www.bluepenquin.biz

Mission Statement

Our products are designed to be easy to use, to promote good health and to put only the finest natural materials next to a baby's skin. We care about our customers and our children, our country and our world. We work as a team in a family-friendly workshop that is respectful, bright and airy. Remember: With every new child comes the opportunity to make the world a better place.

WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO:

We think simplicity is easy and diapering should be easy. We think natural is healthy, and diapering should be as healthy as possible. We think conserving money and natural resources is important, and diapering should aim to do both.

Why we don’t make pocket diapers: because simplicity is easy.
With a pocket diaper, you insert layers of padding between the outer and inner shell of the diaper. It takes you time to add the inserts to each diaper and then, when the diaper is wet (or worse), you must extract the padding in order to wash the diaper. What is the benefit of spending your time this way? We think simplicity is beauty. Our all-in-one diapers have a built-in doubler for absorbency and put either soft cotton or hemp fleece next to baby’s skin. Want more absorbency? Tuck a second doubler under the first: it’s that simple.

Why we don’t use polyester fleece next to baby’s skin: because natural is healthy.
With polyester fleece, dampness is “wicked” away from baby’s skin. What is the benefit of having your baby feel dry when s/he is really wet? If baby doesn’t feel wet, s/he cry, so you don’t know it’s time for a diaper change. Your baby gets to lie in a wet diaper, surrounded by unhealthy warm bacteria-friendly dampness. Nature is healthy. With natural fabrics your baby will feel wet when s/he is wet and will cry out of discomfort. The crying lets you know it’s time to get your baby into a dry, clean diaper and away from the wet or dirty diaper: it’s not to let a baby sit in a wet or dirty diaper.

Polyester also has a tendency to hang onto odor, unlike natural cotton or hemp fabrics, whose fiber structure allows for a more thorough cleaning that releases the odor. Hemp in particular has naturally antimicrobial properties which will inhibit bacteria growth. This means bacteria will not flourish in a wet diaper and that the diaper will not carry an odor with it. Natural is healthy.

Finally, due to the chemical content of polyester, you may find your child is has an allergic reaction to it that can include the development of a rash. Put the dampness of the wet/soiled diaper next to skin with a rash and your child’s health and comfort will truly be compromised. Natural fabrics, meanwhile, rarely cause allergic reactions: natural is healthy.

Why we don’t think flushables make sense: because we encourage conservation.
You will be changing your baby’s diapers as many as 9 to 13 times per day, flushing the toilet each and every time if you use a flushable liner. At anywhere from 2 – 7 gallons of water per flush (for the high efficiency toilets, a flush can use as “little” as 1.5 gallons), this means you are probably using an average of 40 to 50 gallons of water per day for flushing diapers alone. You will also use water to wash the covers in the laundry. Meanwhile with a typical washing machine, you will use around 40 gallons of water to clean several days worth of diapers and covers.

In addition to water conservation, consider that you will need to continue to purchase flushable liners throughout the diapering years of your baby. Not only do you purchase cloth diapers once, but when you are finished with them they can be passed on to friends or relatives, resold to other new parents or (the classic re-use!) used as the very best dust rags in the world. We encourage conservation: reduce, recycle, reuse.

Company Profile

HISTORY:

In 1993, Blue Penguin was born in the garage of Avima Yaffe. Having just given birth to her third child, motherhood had deepened Avima's awareness of environmental concerns. She wanted to do what she could to help leave the world a clean place for her children. At the same time, she realized that "disposable" diapers were creating a major landfill and pollution problem in the United States. Avima had been trained in engineering and then in biology; what a perfect combination of training and philosophical focus!

After much research and several prototypes, Avima developed a cloth diaper of the most healthy, natural fabric available at the time - 100% cotton - engineered to be well-fitting, leak-proof and comfortable for baby. She designed her diaper to look and "act" like a disposable. It was every bit as easy to put on and take off as any disposable. It fit well and was leak-proof, like disposables. It was, however, far better than any disposable could ever be. Not only was this diaper easy to use, it was also made from breathable, environmentally friendly cloth...it would not be going into our landfills since it was reusable. Hence, the Re-Uz'M™ was born! Additionally, the design of the diaper, with a unique "quick dry" doubler sewn in, made it easy to clean and faster to dry than other cloth diapers.

For a number of years, Avima worked building the business and ultimately began being carried by a number of online catalogs,  With the growth of the Internet, she also began to sell as a factory outlet site online, directly to customers. At that point, in 2004, she began to look for a successor to take over the business and was joined by Carol Stewart as a business partner.

CURRENT OPERATIONS:

Carol Stewart Owner Blue Penguin Diapers

In January of 2005, Carol purchased Blue Penguin and has taken over all operations of the business. For Carol, Blue Penguin represents a meeting point of both her environmental awareness and her background in non-profit management. While Blue Penguin is not a non-profit business, Carol operates it based on a clear mission statement.

Based in the Glassell Park area of Los Angeles, California, Blue Penguin's products are manufactured in a bright airy workshop to which the office is attached. At our shop we receive fabrics, plan inventory, cut from patterns and sew all of our garments. We also ship all orders from our workshop directly to our customers. One of Carol's great developments since she has owned Blue Penguin has been the SposoEasy™ All-in-One. She designed this AIO in an effort to create an easy to use, easy to care for, well fitting, leak-proof and environmentally friendly diaper. At our shop, we have a staff that fluctuates between four and ten depending on demand: Hector is our fabric cutter, Elva, Maria, Blanca, Golla, Laura and Tomasa sew and trim, interns help with office work, Danny helps organize the warehouse, and Bri and Carol do a little bit of everything! Carol ensures that everyone who works at Blue Penguin lives and works in the United States legally, is paid above minimum wage, has safe working conditions and lives locally, in order to support the local economy and help boost the neighborhood.

At Blue Penguin, we think diapering should be easy, natural is healthy and conserving money and natural resources is important, so at our company we aim to do it all! We are a community-aware, family friendly workplace that is determined to make quality products.

Thanks so much for reading about our company. We hope you become a part of our extended family!

Blue Penguin:

THE STORY OF THE LITTLE BLUE PENGUIN:

The Little Blue Penguin (Eudyptula minor: Greek for "good little diver") is indigenous to the sub-Antarctic regions south of New Zealand. The smallest of all penguins, it typically weighs only two pounds and stands around 16 inches tall. The plumage of the Blue Penguin is a slate-blue color, with bright white on the belly. 

These penguins only come ashore under the cover of nightfall and live underground in burrows, making it a real rare treat to spot them. They are quite domestic, with long-term partnerships that are the norm (although"divorce" does occur). Blue Penguins are very faithful to their home site. Chicks will often return to within a few yards of where they were raised and once settled in an area, may never move. While Blue Penguin's suffer from a high rate of juvenile mortality, individuals can reach up to as much as 25 years of age. The population of Blue Penguins is relative large, but they are rarely seen because of their small size and unusual habits. And the population and range of the species has been declining in areas not protected from predation, resulting in the New Zealand Department of Conservation ranking the Blue Penguin as lower risk - near threatened.