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About the Company
Boon, Inc. entered the infant and toddler feeding market in 2007. Current designs are largely polypropylene and silicone based, with one product, the Squirt feeding spoon, containing polycarbonate. Marketing director Kate Benjamin told Z Recommends in April 2008 that the company would be switching its sole polycarbonate feeding product component (the spoon portion of the Squirt) to polypropylene; it has already begun manufacturing the revamped product, and will have them in stores this summer labeled as BPA-free.
The company's Vice President of Sales, Dan Orsini - who spent time at Evenflo and Handi-Craft (Dr. Brown's) prior to joining Boon - serves on the board of directors of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, which has maintained an aggressive stance in favor of polycarbonate plastic in public statements made as recently as February 2008.
BPA-Free Products
Cups: Fluid
Utensils: Benders, Modware, Squirt in summer of 2008 when labeled as BPA-free
Tableware: Catchbowl, Groovy
Other: Snackball
Products Containing BPA
Cups: None
Utensils: Squirt, when not labeled as BPA-free
Tableware: None
Other: None
BPA-Agnostic
Potty Bench
Reviews
Fluid
BendersFluid's donut-shaped cup may be the first thing to catch your attention; although it entails a slight reduction in cleaning efficiency, it is truly ergonomic, achieving the benefit of twin handles with the cup surface itself. But it's the sippy spout that is an exercise in meticulous and high design. Although appearing to be made of a single piece of plastic, it is actually two parts, closely joined: a hard plastic outer shell with a gentle curve, and a softer plastic inner lining with a rubbery give that is sealed seamlessly into the shell.
This lining helps seal the connection between the lid and the cup without the use of a threaded screw (adhering with an unsatisfying smush, but clearly sealing tightly) but it also does all of the work: The outer surface parts at the top in a small, ovoid opening roughly the size and shape of a cat's pupil, but it forms a slight depression rather than a hole because the inner material underlays this opening in a thin, soft membrane with a tiny slit in it that allows liquid to pass through when suction is applied.
The cup has a moderate flow that invites a lot of heavy swigging, but the lusty head-tilting feels well-supported by its ease of handling. Fluid does not drip much when shaken upside down, but creative users can create a drip-drip-drip effect, which strikes us as a limitation, for sure, when dealing with kids at the "no means not while I'm looking" stage. [Read more|Amazon.com]
Catch BowlBoon's Benders utensils are ergonomically designed to bend at an angle that facilitates eating for little ones. As your child gets older and refines his motor skills, you can straighten the benders. The handles have a soft, easy grip and are indeed attractive and well designed for little hands.
L does pretty well trying to eat with the Benders, but then he will occasionally switch hands, which means the Bender is suddenly bent in the wrong direction. The utensils are easy to bend, unbend or bend the other way, but it takes an adult to understand and perform the action, and young children learning to use utensils may frequently behave ambidextrously when attempting to eat. This limits the Benders' utility somewhat for the very audience they are designed to assist. Boon advertises that these utensils are appropriate for 9+ months; if there are 9 month olds who are spoon feeding themselves then maybe I should be worried.
Rating: Fair. The key limitation to this idea, young children's limited sense of handedness, probably should have killed this product idea and limits its real utility for the youngest utensil-users and for parents, who will still need to hover and assist heavily as their child eats. [Excerpted from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]
GroovyThe Catch Bowl, as the name suggests, is designed to catch spillage as food makes it perilous journey from the bowl to your toddler's mouth. It also has a wide suction cup around the bottom of the bowl for stabilizing and securing the bowl to a feeding tray, table or counter.
Despite its suction-cup bottom, the Catch Bowl and its contents usually end up on the floor at our house. The fact that the bowl sticks slightly to his tray may have made it more of an intriguing challenge, but one which L nonetheless overcame with a flourish.
Rating: Good. This will probably work well for children at just the right stage. If you like specialized tableware that's stylish to boot, the Catch Bowl may be right for your little learner. Hand-washing recommended by ZRecs readers. [Excerpted and updated from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]
Snack BallWe are not familiar with the angelic child modeling this on the Boon website and L tends to get upset when we actually try to interlock the pieces - (he’s a take-er apart-er, not a putt-er together-er), but we all love using the orange side-bowls for his small serving, on-the-go snacks. We will often put a small amount of fruit, raisins, cheese, etc. in the small bowls and set them on the platform of his learning tower where he can access them. As he circles the room he stops by and scoops up no more than a handful of anything at a time which he eats while he cruises off somewhere else.
If he gets distracted by the gravity testing, it's much less to clean up than a whole bowl, plate or tray full or food. We take the little bowls with us to friends' houses too - when we put food in them and set it somewhere he can reach, he knows it’s for him.
For more substantial meals, we set him in his Learning Tower and feed him from the plate which has two separated compartments and a grip strip around the bottom so it doesn't slide around. In a miracle of miracles he has not yet picked the plate up and thrown it which is likely a testament to the newfound freedom and independence he gets from the learning tower versus his highchair.
Rating: Excellent. The modular nature of this set makes it fun and functional, and we're confident it will continue to function well for us as L grows and his needs change. The Groovy has achieved its ends and has become a much-used item in our household. [Excerpted from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]
BPA-AgnosticThe Snack Ball seemed like a strange design to me at first, but it's actually very convenient. It's big enough to carry a substantial amount of food, easy to throw in a bag and fun for kids to play with or try to figure out how it opens and closes.
The device has two ways of opening. It screws apart into halves for easy adult access to snacks and for easy cleaning. The orange top moves on a single hinge to allow a small opening for accessing snacks thereby reducing spill opportunities, snapping back into place when little hands have departed from the chamber. The whole thing is very sturdy. Ours has been tossed, dropped, rolled and has never opened or spilled. At this point, it is still too challenging for L to open by himself, but I imagine older kids would have no problem.
Rating: Excellent. Fun, functional, and original, the Snack Ball is a great idea that just works. [Excerpted from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]
Potty Bench
Animal BagWith Boon's potty bench, G can actually perform the transformation from potty to stool himself. Just close the lid, and boom, it's a stool.
Like many stand-alone potties, its receptacle is mounted in a removable drawer. There's a detachable "pee shield" for boys. Here's something clever Boon did - they made the shield out of a flexible rubber, just flexible enough that when you close the lid on it, it collapses down into the bowl. You don't need to pull it off every time to close the lid! And that means G can do it by himself. Also, it does not come out so easily that G is tempted to play with it, as he did with the pee shield on his padded seat.
The side storage compartments for storing toilet training materials are probably the weakest aspect of Boon's design. The drawers' sliding covers only function when the potty is open - practical enough. But G is constantly confused by the fact that you can't close them unless the potty is open. Even an adult may have difficulty closing them, as the plastic covers flex in a way that tends to block them from closing completely. But now I'm nitpicking on a minor design flaw, easily overcome by the adults in the family after a couple minutes of practice. For the most part, the covers stay open and G uses them to store his potty-time books.
In our opinion, Boon's potty bench is well worth the extra $5-10 you'll pay over its $25 competitors in the convertible potty seat/step stool market. Boon combines nice styling with good functional design in this excellent potty seat. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've seen. [Read more|Amazon.com]
ContactBoon's Animal Bags, which come in small ( 36" x 30" x 19"), medium (50" x 21" x 33") and large (49" x 16" x 42") sizes, make the brilliant leap of logic that allows for a voluptuous accretion of stuff to become the stuffing of a useful piece of child-friendly hang-out furniture, like a bean-bag chair would be if all your child played with was dried beans. (Now there's an idea!)
Boon was kind enough to send us one of their small Animal Bags to examine, and we are all thrilled by how completely it surpassed our expectations. These people thought about this, and worked on this, for a while to make sure it was not just a pretty (and clever) piece of kid furniture, but actually solves the problem of stuffed animal storage in a way that is satisfying for children and parents alike.
The Boon Animal Bag is made of thick, sturdy material that is soft and fuzzy on its exterior, as welcoming and cozy as the furry friends it so helpfully ingests. Boon Animal Bags have round screens arranged on their surfaces which double as zippered doors for removing stuffed animals from the bag. The small bag has three.
The thing we immediately noticed about the bag was how easily the zippers could be opened and closed. Boon uses wide-gauge, heavy-duty zippers which progress smoothly along their tracks without snagging and which are easily manipulated using their broad, flat zipper pulls. This thoughtful design makes this bag useful to children as young as two. In fact, the zippers on this Boon bag are the first Z has ever been able to open and close without assistance. [Read more|Amazon.com]
Phone: 888-376-4763
Website: www.booninc.com
Last Update: 4/29/2008
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