Terrible Things: The Stinky (Babo Botanicals) Shampoo

I’ve finally come to the realization that there is no limit to the ways in which a parent can mess up his or her child. You can anticipate things all you want, but at the end of the day, your prevention of one problem comes at the expense of allowing another one to pop up and go unchecked.

** Disclaimer: article may include affiliate links, which do not affect the price you pay. **

But, just like every other parent, I try to make good choices for my daughter in the few areas I CAN control – like in what bath products we use (start small, right?). We loved our Burt’s Bees shampoo, but never went through the bottle quickly enough to prevent it from developing mold around the lid (our fault, not theirs). Since that was nasty, I started looking for something in a smaller size.

All my research led me to the highly-rated Babo Botanicals Oatmilk Calendula baby shampoo. On paper, it was perfect – seemed like natural ingredients, got good reviews, was expensive but not as insane as some of the others I came across, and added bonus that it had a cute little bunny on the label that I knew my daughter would love – so I took a chance and bought it.

I opened the shampoo a few days after arrival and almost passed out from the overpowering smell of something… strange. I finally figured out that this was the smell of calendula – which, for those of you who don’t know, is a plant used to make a bunch of medicines. That’s completely on me because it clearly states that just about everywhere on the packaging, but I guess I wasn’t anticipating it to be so… strong.

Restraining the impulse to plug our noses, we somehow managed to use it on B that night. While toweling off, she kept asking, “Mommy, what’s that stinky smell?” (“It’s you, honey”) – and we literally just used a drop. It truly took a full two days before my poor daughter started smelling like a normal person again.

We never went back and thankfully ended up finding Sun Bum baby shampoo, which has been great so far. So if you need baby shampoo that supposedly doesn’t have chemicals in it, go with Sun Bum or Burt’s Bees – but NOT Babo Botanicals. Your nose and everyone living within a mile radius of your house will be very grateful.