I had the opportunity to try out some products from the Susan Brown’s Baby line recently, thanks to a very nice PR lady who was generous enough to send me a few samples to try out on my own personal baby. (To Dylan: Aw, who’s Mama’s little guinea pig? YOU are!)

I’ll be honest, I didn’t fall in love with the entire collection, but I did find some nice items that I would definitely considering buying, particularly as gifts for a new mom. Here’s a quick rundown of the products I tried:

• Moisturizing cleansing cloths. Upscale wipes with a lovely scent and a soft, gentle feel. My only complaint about these is that I thought they were too soft — I’m kind of picky about diaper wipes and I like them to have some grab to them, if you know what I mean. That way you get the job done quicker and you don’t use 385721 wipes in the process. These would be great for babies with diaper rash, though, or newborns whose skin is super delicate.

• Nourishing lotion. This is a nice, easy-to-apply baby lotion, but my chief problem with this item and all of the other “fragrance free” products in the Susan Brown line is that they do in fact have a fragrance, and I don’t really like it. The scented items all smell good, but the fragrance free products have a scent I’m not sure how to describe — almost like a tart green apple, but a less-pleasant (to MY nose, anyway) version thereof. I didn’t like putting this on Dylan’s skin for the smell alone, I guess I prefer the old fashioned baby-powder smelling stuff.

• Lotion-to-Powder. Again with the fragrance-free fragrance, but this stuff is kind of neat how it applies like a lotion but feels smooth and dry like a powder after a little while. It’s a talc-free product, which is nice.

• Stretch Therapy Daytime Treatment. A supposed stretch mark reducer, formed of various complex ingredients. I didn’t end up with stretch marks from my last pregnancy but I sure got a festive door prize of a saggy/wrinkly/rumpled belly. Do I think this cream will help? Not really. Am I slathering it on fairly frequently anyway? You bet.

• Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer. This was my very favorite of the assortment of items I tried and one I would definitely buy again. It’s your basic alcohol-based sanitizing gel but with little moisturizing beads in it and a really nice scent. After you use it, your hands feel soft and they don’t smell weird. Very cool, much nicer than Purell, and would make a great addition to someone’s baby shower basket.

Overall, this is a quality product line (see their ingredients here), all the items I tried felt wonderful and came with lovely packaging. The one thing I just couldn’t get over was the fragrance-free scent; maybe I’m smelling one specific ingredient, I’m not sure. Scent is a very subjective sort of criteria, though, so your mileage will obviously vary.

I do think if you find yourself in the market for buying someone a baby shower present, one of their gift baskets would make an awesome gift. The recipient would surely find at least one or two items to be both useful and enjoyable.

Link: Susan Brown’s Baby