to absorb properly. SO I did some research and asking around and found that some people use coconut oil. But I thought you couldn't use oils with cloth diapers. Well coconut oil is different. So I bought a jar of it and have been amazed ever since. Especially recently, when I found countless more uses for this amazing product.

Coconut oil has a high melting point of around room temperature, so it is normally a solid product, and melts upon contact with skin. It literally turns to water. This makes it easy to apply to baby's bottom and also allows it to rinse clean out of diapers, as long as they're washed in hot water at some point during the wash routine. During the warmer months last summer, we kept our jar in the fridge, since it would melt quickly in the jar in baby K's room.

Now since coconut oil is so great on a diaper rash, that must make it pretty fantastic for all skin. I recently added some coconut oil to my face cleaning oil and it made it work even better. The few pimples that had started to form were gone almost instantly. So this made me do some more research into why coconut oil is so fantastic and here's what I found:

The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.

Quoted from Organic Facts.com

If you visit the above quoted website, there is detailed information into how coconut oil helps with hair and skin care, heart disease, weight loss, immunity and much more.

Now I'm sure you're thinking, well, WHERE can I get this amazing product?? You can find coconut oil in the cooking section or organic section of most grocery stores, or online, for example on Amazon.com or Well.ca. OR, you can enter my friend's giveaway, over at Captain Fussybuckets. Her giveaway ends on March 8th, so you have just over a week to enter. I know I'll be entering and even if I don't win, I'm going to buy more so I can start cooking with this stuff. Definitely not going to mix the diaper rash cream with my cooking stuff.

If you've used coconut oil, please share your favorite uses for it. I can't wait to try more things out!

Le Petit Refuge winner

Congratulations to entry number 21-Lara C. You are the winner of the Le Petit Refuge prizepack! I will contact you to arrange shipping. Hope you enjoy your new products!!

And a huge thank you to Amanda at Le Petit Refuge for providing the products for this giveaway. Best of luck with your new business!

Le Petit Refuge review and giveaway!

Let's switch for a moment, from house cleaning to something a bit more fun. When a good friend of mine, Amanda, opened an Etsy store selling bath and body products, I had to check it out. And I was drawn to one product and flavor in particular-CHAI TEA LIP REFUGE. I LOVE Chai Tea. In fact, I don't know if love is a strong enough word, I'm addicted to Chai Tea. So I HAD to buy the Chai Tea Lip Refuge from her new store, Le Petit Refuge. I ordered the pink lemonade as well. In my younger days, I was addicted to lip balm, in fact, I kind of still am. I've done really well in forcing myself to not go crazy with it, and mostly just use my Burt's Bees, with a few different flavors in there as well, but now I think I have a new favorite. While the Chai Tea Lip Refuge smells spicy and delicious, the Pink Lemonade is just so fresh. I definitely love them both. They are so smooth and moisturizing. And it's been below freezing here the last few days and I haven't had to break out the Burt's Bees, which is saying a lot.

The same day I received my order, I opened an adorable little cupcake lip balm that I had gotten M for Christmas. In doing so, I looked at the ingredient list on the back of the package and had to stop and think for a minute. Here I was giving my 3 year old lip gloss that has hydroxystearic acid and tocopheryl acetate on it's ingredient list, and also has a warning MAY INCLUDE: Mica, red 21 lake and a bunch of other red and yellow lakes (no idea what that means), and red, yellow and black iron oxide when I'm using a lip balm that contains Avocado Oil, Coconut Oil, Beeswax, Jojoba Oil, Castor Oil, Flavor Oil and that's it (copied from the product listing). I'm a bit thankful that M has no idea her adorable little cupcake toy is actually a lip gloss, and she'll be using my Pink Lemonade Lip Refuge while I indulge in my new Chai Tea (mmmmmmmm).

When I went to the mailbox and found my order there, it was in a large box. I was thinking, silly girl, I ordered two lip balms and was so surprised to find some extras in there. She had also sent me a sample of the Mimosa and Mandarin Sugar Scrub Cubes and some products for a giveaway. Now you all know I use baking soda to clean my hair, and oil to clean my face so I was super excited to have a natural body product that smelled delicious. I purchased a bunch of soaps this winter as gifts, and have found that not all of them smell like their indicated scent. All three of Le Petit Refuge products that I've tried smell exactly like what they're supposed to, and they're absolutely divine!

I'm no stranger to scrub products. I've used them on my face, feet, elbows, anywhere that needs a little polish. I've used both liquid scrubs, that are almost in a paste form, and dry scrubs that you mix with lotion or body wash for the consistency you need, and as indicated in the product description on Amanda's Etsy store, the containers get filled with water, and the scrubs become diluted and not as effective. She makes her Sugar Scrubs in a cube form, so you can take one cube with you into the shower or bath and leave the rest in the jar away from the water. And they work wonderfully. My feet have been super dry lately, so I took advantage of the sample to scrub them up and I am impressed! The cube form works great, and they are surprisingly resilient in the water. They don't turn to mush right away, so you have a chance to scrub everything you want. I went ahead and scrubbed my knees and elbows as well, since they also get dry and rough in the winter. My skin is now so soft and smooth, even two days, and two snowfalls, later. I will definitely be purchasing some Le Petit Refuge shower gel and body lotion and I'm sure many other products as well.

I can't forget to mention that not only is Amanda a very talented mama, she is also very stylish. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I opened my box and everything was packaged so professionally. Great job, Amanda, you will be so very successful with this venture. And you have to keep doing it because you now have some very addicted customers!

Now before you head over there and buy her out of stock, I'm giving one lucky blog follower a chance to try some products for free! Amanda also sent me an additional (and larger) jar of the Mimosa and Mandarin Sugar Scrub Cubes and a Pink Lemonade Slide Tin Lip Refuge to give away. Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below (open to Canadian and US resident)! Good luck!!

Thirsties Giveaway ends tomorrow

A friend of mine, Adventures in Fluff, is hosting a thirsties duo diaper giveaway that ends tomorrow. If you love these diapers or would love to try one out, head over and enter! You can find her button on my blog, but just in case, CLICK HERE to be taken directly to the giveaway.

Good luck!

Norwex product review and GIVEAWAY

About two and a half years ago I attended a Norwex party at a neighbors house. I had never heard of the company, but was just getting to know my neighbors and thought that a girls night out with wine, and within walking distance was a great thing. Turns out, I learned about a great company with amazing environmentally friendly cleaning products. What's not to like about that?

So let me tell you about Norwex. From their website:

All Norwex products support our company mission to improve the quality of life by radically reducing the use of chemicals in personal care and cleaning. With a commitment to effective cleaning, responsible care for the earth, and the power of information, together we can become a generation to leave behind a legacy of improved quality of life.


Norwex Microfiber Cleaning Products
Our line of cleaning products will save you time & money, improve health, and move towards creating a better environment. Norwex microfiber goes beyond "surface clean" with the innovative use of silver particles integrated into synthetic microfiber cloth.

Cleaning with water only produces a healthy outcome for us and the environment.

Cleaning with water only? And yet still removing bacteria from the surface? That's amazing! So at that party oh so many years ago, I bought one of the antibac microfiber cloths. And loved it. Maybe a little too much, and it's been very used.

So this fall, while thinking about what I could get K for Christmas, I thought, why not invest in some more Norwex cloths. As I've mentioned before, I'm the queen of Lysol wipes. With Norwex cloths, I can still basically wipe the counter clean, but I'm not using the Lysol chemicals, since the silver that's integrated into the microfiber has bacteria killing properties. Perfect! After mulling over the catalogue, I decided to get the 4-pack of color coded cloths, a window cloth and a car cloth. Now I have 4 brand new Antibac cloths, in blue, green, yellow and pink and I will color code them for dusting, bathroom, kitchen and other. I can clean windows using a wet Antibac cloth and polishing with the window cloth, and we can do the same with the car cloth.

Now time for the review!
My bathroom mirrors have never been so clean! What better time to test out a window cloth than on a freshly renovated bathroom mirror with drywall and renovation dust all over it? Oh and the mirrored closet doors with toddler fingerprints.

Ensuite mirror before:

Ensuite mirror after:

Toddler fingerprints before:

Toddler fingerprints after:

When I first contacted my Independent Norwex Consultant, Julie, I was looking for an environmentally friendly way to clean my glass shower doors. I don't know if it was soap scum or water marks, but it bugged me every time I had a shower. She said that the Antibac cloth should clean it off and I was skeptical. But I tried it today, as part of the review and she was right. In the after picture, you can see that I only cleaned the far right side of the door. It took a little bit more elbow grease than the mirrors but it's definitely a LOT cleaner!

Shower door before:

Shower door after:

On the mirrors, I simply took my bathroom cloth and got it damp, washed the mirrors and then took the window polishing cloth and dried them off. No streaks, no lines between the sections I did, not even any dust. And no chemicals, just water! Not bad!

I'm glad I invested in these cloths. I hated cleaning with windex, especially since M loves to help clean the windows and I'm always so careful after to wash her hands, since I hate the idea of her touching those chemicals. Now, I don't have to worry at all. I also hate spraying windex since it goes everywhere and I'm paranoid about moving the toothbrushes. I don't think windex will polish our teeth. And since these cloths have the silver in them, I don't have to worry about the surfaces not really being clean.

Norwex also offers a variety of other cleaning and personal products including skin care, baby care and more. It is all sold through independent consultants and the company is always looking for more people to join. It's a great way to make some extra money while helping people stay clean and environmentally conscious. And no, I'm not a consultant. Although I have considered it.

For now, instead of selling these products, I'm going to give one away! I think that's much better! To win one Norwex Antibac Microfiber Cleaning Cloth, just fill out the form below! You must follow my blog, but there are ways to get additional entries, including following me on Facebook, and tweeting about the giveaway, which you can do daily. The giveaway will run until January 15th, so you have plenty of time to enter!

Giveaway rules:
This giveaway is open to blog followers in Canada and the US. Fill out the form below and earn additional entries by following me on Facebook, or tweeting about the giveaway, which you can do daily. Also head over to Julie's Facebook page and let her know I sent you! Make sure you spread the word, and good luck!