Gerber Grins n Giggles Roll On Baby Powder

This morning we tested out our roll on baby powder from the Gerber Grins and Giggles Line. When we took our prepared childbirth class, the instructor (an OB nurse for 23 years and the director of the Women's Health Department) told us that we shouldn't use baby powder for the first year of the baby's life because it poses a respiratory hazard. Interesting. I had seen somewhere previously that they make roll-on baby powder. I was intrigued. I wanted to try it. But once we had the baby (and even before) I couldn't find any, until our Toys R Us trip yesterday.

Last night I had the thought that there would be an issue keeping the roll-on applicator truly "clean" if you were just going to roll it onto her skin. Then I read the packaging (duh) and it recommended rolling it onto the clean diaper to maintain the integrity of the roll-on applicator. Aha! Mom brain!

So this morning I wanted to try some on her first diaper change of the day. I have a routine that every night before bed she gets a coating of A&D Ointment before a clean diaper and her sleep sack. This prevents her from getting any rash or any poo stuck to her little butt from a long night in the same diaper. It makes the morning diaper change much easier, I don't have to rub and scrub her with wipes, it's like a non-stick frying pan in there. So after a greasy wet night, I thought it might be helpful to have a powdery dry morning diaper.

The excitement ended when I opened up the packaging, and screwed off the lid to a dust explosion of baby powder that covered my hands and the changing table. So much for avoiding a respiratory hazard. Overall the roll-on feature worked well. The downside is that you could never carry this in your diaper bag because I am assuming that the transporting to the store and home from the store caused it to leak all over into the cap and when the cap is removed you have about 2 full tablespoons of baby powder that flies all over the place and makes a mess. So this isn't a bad product, if you open it over the garbage and keep it upright on your changing table. But the fact that's it's really just loose powder in a roll-on container, which costs you probably 4 times more than a huge container of baby powder, makes me wonder if this is a product I would recommend to anyone. Packaging improvement is necessary. Perhaps an adhesive seal over the roll-on applicator to prevent leaking before it gets to the consumer. And if it were a perfect world, the ability to unscrew the lid, refill the bottle, and clean the roll-on applicator. But that would probably not happen as that would mean you could refill it with any old cheap baby powder. It makes me wonder if one couldn't find any refillable applicator bottle with a roll-on head, similar to ones used for perfume, and make their own roll-on baby powder.