Product review — Noodle and Boo

When I was pregnant with my first child, I read all the baby books and magazines, signed up for all of the free product trials for new moms and devoured whatever information I could get about caring for a baby.

Baby bath and body care products were pretty low on my priority list and not even on my registry — after all, I could just buy the mass market products my family had used for generations that smelled pretty good, right?

On a whim though, I decided to pick up a three-item sample pack of lotion, body wash and shampoo in cute little pink bottles with blue caps that I’d seen a few celebrity moms endorse in a pregnancy magazine I thumbed through at the doctor’s office. If these products were good enough for a Hollywood baby, my Dayton, Ohio, baby would have it too!

That Essential Care Kit is how I started my relationship with Noodle and Boo, and five years (and another baby) later, it’s still the only product line I’ll use on my children. Neither one of my boys, now 4 ½ and 1 ½ years old, have ever suffered from skin issues that often plague babies and young children (looking at you eczema) and both have maintained that baby-soft skin that feels fresh from the nursery. Granted, I could attribute that to luck or genetics, but since Noodle and Boo has remained a constant presence in their bath time routine, I’ll keep sticking to what works.

And the smell! Everyone understands when you inhale a newborn baby’s scent – but a four-year-old? Not so much. But when a 4-year-old smells like Noodle and Boo, I can’t help it. Poor Blake probably thinks his mama is weird for wanting to sniff his hair and skin — Noodle and Boo somehow managed to bottle up new baby smell and sell it!

I penned a note to the company at the beginning of the year with a positive review, and to my pleasant surprise, I got a response back thanking me for my endorsement. Oh, and they had a request — would I like to sample some products and report back on the blog about how well they worked?

You can guess my answer. A week later, a box arrived at our home, and the boys shrieked with delight that they had gotten a present. Inside were two hair care products — Extra Gentle Shampoo and Conditioning Hair Polish — and a sample pack that included the Soothing Body Wash and Super Soft Lotion that we already loved. That was exciting enough for me, but the boys squealed when they saw a plush toy inside. Kyle, my youngest, picked up Your Buddy Boodles, an adorable, super soft monkey that’s great for daytime and bedtime cuddles. In addition to being a kid’s best buddy, Boodles came with a book, Let’s Be Friends, that was the latest in a series featuring him providing sweet life lessons for young children.

I promised to read the book after that night’s bath – the bath in which I would try two of the new hair products on my little guys’ curls.

The boys both have wavy/curly hair, but the texture is slightly different. Blake’s is quite thick, while Kyle still has his baby-soft wisps, although his curls are becoming thicker as he gets older. I also needed a product that would effectively clean an active boy’s hair that could be filled with sand, dirt and sweat on any given day, while keeping that hair from drying out. With curly textures more prone to dryness — oil from the scalp has to travel down each loop versus sliding down a straight surface — it can be hard to find a cleansing, yet moisturizing shampoo that is gentle on a child’s hair.

The shampoo has a rich, pearlescent appearance and lathers well, but not overly so in a way that feels too “soapy,” if that makes sense. Blake, my oldest, is accustomed to hair washing although he still squirms a bit when I work the shampoo through his medium-length locks. Kyle, not so much, although he laughed as we lightly scrubbed his hair with the shampoo. He fussed a bit when we washed it out, but the rinse didn’t bother his eyes at all. He just doesn’t like getting his hair washed yet, and as a 21-month old, that’s understandable.

Their hair felt soft and smelled wonderful, and then I sprayed the Conditioning Hair Polish on their towel-dried hair to lock in moisture.

The polish worked great on dry hair as well. As part of their daily hair combing routine, I spritzed both boys’ heads before they went to school, using a combination of finger-tousling and styling with a wide-toothed comb to give them a neat, yet stylish curly look.

Here’s the end result! Look at that hair and skin!

This post is getting long, so I’ll follow up next week with their reaction to the Let’s Be Friends book, and Your Buddy Boodles’ adventures in our home. Blake even took him to school one day and showed him off to his teachers and classmates.

Learn more about Noodle and Boo products at their website here. There’s great gifts for mama too!