Citrus Lane June 2013 Review

Emily’s been getting Citrus Lane for probably about 6 months now. I’m in the process of comparing it to Stork Stack to decide which one we’ll keep and which will go, but so far I’ve been happy with Citrus Lane because it gives a pretty good mixture of useful items and fun items for Emily. For $25 a month (or $21 a month if you sign up for a 6 month subscription – I’ll do this if Citrus Lane wins my comparison), you get 4+ items selected for your child’s age (they offer boxes up to 5 years old). As I mentioned, you usually get a mixture of useful things (like toothpaste, sunscreen, food items, etc) and toys or books. There’s usually a theme each month and June’s theme was “Fun in the Sun”.
Like The Little Book Club, Emily gets excited when she sees her Citrus Lane box. She knows it’s for her. I had to snap quick pictures for this because she just wanted to open it and pull everything out to see!

Opening the box

Info card – contains descriptions of everything included as well as coupon codes if you like the product and want something else that brand makes!

The first item we pulled out was the iplay Reversible Sun Hat with UPF 50 in their multi-stripe/pink color, size 2-4 years. I love that it has UV protective fabric and a tie to keep it on. It is a bit big on Emily still (I guess head size can vary from 2 to 4 years), but it does it’s job and it’s pretty cute. They have lots of color variations on the website (I love the guitar one!). While it’s not really waterproof, Emily wore it out in her little pool and it seemed to do a good job protecting her scalp and face. Didn’t fall off once! Nor did she try to take it off, which kind of surprised me. The iplay website lists this at $15.

Just out of the box, the iplay Reversible Sun Hat

The iplay hat in use! A little big, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.

The next item was a package of Alex Dot to Dot Chalk. We haven’t opened this one up to test it yet, but I love that it comes with a chalk holder to protect it from breaking and keep Emily’s hands clean. She’s pretty girly when it comes to dirty hands. I hope it will work on our sidewalks or street – we don’t have normal dark asphalt in TX, we have light colored stuff, so hopefully it will be bright enough to show up. I do think Emily will like this, though, since she loves drawing and coloring. Amazon lists this at just under $5.

Alex Dot to Dot Chalk

The next set of products we found were the Haba Sand Ice Cream Scoop and Haba Sand Sugar Cone. This was the set Emily took and ran off with while I was taking pictures. She loves it already. We just got her a sandbox and plan to set it up this weekend, so she couldn’t try it out in sand yet, but I think she’ll love to play with it in the sand. They’re durable and seem really well made, which should help since she’s 2. I believe the Haba items included varied by box, even in the same age group – I know I saw a couple different items in reviews, including sand drills and molds. Emily’s set is valued at approximately $5.39 based on the Haba prices (the cones are sold in sets of 4, so I just divided that one by 4). I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying more Haba products for Emily’s sandbox.

Haba Sand Ice Cream Scoop and Cone. Emily loves the little smiley face in the scoop!

Scooping ice cream!

And now the cone is a hat. A birthday hat she said.

The final product in the June box was Episencial Sunny Sunscreen, SPF 35 (the item is in the featured products box, for some reason I can’t get the direct link). This is a mineral sunscreen. I’m all for trying new sunscreens for Emily. She has sensitive skin and occasionally has a bit of eczema, mainly on her legs (it’s clear until something irritates it. Chlorine seems to irritate it, sadly – she loves the pool). I’ve tried a few different sunscreens this year and both California Baby and Mustela (my old go to for her shampoo) caused a bit of a rash. They’re both for sensitive skin… I’m hoping this won’t irritate her skin, but here’s where my disappointment comes in. This is a big bottle. I opened the seal to find it mostly full of air. There’s probably 1 application inside it and it’ll be a pain to squeeze it all out. I went on their Facebook page to see if I got a bad one and found something they posted answering my exact question earlier in the month – apparently this is a sample size trial in a full size bottle. They decided to use the bottle as to not waste the packaging (saying they’re green because of that), but honestly, it just sounds weird to me. I’m going to use it once and then throw it out (recycle, but still – much shorter use time than having it be full). I kind of feel like they should have either given us a full size product or used a different brand that has various sizes of bottles because the product, as is, was pretty disappointing and I wouldn’t have found the explanation for it without digging for it on their Facebook page. I’m really not sure how to value this because the Citrus Lane sticker added to the bottle (which I saw after looking it up) says it’s 1.5 oz, whereas the full size is listed as 2.7 oz, but there’s no way this contains only 1.2 oz less than a full size bottle. If the label is correct, it would be valued at $8.33, but again, I doubt full size is only twice the amount given, making it 2 uses, so I’m hesitant to value this at that price.

Episencial Sunny Sunscreen, SPF 35

Without the sunscreen, the value of this box is $25.39, about even with the price I paid for it. I’m not sure how much the sunscreen adds, but even if it only adds a dollar or 2, it makes the box worth more than the price paid.  Ignoring the failure that the sunscreen is (and maybe the product is fine – I’ll still test it out, but the size is off-putting), I was still very happy with this box because Emily loves the sand toys, I’m pretty sure she’ll love the chalk, and the hat is definitely useful. What I love about Citrus Lane is that there’s always at least one thing in the box that goes into heavy use – like the Skip Hop owl plate she got a few months ago (which spurred me to buy several of their straw cups, including the matching owl one) and the innobaby Keepaa Drink Holder (I bought another in pink) she got recently. Citrus Lane introduces me to great products. And I love when they include books or toys. Emily gets so excited!
If you’d like to sign up, here’s my personal invite link – if you sign up using that link, it will give you $10 off your order as well as giving me a $10 credit (and I’d be oh, so grateful!!)! If you’d rather not use my link, the link at the top of the page is just the standard Citrus Lane link, not linked to me. If you already get Citrus Lane, how did your kids like their box this month? How did you like it?

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own. I have included referral links.)