Emmaya Naturals, Wool Wash and Lanolizing Product GIVEAWAY! ***CLOSED***

Emmaya Naturals

Long before I gave wool a chance, I received some a free sample of a handmade "Sudz n' Dudz" wool wash bar from Emmaya Naturals in a prize I won from the Diaper Pin during their 10 year anniversary contest last Spring. I was drawn to the attractive card that came with it, and the nice fragrance. I held on to it "just in case" I ever got brave enough to try wool. Boy, am I glad I did! When I finally did get some wool, this helped me go a long time without having to lanolize the cover. It was super easy to use and guess what...I still have enough in that tiny little bar for quite a few more washes. 

I wrote a post on this blog some time ago about how I'd started using bar soap for bathing because it is so economical and difficult to waste, and I think that holds true for wool wash as well. I will definitely be getting more of this. I think it's great that Emmaya Naturals offers these samples on their site as well. Many are hesitant to spend money on wool products when they want to just give it a try first, and this is a great way to make trying wool less expensive.

Finally using the sample caused me to go to Emmaya Naturals website and I was so impressed with what I discovered! Turns out I'm not the only one who was so impressed with the long lasting, great smelling, effectiveness of this bar of wool wash, AND that it is intentionally designed to be long lasting and affordable!

"Sudz are hand-crafted with organically processed oils from organically grown plants and pleasantly scented with the finest essential oils and quality fragrance oils. The oils used for my wool wash bars and liquid wool wash are certified organic and carefully chosen for their mildness and gentle but thorough cleansing properties. All Sudz bars have excellent stain-removal capabilities and they are enriched with lanolin so you can skip more of those messy sink treatments. I have formulated a bar that, with proper care, is long lasting and very economical. I actually have customers complaining that it's too good...they want to try different scents, but no matter how hard they try, they just can't make the bar disappear! "  (Italics added by me for emphasis.)

It's available in 12 different frangrances, and I too find myself wanting to try them all. It looks like I'll be a LONG time customer of Emmaya Naturals! 

As you see in the quote above, Emmaya Naturals products are handcrafted and formulated by them! Here's a little more about this intriguing company and family:

 Sudz 'n Dudz.com was founded in 2005, and its sister company Emmaya Naturals.com (retail site) was founded soon after in 2006. Sudz 'n Dudz was the first organic wool care product introduced to the cloth diapering world, and their products are top rated on The Diaper Pin (and THAT is saying something!!!!!!!) Emmaya Naturalas is family owned and operated by a Christian homeschooling Air Force family that recently moved from Texas to Alaska! (You can see more about the Koziol's adventures on their family blog). They have sent support/pampering packages to troops in Afghanistan and support several charitable organizations with our profits,  including Arms of Hope,  Disability Resources Incorporated, and A Child's Voice Foundation! Even in my correspondence with this company I have been so impressed with the kindness and compassion that shows through Meg! I am certain you will not find better customer service anywhere!

I found it really neat that Emmaya Naturals offers custom forumlary and will work with you to create new products that suit your needs! Current projects include lanolin-free handwashables soap and lip balm! At Emmaya Naturals, they love making new things, and many products currently available are results of these requests!

Emmaya Naturals offers many more wool care products as well as beauty products, bath and body products, home and laundry products and so much more! Other wool care products include:

Sudz n' Dudz Organic Liquid Wool Wash

Sudz n' Dudz Organic Lanolin-Australian Certified

Sudz n' Dudz No Clump Lanolin Spray

Sudz n' Dudz Liquid Lanolin

Meg has very generously offered one very blessed reader a wool wash product AND a lanolizing product! The winner can choose from Organic Liquid Wool Wash or Organic Wool Wash Bar for washing, AND the Organic Lanolin, Liquid Lanolin, or No-Clump Lanolin Spray for lanolizing!

***GIVEAWAY***

One mandatory entry:

Go to the Emmaya Naturals and come back here and leave a comment telling something else they carry that you'd like to try!

(Leave a separate comment for each entry. Include your email address if it is not easily accessible through your blogger profile.You do not have to have a blogger profile to enter, as long as you leave a valid e-mail address.)


Additional Entries: 

-Like Emmaya Naturals on Facebook.

-Like Sudz' n' Dudz on Facebook.

-Follow Emmaya Naturals on Twitter.

-Follow Sudz n' Dudz on Twitter.

- Make a purchase at Emmaya Naturals.

-Blog about this giveaway and leave link in comment!

- Tweet about this giveaway (up to 3 times daily) using #clothdiapers, @emmayanaturals, @cheapnchoosy in your tweet!

-Follow The Cheap and Choosy GFC!

-Follow @cheapnchoosy on Twitter!

-Like The Cheap and Choosy on Facebook!

-Grab The Cheap and Choosy blog button!

-Two entries each for each of  "The Wool Gathering" and the "Fluff Your Pockets!" buttons posted on the main page of your blog.

-Subscribe to The Cheap and Choosy via email.

This giveaway is open to the U.S. and Canada until Nov. 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. I will email the winner, who will have 48 hours to respond. If winner does not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. I will post the winner when the selection has been made and confirmed by the recipient.

This is not a paid post. You can see my full disclosure here.

 

Not So Wordless Wednesday: Warning!

If you let Daddy take over and give you some time to work on writing reviews, THIS might happen:

I don't know how the Pack n' Play felt, but Lydia LOVED it, and I just about had a conniption to use a good old southern phrase. It was HYSTERICAL! Love my hubby! Only an awesome dad would do something like that! :)


Join me at A Beautiful Mess, Five Minutes for Mom, Parenting by Dummies, WW, Supermom, and Home Grown Families.

WoollyBums on Etsy: A Review and 20% off Discount for Followers!

 If you've been hanging around here, you already know about WoollyBums on Etsy! I've already showed you her adorable, plush, bamboo fitteds, and you may already know that she's about to release a new exciting product: a side snapping AI2 diaper with lots of customizable options with the soaker made of the bamboo that she's known and loved for. If I've got your curiosity up you can look at Alicia's latest blog post to learn more!

However, as the name "WoollyBums" implies, Alicia does not only sew amazingly, but she also loves to knit soft, adorable woollies. You can find some of her works of art ready to order...

...and many more custom listings! WoollyBums offers custom shorties and longies with fun options like ruffles on the cuffs or on the bum, or even a face on the bum!

You can also order a matching beanie or cupcake hat!

Here are a couple of really unique and I think super cool knitted wool items that are now available at WoollyBums. I think these are just precious!

An acorn hat for the fall!

A photo prop for your newborn!!!

 

I am the blessed gal that got this beautiful set of of longies with a matching cupcake hat (which is now a custom listing!) I saw the above cupcake set in WoollyBums shop, I was inspired to do a cupcake themed birthday party for Lydia, with this hat as one of our gifts to her.

WoollyBums knits with 100% wool, and all of her longies and shorties come lanolized and ready to use! I enjoyed working with Alicia on my custom order. I chose these longies with this lovely picot edge in this LOVELY favorite color combo.

And of course the adorable hat:

My review:

As I've already mentioned, it's been great working with Alicia. She is very attentive to detail and offers great customer service. You can tell she really loves knitting and puts her heart into it! As she says in her bio, she makes each woollie with loving care and thinks about the little ones who will wear them!


I have been thoroughly enjoying these longies!!! I go back and forth between using them during the day and at night because they're so pretty I want to use them in the day with a pink shirt and bow (as you'll see in the pictures below), but they offer such a GREAT night solution for winter. They keep her legs warm and keep her bum cool and dry!  They work wonderfully through the night with my heavy wetter with a nice thick fitted.

One detail I was really impressed with was the tag in the back of the longies. It's so cute and so professional!

Alicia also sent these nice care instructions:

 

Here it is on baby...this was this summer right after we got them. Obviously she loves them!!! Right after a nice bath, who wouldn't love some soft woollies on their legs?

And here she is in them just yesterday, being a jumping bean in daddy's arms! (Sorry...they were all so cute, I couldn't pick just one!!!)

I also love the fit of the hat. We can't convince her to keep a hat on for long right now, but I can't wait to take her out in the colder weather with her matching hat and longies!!! Here she is with the hat right after she received it at her cupcake birthday party! She'd already pulled it off a little...we've got to get her used to wearing a hat little by little. Just trust me. It's a PERFECT fit!

DISCOUNT SPECIAL OFFER

Alicia is offering Cheap and Choosy Readers who also follow her blog a 20% discount through the end of this event (Oct. 31st)! Just let her know I sent you and that you follow her blog! I'd say it's time to get woolly for winter!!!

What's so Special about Wool?

That is a loaded question!  I read early on in my researching cloth diapers that wool was the best night time solution but was somewhat incredulous. It was some time before I  earnestly investigated the matter. Even then, I didn't totally believe it until I tried it!  It just sounded too good to be true! As it turns out, it is fascinatingly and completely true! Why should I be surprised?


Here are some perhaps overly-simplified, but hopefully still accurate descriptions of what I've learned about wool:

-It can absorb up to a third of its weight in moisture without feeling wet because the outside of wool fibers are water resistant, but the inside of the fibers attract water. Unlike most absorbent materials, the moisture is distributed evenly throughout the whole soaker or cover and not concentrated in one place.

I could barely believe it the first time I left my very heavy wetting baby in a wool soaker all night, only to find in the morning that it barely felt damp, nothing around her was wet, and what more, when I took off the soaker, the diaper underneath was not saturated like usual but merely damp as well. I was simply amazed. 

-It keeps baby cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The texture and coil-like shape of the wool fibers makes them stick to each other or mat together, creating a mesh with many pockets of air which allow the fabric to hold heat in, and keep it out. It works similar to the way that insulation in a house works.


When it comes to avoiding/fighting diaper rash, I find it just as effective to put a wool cover over a fitted as putting on just a fitted because it is not only is it breathable, but it actually absorbs moisture from the diaper, pulling it away from baby's skin. It never ceases to amaze me that I'm putting the same thing on my baby when I want her to be the warmest (now that the cold weather is setting in) that I put on her when I want her to be the coolest during the hot summer!

-It resists bacteria AND  does not retain odor. The scaly surface of wool fiber does not draw bacteria like other fibers, and impedes microbes and dirt from entering, so it cleans easily because they are not embedded inside of the fibers. I don't understand how all of this works, but I've deducted that the structure of the  fiber also allows it to trap chemicals that cause odor.

Not only that, but lanolin, the natural oil found on sheep's wool (that is mostly removed during processing but widely available to consumers and easy to re-apply)  has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties intended to protect the sheep from infection, as well as also being water resistant which serves to enhance those same properties of the wool fibers themselves.

For this reason you only have to wash your wool every couple of weeks, and lanolize it every month or two, depending on how often you use it! I have been amazed that though my baby's wool soaker does smell slightly of urine after wearing it all night, after hanging on a peg for a little while, I take a sniff to find it has no odor at all.

Wool is also known for being durable, flame resistant, and resistant to static electrically (which also makes it less attractive to bacteria).

Sources and recommended sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool

http://niftynappy.com/customer-support/wool/

http://www.knitting-naturally.com/properties-of-wool.html

http://www.i-merino.com/easycare/odor+resistant

http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/Wool%20Properties.htm