The Stink About Baby Products

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Thank you to Johnson’s Baby for supporting our family and sponsoring this post.

My wife sort of knew about why baby products are scented waaay before me. She used to use a lavender scented baby wash on Master11 as part of his bedtime routine.

Whereas when Johnson’s Baby approached me and asked if I’d do a post on Why do Johnson’s products contain fragrance? I giggled and scoffed and rolled my eyes a lot. Surely that’s the sort of question which only gets asked by pregnant women, because anyone who’s actually had a baby knows the reason. Hint: it’s poo. Poo which gets pressed out between a cute pair of buttocks and squashed between cheeks and a nappy. And baby poo isn’t even the worst poo you’re going to be dealing with. Once your kid hits solids you’ll be burning incense and spraying all the air freshener you can get your hands on.

But I’m wrong.

The smell isn’t actually there for us adults to sniff: that’s all just a pleasant byproduct.

The thing is that babies relax more, can fall into their sleep routine faster, engage better with their parent during the bath and, importantly, cry up to 25% less if they have a nice odour to enjoy – and I’m not just talking about the sweet smell of chloroform.

Which all makes sense – I reckon I gag 25% less if something is masking their efforts.

But is it worth it? After all, these are our babies we’re talking about. If we’re going to stick something on their skin we want to know it’s okay.

Now I admit I’m a little biased about Johnson’s Baby. They’re the people who brought us No More Tears shampoo and forever changed bath time for the better. You don’t realise how wonderful that stuff is until you run out and substitute your own.

But few years ago when our Miss12 was born my wife was wary of Johnson’s baby products. It’s easy to do. Your combined sexiness has entrusted you with this wonderful new bundle of sweet, soft, gurgling love and you’re determined, despite knowing what you did to yourself every weekend prior to getting pregnant, you’re going to be a responsible adult, and won’t let any harm come to your protege. That becomes your mission.

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And because you’re being trusted with this baby, you want to work with companies you can trust.

Johnson’s baby has been around for 120 years. Think about what’s happened in that timeframe – roads weren’t even bitumen back then, and people had outhouses instead of powder rooms. The idea of health and the essentially non-existent idea of sanitary looked very different. As for science…blood testing wasn’t even a thing.

What you probably don’t realise, or like me just hadn’t thought about, is when it comes to looking out for babies and working out what is safest, Johnson’s Baby are more often the ones doing the research, including on the topic of fragrances. According to Sharon Dowling (J&J Skincare Technical Affairs Manager), “A baby’s skin is up to 30% thinner than an adult’s, and this can make it more delicate. If there’s a fragrance that shows evidence of being irritating, we just won’t use it.”

So smelly stuff: it’s not to make you like your kid more but rather all part of a plan to help your baby relax and get to sleep.

Excellent.

But of course, now I know this it may explain why Tracey rubs scented lotions on before jumping into bed with me.

Dammit, she’s smarts.

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15 Comments

    • I always make sure a sponsored post is clearly labelled in the FB link and once people click in, and usually in or at the bottom of the post as well. No hidden agendas here 🙂 So yes, it is obvious. But I hope also a little amusing. That’s the ideal.

  • I always thought it was put there for usually mothers to buy! It smelt nice so you will buy it. If you like it baby will like it. I have nothing against J & J products, but most young babies only need water to be washed in.

  • All I can say is that I used water wipes with my daughter for the first 5 weeks of her life, she had no rashes or redness despite every single nappy being a pooey one. Once I ran out of my large stock of those I changed to Johnsons baby wipes, by the following morning she started to develop redness & a sore, by that afternoon it was much worse. I went and bought more water wipes and it started to clear up, took over a week and had not one issue since but it was definitely the wipes that did the damage, she still has a small scar 7 weeks later.. I can only imagine if I’d used them from the beginning without realising that shouldn’t happen… writing it off as ‘nappy rash’ or frequent poos and using all sorts of creams etc would have been a nightmare…

  • “everything has chemicals” is a cop-out response. I challenge you to conduct your own non sponsored research about the effects of those chemicals. The synthetic ‘fragrance’ often put in are carcinogenic and endocrine disruptors. So making your baby 25% calmer today is giving them major problems tomorrow. You can achieve the same results but using the natural essential oils without the cancer causing part that J&J are so adamant ‘safe’….yep sure is safe…for their profits.

  • I never used Johnson and Johnson’s on any of my babies…..full of rubbish! Yuk!
    Better results with one drop of lavender essential oil in the bath etc and no horrible side effects….cheaper too

  • The fact that J&j are sponsoring posts like this is because their products have gotten such a bad rap as us “uneducated” parents learn to read labels and look up what this stuff is, oh that and some of the terrible side effects being seen. Also it’s becomin pretty common knowledge just how bad fragrance is especially for a baby and not just skin reactions but they breath it and it disrupts their hormones. Hhmmmm kinda a big deal ide say. No wonder people are becoming gender confused being covered in this shit from birth. ?

    • I confess I almost thought you had a point up until the gender confused bit LOL You got nothing.

  • I used a warm wet flannel at each nappy change. That’s what the midwife showed me in hospital and that’s what I did. That was in the 90’s…. then when I had a few more children in the 00’s I did the same thing. I know it makes for more washing …. but it is kinder to our children’s skin, and my priority was to the wellbeing of my kids. I think it’s easy to get caught up with convenience. And big business are there to make profits…. if parents are buying that’s what happens. I don’t have any opinion either way about the big companies…. I just do what I think is right for my family.

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