Blog Articles

Lean towards “green” when it comes to choosing the right baby products for your child.

The impending birth of a child is indeed a great expectation. Nature has been kind to us in the fact that she has given us nine long months to prepare for this life altering occasion. From your first visit to the doctor to confirm your pregnancy to your anticipated hospital visit to give birth there is a long list of things to do before the arrival of your child. Whether this is your first or your fifth child rest assured that your need of new organic baby products and services will be as unique as the precious life you carry within.

The baby product industry has reinvented itself to cater to the needs of a new generation of parents that are extremely read read on the subject of child birth and are indeed more environmentally conscious when it comes to planning for their child’s future and deciding what baby products will be purchased to care for their newest member of the family. With a large emphasis of organic, green baby products to burst on the marketing scene everything from disposable Eco-green diapers to natural raw cotton baby clothes and bedding are available in most stores and online Eco-conscious green websites and the good news is that these products do not cost much more than their inferior counterparts.

With the ever looming problem of imperfect imports from china and other unregulated markets that lack the stringent guidelines of the United States and other quality European countries new parents today must be more vigilant then ever before when it comes to making the right baby product choices.The joy of picking out your child’s baby stroller, baby crib, toys, bottles and clothes has all been daunted with the fear of chemical dyes that come in the form of dangerous life threatening carcinogens that are found in plastics, paint finishes and cloth fibers that may come in contact with tender new skin and cause harmful rashes and side effects to newborns. It is important to arm yourself with the proper knowledge as to where, when and how the products you choose for your family were made

Five major ingredients to avoid when purchasing baby products:

Phthalates - Chemicals found in most mainstream consumer products.They are found in soft plastic toys, such as bath toys for babies. They are also found in baby powders, baby shampoos, lotions and fragrance.

Mineral Oil - One of the most commonly used products on babies and potentially the most dangerous.Serious carcinogens can be found in mineral oil. Mineral oil, also known as baby oil, can cause dehydration to a babies skin by blocking the absorption of natural moisture.

Lanolin - Often used for moisturizing or diaper cream may cause an allergic contact skin rash. Lanolin, derived from sheep also contains pesticides that were used on sheep and wool products

Cornstarch - Not recommended for use on yeast related diaper rashes, cornstarch encourages the growth of yeast that will perpetuate diaper rash instead of cure it.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate - Before you buy baby shampoo, think again. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is mainly used to create foam in bath and body products. It can cause irritation to a babies scalp as well as penetrate an infants eyes and systemic tissue this is of concern to babies who are under going substantial eye growth.

Most ingredients found in popular name brand adult and infant skin care products are extremely harmful to delicate and sensitive new skin. When you make the conscious decision to purchase pure, natural, organic baby products for your baby you are investing in their good health and giving them the best gift of all, a good start in an otherwise polluted world.

For many cigar smokers, the small paper band encircling their stogy is just a piece of trash, to be discarded along with the shrinkwrap around the box. But for others that cigar band is a bit of history - a collectible that adds immeasurably to the romance and mystique of smoking.

What is the cigar band, and how did it become so important? As is so often true when it comes to cigars, the story begins in Cuba - early-19th-century Cuba, to be exact, when that island nation had already come to be recognize as the cigar capital of the world. At that time cigar packaging was minimal - often no more than a wooden barrel or box, with the manufacturer’s name inscribed. The cigars themselves were generally left blank. This situation, not surprisingly, created a cheat’s paradise, in which cheap European cigars were bundled in boxes with “Cuban” markings on them and sold, domestically, to unsuspecting customers who thought they were getting fine imported Cubans.

Gustave Bock, a Dutch immigrant who owned a cigar factory in Cuba in the 1830s, is credited with being the first to place a paper band around his cigars. (Bock’s “cigar band” was just a paper ring with his signature on it.)

Many other makers adopted this practice, to the point where, by 1855, most Cuban cigar exporters were using them. These bands cut down on instances of counterfeiting while giving cigar manufacturers a way to increase name recognition and loyalty.

The practice spread from Cuba to cigar makers everywhere, and its popularity was encouraged by breakthroughs in printing technology, which developed alongside changes in the economy of Europe and the Americas that favored cigar smoking. Specifically, cheap color printing (through chromolithographic processes developed in Germany) was made widely available during the latter part of the century, and paper-embossing followed in the 1880s.

Between the expansion of the cigar industry and the new possibilities developed by the printing industry, a “Golden Age” of cigar advertising was almost guaranteed, and that’s what followed. Cigar makers began working not only to manufacture their cigars, but to differentiate their products from others. The late 19th and early 20th centuries featured elaborate, distinctive cigar box and cigar band artwork, often produced by highly-regarded commercial artists. These well-wrought bands featured images of famous figures of the day, historical figures, nationalistic imagery, nature scenes and animals. As with today’s postage stamps, special bands would be made to commemorate special events.

And, also like stamps, the bands had that combination of ephemerality and workmanship that so often draws collectors. While they were often well-made, they weren’t intended to last - so they gave collectors a challenge, as baseball cards, comic books and cheap children’s toys would later in the 20th century. And they always gave off a whiff of nostalgia, reminding dedicated smokers of good times shared with a cigar and a friend.

Children also found these bands attractive, since they were often left discarded on streets during the height of cigar-smoking’s popularity. Manufacturers even made “albums” with blank pages in which a person’s cigar band collection could be displayed - the forerunner of those plastic display sheets that every sports-card collector knows so well.

Adding to the boom in band collecting, some cigar makers gave premiums to customers who turned in a certain number of bands - everything from a set of children’s silverware (50 bands) to a Scientific American subscription (600 bands) to a baby grand piano (180,000), according to the American Cigar Co. catalog of 1904. (Those of you who used to collect Marlboro Miles during the 1990s should be feeling deja vu right about now.)

After World War I, cigars fell in popularity relative to cigarettes. Cigar makers stopped putting as much energy into the production of attractive cigar bands, as it became more necessary to cut costs. Cigar bands - at least in the US - grew generic, boring. The cost cut wasn’t enough - many thousands of cigar companies closed up shop for good in the US during the ’20s and ’30s.

Band collecting continues in the US among a hardy group mostly consisting of old-timers and nostalgia buffs, but in Europe it remains a thriving hobby, and cigar makers there continue to print colorful but cheap bands, some of which come as part of a series (again like stamps), others of which are created specifically for collectors.