Citrus Lane Review: March2014

It’s that time of the month again! Time to review another Citrus Lane box and see if it was worth it’s purchase price! See my reviews for previous months here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Citrus Lane works, it is a subscription service that sends you age appropriate items for your child aged 0-5 years every month. The cost of the subscription depends on how long you are willing to commit to. For month to month subscriptions your cost is $29.00 per month, or $24.00 per month for a three month subscription, while it goes down to $21.00 per month if you sign up for a six month or one year subscription. To personalize the box, you choose the child’s age and gender (or neutral) and receive items appropriate to those selections.

In my reviews, I can only review what my daughter receives in her box. I will always tell you what my age and gender selections were, give you a description of the items, what I think of them, pricing, etc.

This month my daughter received a twenty month old box with a neutral gender selection.

1. You Are My Baby from Chronicle Books
Price: $8.99
Status: Good
Comments: Always love to get books in the box, especially sturdy board books. This one is different in that it has the “two books in one” feature, which both fascinates and frustrates Baby Girl. I like it, but I wish I had gotten the safari, garden, or ocean variety, because I am thoroughly sick of making farm animal noises.
Use code MYCB-CITRUS for 30% off all personalized items at mychroniclebooks.com through 07/31/14.

2. City Planner Blocks from Hape
Price: $9.99
Status: Good
Comments: We love Hape toys around here, and the elephant she previously got is fantastic. That said, Baby Girl has yet to figure out how to play with blocks, and it seems like her block collection is growing. I really don’t mind having a ton of blocks, since they can pretty much be mixed and matched, but I’m just not sure how much use we’ll get out of them.
Use code HAPECITRUS for 10% off and free shipping on orders of $40+ at hapetoys.com through 05/15/14.

3. Citrus Hydrating Body Lotion from Weleda
Price: $16.50
Status: Good
Comments: Wow, Citrus Lane must think that Baby Girl has ridiculously dry skin. She actually does, but we still have several unopened tubes of lotion in the closet that we’ve received from subscription boxes. The only reason this rates a “good” instead of a “meh” is that I really love the Weleda brand.

4. Medi Buddy from Me4Kidz
Price: $5.25
Status: Awesome
Comments: Every time I’ve gotten one of the Me4Kidz Cool Buddies in my subscription box (which has been twice so far), I have been wishing it was one of these instead! So excited to finally get one! These are the perfect size to throw in a diaper bag when you head to the park or grandma’s house, or to keep in the glove compartment of your car. They most everything you might need to patch your kid up and send them back out to play. The only item that’s missing are insect bite relief pads, which would be an awesome addition…anybody listening? But there’s no reason you couldn’t buy some of those and stick them in yourself. This is awesome. Now I want the full MediBag!
Use code CL314 for 25% off at me4kidz.com through 12/31/14

Final Thoughts:
This time I really didn’t mind at all that we only got four items. The items we got were a good value, and awesome quality, so I’m beyond happy with this box.

By the Numbers:
Total value of the box items: $40.73
Total value of items I will use: $40.73
Is the value greater than the cost? YES
Best usable box value I have ever had, and thanks for leaving out the mommy items!

Looking for my previous Citrus Lane reviews? CLICK HERE!

CLICK HERE TO SAVE 50% OFF YOUR FIRST BOX!

Citrus Lane Review: January 2014

It’s that time of the month again! Time to review another Citrus Lane box and see if it was worth it’s purchase price! See my reviews for previous months here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Citrus Lane works, it is a subscription service that sends you age appropriate items for your child aged 0-5 years every month. The cost of the subscription depends on how long you are willing to commit to. For month to month or three month subscriptions, your cost is $25.00 per month, while it goes down to $21.00 per month if you sign up for a six month or one year subscription. To personalize the box, you choose the child’s age and gender (or neutral) and receive items appropriate to those selections.

In my reviews, I can only review what my daughter receives in her box. I will always tell you what my age and gender selections were, give you a description of the items, what I think of them, pricing, etc.

This month my daughter received a eighteen month old box with a neutral gender selection.

1. Shape Sorter from Plan Toys
Price: $10.00
Status: Interesting
Comments: When I first pulled this out of the box, I was unimpressed. It’s a small little thing, and I’m not really sure about the “grip handle”/spout feature. That said, after playing with it with Baby Girl for what seemed like a ridiculously long time, it seems to pull it’s weight. It’ll make a fantastic travel toy, since the shapes are attached by a sturdy cord. The cord does make it slightly more difficult for her to sort the shapes, since they have to go in at a particular angle and in the order that they are on the cord, but I know she’ll have it figured out in no time.

2. Lunchie from Skip Hop
Price: $14.00
Status: Awesome!
Comments: I love Skip Hop brand items. We have a ton of their products, some of which we got in Citrus Lane boxes. We have two of their diaper bags, a set of zootensils, and several of their toys. This is no exception. Baby Girl is still at an age where she can’t eat everything, and we often have to take food with us when we’re going to be away from home at meal times, even if we’re going somewhere that has food, just to make sure we have something she can eat. We had been lugging around a small cooler bag, which even in the small size was huge, but we just couldn’t justify buying something else. Now we have this! It’s cute, it will hold enough for at least one meal, and it will fit in the diaper bag with a couple of diapers. Stellar!
Want to get one of your own? Use code CLJAN14 for 20% off any purchase of $30 or more at http://www.skiphop.com through 01/31/14

3. Adhesive Bandages from Ouchies Jr.
Price: $5.00
Status: Okay
Comments: I was a little disappointed to get this in my box…again. I got this exact same item (not even a different design, Paddington Bear band-aids) a few boxes ago, and have yet to open it. Hubby had a point when I told him I was disappointed though, he said “Band-aids are band-aids.” That’s true. We just haven’t needed band-aids for Baby Girl yet. She isn’t super physical, and it’s cold outside. Maybe when it warms up we’ll blow through both tins of these things, but I just don’t see that happening.

4.Travel Wipes from Dapple
Price: $3.49
Status: Meh
Comments: I always want to like the products that I get in my boxes from Dapple, as they seem like a great company, but I never do. Laundry detergent? No thanks. Pacifier wipes at sixteen months old? A little late in the game. And now a travel pack of surface wipes. I feel like I would have been excited about these eight months ago, when Baby Girl was putting everything in her mouth and we were traveling a lot, but now I feel like I’ll never use them. I’m not much of a germaphobe anyway (Baby Girl is fully vaccinated, and I believe in the dangers of sterilizing everything), and now thanks to these boxes I have wipes for EVERYTHING. Seems like they are always giving me soap. Whatever, I”ll re-gift these to some germaphobe friends.

Final Thoughts:
Only four items again…hmmm…I’m starting to think the quality of this box might be going down a bit. That said, I did get a couple of awesome bigger ticket items (the toy and the lunchie), so I can’t really complain. If there had been one more absolutely awesome item in here, rather than a couple of cheapie throwaways, you would not hear me bellyaching about only four items.

By the Numbers:
Total value of the box items: $32.49
Total value of items I will use: $29.00
Is the value greater than the cost? YES
The value of this box was actually pretty great. Trade out one of my meh items for a stellar one, and I would be over the moon. As it is, this is still a fun box to get, and I still felt I got my money’s worth.

Looking for my previous Citrus Lane reviews? CLICK HERE!

CLICK HERE TO SAVE $10 ON YOUR CITRUS LANE SUBSCRIPTION!

Citrus Lane Review: August 2013

It’s that time of the month again! Time to review another Citrus Lane box and see if it was worth it’s purchase price! See my reviews for previous months here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Citrus Lane works, it is a subscription service that sends you age appropriate items for your child aged 0-5 years every month. The cost of the subscription depends on how long you are willing to commit to. For month to month or three month subscriptions, your cost is $25.00 per month, while it goes down to $21.00 per month if you sign up for a six month or one year subscription. To personalize the box, you choose the child’s age and gender (or neutral) and receive items appropriate to those selections.

In my reviews, I can only review what my daughter receives in her box. I will always tell you what my age and gender selections were, give you a description of the items, what I think of them, pricing, etc.

This month my daughter received a thirteen month old box with a neutral gender selection.

1.Octopus Opposites from Barefoot Books
Price: $6.39
Status: Useful
Comments: Barefoot Books is one of those brands that shows up in my Citrus Lane boxes a lot. We’re always happy to see a book in the box, as we are a family of readers, and Baby Girl loves books. This book isn’t particularly awesome, but it’s nice and sturdy, and has some examples of opposites that don’t show up in any of her other opposite books, so that’s nice. Definitely a plus in this box.

2. 5″ Playground Ball from Crocodile Creek
Price: $7.99
Status: Awesome
Comments: This was one of those items that happens every once in awhile that was just timed perfectly. Baby Girl is obsessed with balls, and this is actually a very nice one. It’s colorful, fun, and very sturdy (I’m not afraid that my cats will pop it. This is a great addition to our play area! I should note that Citrus Lane also included some paper bowling pins to be colored and used with this ball. While I like the idea of including activities and suggestions for using the items in the box, she’s still a bit young for coloring or for understanding a game like bowling.

3. Mighty Bug Shield Repellant Lotion from Episencial
Price: $1.77
Status: Could be great…
Comments: Okay, so this is annoying. I’ve received Episencial products in my Citrus Lane boxes before and loved them. I’ve also bought some of my own accord. This is the second time I’ve been sent a tiny sample size of something from them. This could have been a stellar review, as we’ve been hating trying to use standard bug repellant on Baby Girl, and receiving this product would have been timely and well appreciated. Instead, they sent us a 0.5 ounce sample that will barely cover one use. Very annoying. I would have been ecstatic to receive this in full size (same with the other sample size products from Episencial I’ve received previously). I feel like I can barely even count this as an item. The price I’ve listed is based on a percentage of the price for the full size item.

4. Adhesive Bandages from Ouchies Jr.
Price: $5.00
Status: Meh
Comments: These are just vanity band-aids. I’ve never really understood decorative band-aids, not even when I was a kid, but these are fine, and I’m sure we’ll use them eventually, even if it’s just on ourselves rather than on Baby Girl. I certainly would never pay $5 for vanity band-aids.

5. Hand Sanitizing Wipes from CleanWell
Price: $5.50
Status: Useful
Comments: These are an interesting concept, but I’m not sure how useful they are to us. We use liquid hand sanitizer all the time, but this big canister isn’t exactly easy to take places, and we aren’t clean freak people that are constantly sanitizing our hands. I put them on the changing table for those times when I’m not fast enough to keep Baby Girl from grabbing a handful of poop while I’m changing her. That’s the best use I could think of.

6. Free Trial Offer from FabKids
Price: $39.95
Status: Absolutely Not
Comments: I’m pretty annoyed that after the hullabaloo a few months ago when Citrus Lane included a JustFab offer (the same company as FabKids) that this was included. The reasons I’m annoyed that this was included are many, but a here are a few. 1) The value is inflated. There is no way I would pay $40 for an outfit just to have a brand name on it, plus you can get the same or similar clothes at an actual store for less. 2) This service operates like a scam. When you claim your “free outfit”, you have to pay shipping, and they automatically sign you up to have your credit card charged every month whether you like it or not, and if you don’t pay close attention, you could actually be charged every month and receive nothing, as you have to log into your account and choose an outfit before they send you anything. Then, when you try to cancel, they will give you a hard time and often, while they will stop charging your credit card, will not actually delete your account so that you have the opportunity to restart the service. No thanks. 3) While many of the products and companies that Citrus Lane sends are organic, good-hearted companies started by real moms and dads, the brands carried by FabKids manufacture the majority of their products in Bangladesh, where they have all those awesome factory fires killing hundreds of the workers that make these very clothes. Not exactly a company with a conscience. 4) Sizing starts at 2T. Why in the WORLD, are you sending me a free outfit (whether it is free or not) that is 2-3 sizes too big for my baby? Not cool. Also, this free outfit thing is only for people who are not already members of FabKids, so if you already signed up, you get nothing and this offer is worthless.

Final Thoughts:
This month’s box was only okay, but I feel like it was probably an awesome one for somebody else. I can see the value in it, it just wasn’t a home run for me. Also, this is the first box I’ve had that cut so close to full price value. I feel like the FabKids offer was thrown in just to bump up value, and I’m a bit disappointed. I’m actually planning to try Bluum next month as well just to see how it compares.

Optional Add-to-Box:
I also received an offer this month to add a Bumkins Zippered Wet/Dry Bag to my box at the price of $14.95. I didn’t take advantage of the offer because I prefer PlanetWise wet bags and already own several, and because the price wasn’t a special offer at all, as this is the same price listed on the Bumkins website. If it had been a discount, I could understand a bit better. That said, Bumkins makes great products and I would have been thrilled to receive this in my Citrus Lane box without the extra charge rather than some of the things we received.

By the Numbers:
Total value of the box items: $26.65
Total value of items I will use: $26.65
Is the value greater than the cost? YES

Looking for my previous Citrus Lane reviews? CLICK HERE!

CLICK HERE TO SAVE $10 ON YOUR CITRUS LANE SUBSCRIPTION!