...
I have a cynical suspicion that instead of employing clever technology people at Pampers to invent a special kind of water-soluble wipe fibres (there is no indication of that on the packet), clever marketing people at Pampers decided to cut normal, thinnish wipes in half, outsourced a ... Read review
This review already contains more than 120 words. As a Ciao member you could earn up to £5 with this review.
A review by magdadh on Pampers KanDoo Toilet Wipes September 26th, 2004
Author's product rating:
Dispenser
Easy to dispense
Value for Money
Very poor
Advantages:
wipes the bum cleaner ans surer than the dry toilet paper
Disadvantages:
horrendously expensive, unnecessarily perfumed
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
Kandoo Toilet Wipes claim to be ‘your little one’s first toilet tissue’ …. or something to that effect. That was a put-off, as I don’t like niche products much. A machine for cutting rose shapes out of radishes, a saloon for cutting hair of married women aged 30 to 50 of Armenian extraction, shoes that are good just for getting in and out of the car in - these are all things that I view with a great suspicion.
However, Katie is growing, she is toilet trained as far as the act itself goes; but she still needs help in the final (read: bum wiping) stages. So, I am thinking of ways to teach her to do it herself and as ’toilet wipes’ are marketed at precisely such buyers, and I had received a voucher for a £1 off a packet of Kandoo in the last mailing from Tesco Baby and Toddler Club, I decided to get a packet.
The result is this review. It is exclusively devoted to a bum-wiping product for preschoolers, there is no depth nor sophisticated irony of any kind. If you are not in a target market for this product, dear reader, do yourself a favour and stop now. I won’t be offended, I promise.
(1) Packaging
I bought a refill packet - that seemed expensive enough and anyway I never ever saw much point in these dispenser boxes for normal wipes, being perfectly satisfied with a resealable refill packets. I will not change habits of three years of child breeding just for the benefit of providing the Ciao review with a dispenser section, sorry. The boxes didn't allow me to not rate the dispenser so the rating is based on the look I had at the thing.
The refill packaging is colourful in green, orange and purple; and probably quite attractive to children; reseals well enough until you lose that top bit and provides almost all of the information anybody could desire, including a long and frightening list of ingredients. To my practically limited mind, it lacks a significant piece of data: despite searching and seeking, nowhere could I see information on how many actual wipes the packet contained. Weird. I wonder why. Perhaps it has something to do with the ease of calculating the unit cost for a piece of fibre measuring 2 by 3 inches, drenched in moisturiser and perfume.
(2) Main Function
That is, bum wiping. On this score Kandoo work OK. Nothing particularly brilliant (I wonder what a particularly brilliant bum wiping performance would entail, actually). They are moist, soft and don’t tear, which is perhaps the most important factor if you are trying to encourage a three year old to do the wiping herself (not that my Katie was fooled, she has a very good grasp of her own abilities and even better one of the purpose of mummies, so nothing came of my attempt at encouraging independence. I can’t blame Kandoo for that. ).
The wipe is drenched in the usual wipe’y moisturiser and I have a strong impression that this one is not particularly friendly to sensitive skin. There was a slight almost-sting even during your reviewer’s test run so I would be careful if the prospective user had a tendency to allergies or sensitive skin. It is possible that this effect is caused mainly by what is covered in no. 3.
(3) Fragrance
Kandoo wipes are fragranced - very definitely and strongly fragranced, in fact and I just cannot even imagine what purpose might it serve. They already contain a result of hard work of a little pharma-chemical factory and have no idea why a big dose of (not unpleasant itself, rather fruity-melony) fragrance was added.
There is another flavour apart form the Jungle Fruit I bought, but as far as I could see no unperformed version is available.
(4) Secondary functions
This is a failing. Normal wipes are usable for a variety of other purposes, including runny noses, mascara’d eyes and tomato-sauce-covered faces. Due to the ‘sting’ factor my one attempt at wiping a runny nose resulted in a scream, while the strong smell made them unpleasant alternative to serviettes. I didn’t dare to try them on my eyes.
(5) Flushability
I hasten to report that we have gone through most of the packet with no need for a plumber. However, I have to confess to a waste-disposal offence and say that I have been partial to flushing an occasional ‘normal’ wipe (and sometimes, but rarely, two) both in Poland and in the UK and never caused a plumbing emergency either.
I have a cynical suspicion that instead of employing clever technology people at Pampers to invent a special kind of water-soluble wipe fibres (there is no indication of that on the packet), clever marketing people at Pampers decided to cut normal, thinnish wipes in half, outsourced a lab assistant to conduct a series of experiments to determine how many of such pieces can be actually flushed in one go (they advise against using more than 5, not that I can see any need) and then marketed them as flushable. Please correct me if I am wrong and I will amend. The pampers website claims them to be biodegradable, and I cannot refute it, but believe me, they look and feel just like thinner and smaller version of a normal wipe.
(6) Price and Value for Money
I saved it for later. But yes, you have guessed. The reason the voucher I received from Tesco was for a whole pound off became apparent as I approached the appropriate shelf: Kandoo toilet wipes are EXTORTIONATELY expensive. The packet of undeclared number I purchased with my voucher cost (in a large, out of town Tesco) £2.69. That was a refill, remember.
[since writing the above I have found out - from the Tesco website - there is 60 in the packet]
As a comparison: a packet of 80 decent quality normal wipes can be had in Aldi for 1.29; that 72 Tesco wipes cost less than 1.50 and Pampers charges 2.49 for 72 of their own baby wipes (all of these are bigger), not even mentioning the fact that a roll of Value toilet paper (from a packet of four) costs less than 11 pence.
(7) Verdict
Overall, Kandoo wipes proved to be what I just about suspected they were: a fundamentally simple thing, repackaged and repositioned by clever (or perhaps not so clever) marketing as a niche product for which a massive price premium is charged, ecologically dodgy (we shouldn’t flush wipes unless they really disintegrate), unnecessarily fragranced which renders them almost useless for any other wiping purpose. They wipe bums well, but so do ‘normal’ wipes, moist toilet tissue, and normal toilet paper can be moistened with a bit o baby cream or warm water if such necessity arises.
Will I buy them again? No, I will not. I would have not done it in the first place if it wasn’t for the voucher; but I was contemplating buying a Tesco version. Now the trial of Kandoo convinced me that I am not one for niche products. Katie will have to do with universal white bog roll, I am afraid.
As many as two stars because they don‘t fail at the main task. Only two stars because they are a total rip-off and ecologically suspicious one to boot.
Advantages: clean well, soft, fun dispenser, encourage independance, flushable Disadvantages: the smell of the wipes, cost
...using the potty we used pampers baby wipes to clean his bottom but as these cant be flushed down the toilet it meant we had to find an alternative. We saw the catchy adverts on TV for Kandoo wipes and they seemed ideal, especially as they were made by pampers which is a brand we had always found to have products of high quality so the next time we went to Asda we brought some and my brother has been using them ever since!
- PACKAGING -
Now I know ... ...read but the box that these wipes come in is just so funky that it would be a crime not to describe it! The dispensing box is the shape of a slightly squashed cube, made from bright purple plastic with rounded corners, there is a (very) bright green base on the box which can be removed to insert a new packet of wipes (refill packs can be brought separately). On the front of the box is a sticker with the Kandoo logo on it and a picture of a strange ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Creates independence with little mess Disadvantages: A bit pricey
...try new ideas... So when Pampers brought out new KanDoo wipes for children at toilet time I thought I would give them a go – well I thought I would ask my little 3-year-old, Charlie, to give them a go.
Now Charlie is totally toilet trained as you would expect from most 3-year-olds but when it came to the “big” toilet he didn’t really like getting his hands dirty so to speak. I realised that what with him starting nursery – he wouldn’t always have ... ...He always used regular toilet tissue but would always end up with one small piece or the whole roll – there was never really any middle ground. So I thought that these KanDoo wipes could be the answer to our problem.
When I approached him about the product he seemed really keen – he also liked the fact that they were just for him and not for Mummy and Daddy – although I am sure that Daddy has been using them but I cannot prove it and I don’t really ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Easy for children to use Disadvantages: Can be expensive
My youngest was a nightmare to toilet train. You see he suffers from second child syndrome. He learnt at an early age that he could get everyone to do everything for him! And toilet training was no different, when he did start finally going to the loo on his own he refused to wipe his own bottom and would call us to do it. We tried all sorts of tricks including bribery but he was and still is very stubborn, and then the other half came home with ... ...give them a sense of achievement.
PACKAGING
-------------------
This was part of the reason he liked them. You buy the starter kit first. You get the main dispenser and a packet of wipes. The dispenser is a square plastic box that looks a bit squashed. The main colour is purple and the detachable base is green, a luminous green. On the top you have a green soft push button, which opens the lid, which is also green. I have noticed the lid sometimes ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: pleasant smelling, bright packaging for kids, catchy tv advert Disadvantages: can be expensive
I am a sucker for new gadgets and gizmos and when I first saw the tv advert for kandoo my daughter was so mesmerised that I decided that I would give them a go.
Don't get me wrong - she can go to the loo all by herself but occasionally gets very lazy and there is nothing worse when you have just sat down with a nice cuppa when you get the shout - "mum - come and wipe my bum".
Off we set up the local high street - first stop our local 'Bodycare' ... ...name toiletries at great prices). There my little one takes off down the shop and lifts her little purple and green box and proudly shouts "i kandoo it too - can you". With alot of strange looks we set off to the checkout. A purple plastic box with a lime green flip up lid and a removable lime green base cost us £1.99(complete with a packet of 60 wipes). A refil packet of 60 wipes are available to buy for £1.49. Once home she could not wait to use ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Box is well designed and serves purpose. Disadvantages: Wipes stink, dry out and are too flimsy. Horrendously expensive.
...wipe negates this. Perhaps, in Pampers attempts to make Kandoo toilet wipes, "Your little one's first toilet tissue" they should have remembered to incorporate some of the things that make their baby wipes so effective i.e. ridges and thickness. As it is the wipes are flimsy, non-absorbent and too small.
The wipes themselves are also not exactly kind to my daughter's bottom I presume due a rather large amount of additional fragrancing. The smell ... ...a wipe on my own skin they certainly do not moisten but in fact dry out the skin. My daughter does not complain of any stinging or irritation but I have noticed a definite dryness to her bottom that was not evident when she was using pamper baby wipes or even toilet tissue alone. The box makes no claims at being sensitive or alcohol free either. As such these wipes are also at other functions. After all would you wipe your daughters face or hands ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
