This has been one busy summer over at our house this year! Last summer, I went back to work full-time when Ellis was just 6 weeks old. After digging into my sick time and vacation time for my maternity leave, things were too hectic at work to be able to afford to take any more time off or even think about the costs of vacation after shelling out thousands of dollars of medical expenses. Now that I’m home with Ellis though, this summer has been the best one yet.
My husband is a teacher, so it has been great getting to spend so much family time together the last couple months. Without an office job to get back to, we’ve been able to work some vacations into our schedules this summer, and it’s been awesome! We took our longest vacation yet: 8 days in Portland in July! And we are squeezing in one last trip before summer’s over and heading to Gulf Shores with my dad (Ellis’s first beachy vacation!). We also worked it out to take a mini-weekend trip to Austin in June for MommyCon.
We love Austin anyway (lots of good vegan food us there), and I was psyched to meet up with other crunchy moms at my first MommyCon. While I was there, I scoped out the vendors and found some awesome, crunchy-mom approved goodies to take home.
My favorite from MommyCon was Fresh Wave. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I’m so glad I found them. They make natural products to remove odors from your house without all the icky-chemicals.
Over the last couple years, I’ve been trying to slowly replace things in our house with natural alternatives and a few DIYs. We swapped out cleaning products for natural versions, I make my own laundry soap, and I’ve even tried my hand at a few Pinterest projects.
When it comes to bad odors, we used to spray a bunch of Febreeze on a regular basis. Now I’m weary of putting all that crap in the air with a baby around. I found a recipe on Pinterest called “Faux-breeze” and gave it a whirl. Worth a try, right? Well, sadly the result wasn’t anything to write home about. It didn’t really cut it, so I set it aside and gave up for a while.
So I was really glad when I found Fresh Wave to give their products a try. I tried out their odor removing spray, gel, packs and fresh pod.
Their spray was the perfect solution to replace my Pinterest fail. You might think we’d need it most for baby-related stinks, but we actually use it most for animal-related smells! We have two cats and two dogs. Between the lot of them, it seems like it’s nearly every day that I’m spraying to remedy their dog farts, vomit and poop accidents. Oh my!
I use the fresh pod on the inside of the lid for our diaper pail. It sticks right on to eliminate odors round the clock! We use the Diaper Décor brand one for our cloth diapers, but it’ll work on most any diaper pail. After a few days, the diapers start to pile up, and the smell is not-so-alluring. The fresh pod has been working great at removing those odors though! I think I may need to get another one for our trash can in the kitchen as well now! After 30-60 days, just pop it open and replace the odor removing pack inside. Easy peasy!
We also use spare odor removing packs as car fresheners. I stuck one under the driver’s seat in my car and my husband’s car. They’re quite versatile!
Best for last! The odor removing gel just might be my favorite! My office/guest room has been taken over at our new house as the “cat room.” Things were starting to get pretty gross in there with the litter boxes. It was so distracting that I couldn’t even work in there anymore! Stuck the gel on my desk and noticed instant relief. We keep one in the living room as well. The changing table or bathroom would be another great spot for one though!
Check out freshwaveworks.com for more info on all of their products. Fresh Wave is also available at Target and on Amazon.
And what you’ve all been waiting for… how to win it all! I’ve partnered with Fresh Wave for a giveaway on my Instagram @sharonisamom. One lucky person will win everything pictured: a fresh pod, odor removing spray, odor removing gel and odor removing packs. The giveaway ends on Sunday, August 7 at 11:59 p.m. CST. Good luck, mamas!
sharonisamom 