I've been sent a set of items from the Arnicare range from Nelsons to test on the everyday scrapes and accidents of a life with two children.

I really do like Arnica – I know it's used commonly for bruises, but Arnica actually has some fantastic healing properties and can be used for a lot more than just bruising and is especially good after surgeries and so on. We also use it for muscular injuries and shock too. It would make a great stocking filler or a top up gift, especially if someone needs some TLC or if you were filling a bag for a new mum or baby.

When I’m not huddled over a computer screen at PlayPennies HQ, I’m also a qualified Baby Massage teacher, so whenever products for use with babies come in, I feel a bit nervous because in truth, I’m going to be more critical of the product than the average user.

When I received a beautiful gift set of Tiddley Pom Organic Baby Massage Oil and Organic Baby Wash, I had the same nervousness, but I was pleasantly surprised by some of it.

The set is lovely. It would really make a nice gift.

People often look at organic, chemical-free products as the domain of the rich or obsession of the hippie-wannabes.  People also shrug off the nasties found in so many beauty products today, thinking they must be okay or we wouldn’t be allowed to sell them.  Which is one of the things I love about Maison Boo – an organic, nasties-free beauty product range founded by three chemists – and more unusually, three daddy chemists, shocked by the chemicals in new-born skin care products.

Quoting from their website, “…they were horrified to find that most of them contained chemicals such as parabens, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulphate.

Being chemists they were aware that these are commonly used ingredients within car wash detergents, industrial cleaners and PVC windows, and so the eczema and skin aggravation made sense. They were incredulous that such potentially harmful ingredients were so readily used in products for newborn skin, and vowed to find an alternative.”