Let me preface this review by stating that I love supporting stay-at-home mom/mom based businesses. I really would love to give a good review in this case, but just keep reading and you'll see why I cannot in this case. I don't want to lead others astray, and then cause them to hate their cloth purchase. For future reference, if you have a high quality cloth diaper and great customer service, I'll be happy to review your diaper for you. This is the ONLY diaper that I have been this dissatisfied with.
A little history:
I found a link on diaperswappers.com to the Kookabear Kids website. Diaperswapper members had the opportunity to purchase diapers for $10 each. A great deal. Melinda (the owner) was most likely flooded with orders, as this price is well below her retail price. I ordered three. There was no note on the site about estimated delivery date. I assumed incorrectly that she had built up stock and would simply ship items out. Wrong! Not that this was a terrible crime or anything, as I've waited for other SAHM diapers too, but I knew ahead of time that I would be waiting. My invoice receipt said that my diapers would ship in 4 weeks. Sheesh! FOUR WEEKS?!!?!
Please note, any communication between Melinda and myself (where she emailed me) went to my spam box for some reason. She finally contacted me after 5 or 6 weeks through a friend that also ordered a $10 diaper. So I searched my inbox and found an email that she'd sent, one week earlier stating that she was out of one of the fabrics I ordered. MY FAVORITE ONE. Bummer.
I got over it, picked a different pattern and kept waiting. Older blog posts show my frustration with waiting. She mailed them to my old address. I sent her emails, and checked with her, and was assured she'd send them to Savannah, but low and behold, she shipped them to Evans. Thankfully I am good friends with my former neighbor. He intercepted the package, and I met up with him to get it. (I just had to wait until I made a trip to the Augusta area to get it.)
So I meet up with Brad, all excited to get my new diapers after all this time. I rip open the package in the car, and, ***what a letdown*** they look horrible! The stitching was crooked, the leg gussets/elastic looked like she slopped them together, and the snaps didn't coordinate that well with the fabric. On top of that, the argyle print was cut out the wrong direction. There were blue pen markings on the PUL on the inside. (These were AI2's with snap in liners). The liners were snapped into the covers crooked. Overall, they were terribly constructed. I complained to Melinda, and tried them out. LEAKED almost EVERY TIME. These diapers were no good.
She emailed back saying that she was having problems with the materials used on the soaker pads, and that she was going to start using some new more natural product (bamboo I think). She said she was changing her diaper from an AI2 to and AIO and that she'd refund my $ or send me new diapers. I chose the new diapers like a doofus. After being surprised by the workmanship, I confronted her, and this is what she said,
"Honestly, I didn't realize that they were so shoddily made and I am somewhat suprised myself because I have had such good feedback too... ;( I have been going through so much personal stuff lately that I have to admit I have been a little distracted. That is why I practically quit selling things until I listed some tester items yesterday.
I can happily refund through paypal.
I can also simply remake your order and see if it is better for you. You are more than welcome to keep the ones you have as compensation for all the crap you have been through with me.
I finally got a serger so I am serging my inserts now and I am hoping that will really help. I am also going to quit using microfiber and exclusively use the bamboo hemp combination because it is easier to work with and I find customers really like the natural fibers for baby.....
Just let me know what you would like to do.... I have to say I am very sorry.... "
I felt bad for complaining, but had her remake them, as $40 was too pay to not expect something, so I gave her another shot...it was my "compassionate" way of helping her since she was obviously going through something.
Fast forward a few weeks:
I get my new AIO's. They are much better than before. One of the four was backwards (how it closed) than the other three. I thought that was weird. The stitching isn't perfect, but it was improved and acceptable. She added tags, which was a nice touch. They looked really cute off of Jonas. However, my son is chunky, and they were made smaller. So they were too tight to really let him wear. I put them on him a few times, but they leak. Not sure if it was product malfunction this time or that they don't fit him well (30 lbs at the time), but in either case, I was tired of dealing with it, and didn't want to sound like a mooch. Melinda also offered a freebie for blog reader, that I was going to do when I reviewed the diaper. So needless to say, due to the dislike of the diapers, I decided to NOT host the giveaway (not to mention her customer service diminished after she sent the 2nd batch) because I was worried the prize would never show up. I tried emailing her about the sizing of those 2nd diapers because I just wanted her to know that she should upsize them a little now that they were AIO's, but I've never seen any more contact from her.
I was told that I would get some extra inserts with my second order because of all the cr@p she put me through. I got the worst looking scraps of fabric. They were all different, they were different shapes, some were serged on the top, some were really long pieces. All were crooked and stupid. What a waste of time.
So I can't recommend Kookabear Kids/Kookabum diapers to you at this time. Others are having issues with her too, and from what I can tell, she's avoiding those who have issues with her. It is sad because the prints and the idea of her store, to have modern diapers was very good, it was just poorly executed. :(
Stick with some other brand for cloth diapering your baby....
(I thought I had better pics with the diapers but this is all I could find...you can barely see his punk diaper. Oh well, he hates it too.)
