TOXIC! Horrible smelling and ineffective Fever Reducer.

I was very excited about the opportunity to review this product. I have a preemie infant son who at almost 4 months is still under 7 lbs. With his general vulnerability and small stature, his father and I are uncomfortable giving him medications like Tylenol, etc, especially with the recent studies linking their use to asthma, along with the recalls.

 So I received this product, and I opened the package, and the first thing that I noticed was that it smelled. Horrible. Very plastic-y and chemical. Overwhelmingly so. I washed the product per the instructions on the label, which had several mis-spellings and poor grammar on it, and left it to air out overnight. The smell persisted, so I put it outside to try to diminish it. Sometimes things like this just need time to correct themselves.

The smell never diminished, but I'm supposed to be reviewing it, beyond just the initial impression, so I opened up the pillowcase that came with it. It also had a slight smell to it, but it came out when I tossed it in the washing machine though. It is not particularly soft, and has a rather gritty feel to it though. Definitely poor quality.

Now came time to freeze it. The catch here is that it had to be COMPLETELY flat. Its not exactly small, maybe about half the size of an average pillow. Laying it completely flat without taking everything out of my freezer was impossible. I got it mostly flat. Unfortunately, because it was not completely flat, there is now a permanent kink in the product where it will not LAY flat anymore, despite everything I've done (including large textbooks) to try to flatten it back out.

 Here are the creases from it being frozen not perfectly flat:

I cannot speak to whether or not it will actually reduce a fever, or help a child remain comfortable because I did not want to let me children lay on it due to the smell, however I figured I could at least test it out as an oversized ice-pack. Except that once it is frozen, it becomes EXTREMELY hard and inflexible. It was like putting a board on my back. I can't imagine how its supposed to be comfortable for a child to sleep on.

Thankfully this only lasted for about 30 minutes, at which point it completely lost its coolness. 1-2 hours of freezer time for 20-30 minutes of coolness. A cool wet cloth would be more effective. This is, by far, the worst product I have ever been asked to review, and while I might have had more positive things to say about it if it were not a product meant to be used by children, because it is, I can only say that I wholeheartedly do NOT recommend the purchase or use of this.

A purple dinosaur I actually like!

Elder child is more like me than I care to admit some times, and one thing she has inherited from me appears to be an EXTREME sensitivity to pretty much every earring I wear.  I have two holes now, but have historically tried repeatedly to pierce the cartilage of my upper ear. With a combined 13 attempts at piercing it without a reaction, I finally gave up. I hate that she's inherited that, but she is determined to wear earrings.

I was given the opportunity to review these gorgeous earrings from #KataraDecor for a discounted price in exchange for an honest review, but was still a little hesitant to let her wear them due to her proneness for allergic reactions to earrings.  They were made of a Zinc Alloy and hypoallergenic though, so I figured it was worth a shot.

I didn't tell her they were coming, but when the package came she opened up the perfect little white gift box that they came in, she opened it up and freaked! They are absolutely beautiful.  A deep, eggplant purple lined in silver, they are sophisticated with just enough whimsy to be fun.  I particularly loved the variety of earring BACKERS that these came with, both rubber and metal.

She absolutely loves them and hasn't taken them off yet, now almost 2 weeks later.  Want your own Purple Apatosaurus Earrings? Get them here.