Products I Love

I love Stella Thunderpaws.

Who wouldn't?  This dog is the bee's knees.

But the shedding, oh the shedding.  I have to vacuum every single day or else the hair is everywhere.  I have light maple wood floors and her black hair is very noticeable if I don't get it all up.  I brush her once a week and that has seemed to help.

I have a whole collection of dog brushes.

I started with this one:

And it worked okay.  But it seemed to scratch Stella's skin and she did not enjoy getting brushed.  And, as you can see from the photo, it is hard to get clean.

This contraption worked pretty well, but can take a lot of time.  First, you have to brush it backwards against the dog's hair and then go with the hair. To use it properly, you have to lean over the dog and it can strain your back.  Plus, Stella likes to try and steal it and run around the yard with it, hence the tooth marks in the handle.

This rake works really well.  Again, you first go against the dogs hair and then with the natural lay of the hair.  It takes out a bunch of hair, but, seems to trigger something in Stella. It must irritate her skin because after a bit, she starts going nuts and running around like someone snuck some meth in her food.

And here it is folks.  The clear winner!  I discovered this tool through a friend.  I was mentioning my incessant need to vacuum and get up all the hair.  She whipped this puppy out.  Its the ShedMaster, and I believe they should give it an even more awesome, Tim the Toolman-type name.  Such as, the ShedMaster 2000!

See those teeth?  Those teeth work magic.  They "grab" the dogs hair.  As you brush the dog you can feel the slight tug.  Yet, it doesn't hurt the dog; its not yanking the hair out of the dog's skin, but rather pulling the loose hair out of the other, attached hair.  Stella loves it.  She will lay in the yard and let me brush her.  She will even roll over and let me brush her belly.  Those teeth are rounded, so they don't scratch or irritate the dog's skin.

The hair self cleans itself out.  As you brush, it floats away in clumps.  I just rinse it off each time as Stella Thunderpaws often has pond dirt mixed in her hair.  She is a beautiful, but dirty dog.  She follows my boys everywhere and as such, she comes home as dirty as their muck boots.

I found the ShedMonster here.  It is also available on Amazon or at Walmart stores.

Products I Love: Shoo Bugga

Shoo Bugga

If you are like me, you are making the time and effort to limit your family's exposure to chemicals.  We are living in a time when it may be impossible to completely avoid contact with them.  Yet, we are being presented with some opportunities to replace products that contain potentially dangerous compounds with natural options.  Though, if you are like me, you often wonder if they will work as well as the mass produced merchandise.

7 months ago, while recovering from surgery, a care package arrived from my friend Stephanie.  Stephanie is the owner of Lola's Natural Alternatives.  Her company makes soaps, shave creams, lotions, deodorant and lip balm.  In my care package was a bit of everything.  When I opened the box, the scent of her Sweet Dreams soap was what I first noticed.  Truly amazing (I have since given over a dozen bars as gifts and everyone comments on the wonderful scent!)  Tucked in the corner was a bottle of her homemade bug repellant, Shoo Bugga.  As it was almost winter, I set this on the shelf in my bathroom closet and didn't give it another thought.

Spring came, and with it, the bugs.  My family spends a lot of time outside and as a result, are often molested by mosquitos, no-seeums, horse and deer flies unless they are coated with bug repellant.  I will admit that I only used Shoo Bugga that first time because I hadn't yet bought the chemical repellant we normally used.  Because the bugs are so prevalent here, I doubted a natural product could work.  Sorry Lola's Natural Alternatives!  However, I was proven wrong.

Shoo Bugga comes in spray, stick and balm!

In May, I ran the Pineland's Trail Challenge, a 15 mile run on the trails through the woods.  In other words, I was running through bug haven!  I sprayed myself with Shoo Bugga as well as placed a bit of the balm under the brim of my hat.  Not only did I stay completely bite free, I also didn't stink like commercial bug spray or suffer the burn that can happen once your pores open and you start to sweat.

I use Shoo Bugga every day when I walk my dog.  If I didn't, we couldn't do the walk.  The deer flies are so bad this year, and their bites hurt almost as bad as a horse fly's.  My poor Stella has come home from walks with her eyes swollen shut due to deer fly bites.  I started using Shoo Bugga on her and have had great success.  The flies hover around her head, but won't land.  I checked with her vet on Shoo Bugga's safety after she had gotten hold of the bottle, chewed the top off and ingested some.  I was assured she was okay and given the green light to use it on her.  I am using the balm just under and over her eyes and then spraying some on my hands and rubbing it on her fur.

Lola's Natural Alternatives is becoming a fixture of the northern New Jersey farmer's markets.  And word is starting to spread about their products.  I have no doubts that Stephanie is soon going to be fielding phone calls from big companies that are going to want to buy the formula and rights to Shoo Bugga.  It works THAT well!!  And a bonus is that you aren't covered with possibly dangerous chemicals, the smell of the chemicals or the oily feeling from commercial sprays.

You can find Lola's Natural Alternatives on Facebook, check out all the products they offer and place an order right there.  I have linked to their Facebook page throughout this post. If you live in New Jersey, you can find a schedule of the farmer's markets they will be at and see and smell all the soaps, lotions and balms.

Have you tried Shoo Bugga yet?  Have you tried any other of Lola's Natural Alternatives products?  Feel free to share your experience in the comments section!

***Update: I realized that on blogger, I can't keep adding to pages.  So I needed to set up my Products I love page to link back to the blog.  So this is a repost.  However, since the original post, I was contacted by Lola's who wanted to make sure that in the spirit of honesty, they made it clear that they work with another local woman who makes the soap for them.  Finally, Lola's has also launched a new web page and online store.  Check them out HERE!