Natural baby store ‘not just Hippie stuff’
Posted on Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Old ideas are new again in baby care at a new Fayetteville business that features cloth diapers, organic clothing, sustainable wooden toys and chemical-free products for babies and mommies.
Terra Tots is a new natural parenting store that opened Dec. 3 on the Square, behind Tim’s Pizza.
“ Where nature and nurture collide, ” is how Bernice and Bryan Hembree of Fayetteville describe their new venture, which began about two years ago with their personal search for sustainable and safe baby products just before their baby, Bergen, was born. She’s now a 21-month-old.
Emphasis at the store is on organic and chemical-free products ranging from clothing to lotions to cleaning products and baby blankets.
“ When you think about it, everything just makes sense. Cloth diapering makes sense. Organic clothes make sense. Affordable, that makes sense. Toys that are chemical free, that makes a whole lot of sense, ” said Bernice.
The Hembrees started their ecologically sound and baby-sensitive products in what they called “ growing roots” parties to see the reaction of area residents.
They took products, mostly cloth diapers, with them, rather than selling from catalogs.
“ We started doing that in August and had an amazing response, ” said Bernice. That response has since grown through word-of-mouth contacts among parents, what the Hembrees call the city’s baby network, Fayetteville’s environmentally-conscious residents and the city’s believers in organic products. “ We saw a definite need for a local presence that was offering products like this, ” said Bernice. It’s no coincidence that Terra Tots is so near the site of the Farmers Market, where the Hembrees, who are already Farmers Market musicians, hope to offer locally-made products and educational fliers about natural parenting next spring. “ We chose this location because we are right here with our target crowd, the Farmers Market-goers, ” she said.
Advocates As babies are prone to do, Bergen brought a whole new world to her parents’ attention. “ For us, we wanted to make her life as safe as possible. Because we encounter so many pollutants on a daily basis that we have no control over, just in the air that we breathe, we decided it makes so much sense to control the things we can control, ” said Bernice. The slippers they sell, for example, don’t have leather in them because of the chemicals used in making most leather shoes. “ That was a real issue for us. Kids put shoes in their mouth. There are so many things that parents don’t think about in producing those products, ” she said. When the Hembrees talk about why to use cloth diapers, they talk about not wrapping the baby’s bottom in chemicals; but, they also include their concern for fecal matter leaching into groundwater. “ And the issue with landfills is crazy. I was told that the first disposable diaper ever used is still sitting in a landfill somewhere. It takes 250 to 500 years — that’s estimated, so it could take longer — for a disposable diaper to decompose, ” Bernice said.
A world of cloth Dominating the shop are boxes of cloth diapers and the bright, decorated diaper covers that go with them. “ That was our platform. That’s why we opened, ” she said. Terra Tots offers five brands of cloth diapers. Organic and unbleached cotton, bamboo and wool are among the materials used. Bamboo ? That’s right. “ Bamboo has been the coolest fabric for us. It’s most absorbent, which is what you want in a diaper, and you can wash it hundreds and hundreds of times and it’ll just get better the more you wash it. ” The diapers, one size fits all from newborn to 35 pounds, are fastened with snaps or hook-and-loop tape (often known by one trade name, Velcro ), not the safety pins of yesteryear. A key concern that cloth diapers address is the disposal of fecal matter in landfills. With cloth diapers, that material can be washed into the sanitary sewer system, which is designed to handle it, rather than sent off to a landfill where it can be a threat to the environment, including water quality. The chemicals used to produce disposable diapers is harmful to the environment as well, she aid. The Hembrees are used to some people’s first reaction to their store. “ The main one being that it’s just a bunch of hippie stuff, ” Bernice said. “ They are usable for everyone. That’s what we tell folks. It’s not just hippie stuff. ”
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