There’s a lot of controversy in the blogging world about writing sponsored posts. Tom and I have talked about sponsored posts, and in that conversation we both decided that, if I ever wrote one I’d label it as a sponsored post at the top. Then we both slapped our knees and had a good laugh about the idea of me ever being offered a sponsored post.

Then, what do you know, nine days later, P+G offered me a sponsorship opportunity with Tide, Downy and Bounce. So, here it is: the post is part of a DailyBuzz Moms Tastemaker program with P&G. I was compensated for my work, but all opinions are mine.

If you’re not a fan of sponsored posts, just know that I’m probably going to use the compensation to buy a bathing suit for my postpartum body, so we’re all losers here.

I have a hate-hate relationship with maternity clothes. I hate them. I avoid them as long as possible, because before you need them they make you look bigger than you really are.

Maternity clothes should be fashionable, reallyreally flattering, and affordable (since you only wear them for a few months). I wish I could buy all my maternity clothes here, but that wouldn’t be fiscally responsible. I hate ruching, I hate bows and ties on my belly, and I especially hate wearing things I’d never wear otherwise. If I never wear big floral patterns when I’m not pregnant, why would I wear them when I am pregnant?

So far, these are the rules I’ve dressed by:
1) I wear Tom’s clothes. Since Tom weighs about five pounds less than me when I’m not pregnant, this option doesn’t last long. But I can usually wear his t-shirts and athletic shorts around the house and for running.
2) Buy as little as possible, limiting it to a few well-made essentials I love. Then just wear those things over and over.

This pregnancy, my over and over outfit (since it got hot, anyway) has consisted of tank tops I got at Old Navy and a striped maxi skirt from Target. If you’ve seen me pregnant, you’ve seen an iteration of this outfit. I wear it to the grocery store, out to dinner, to the park. Today I wore it to scrub my bathtub.

If I’m not wearing this, it’s because it’s in the laundry. I’ve written about laundry here before; I’m pretty particular about my laundry. I was raised in a Tide family. I’ve never used anything on my clothes except Tide powder, original scent. For my technical (athletic) clothes, I use Tide + Febreeze Freshness Sport. After washing, I hang my clothes on the clothes line.

P+G gave me the opportunity to rock the boat and try Tide, Downy and Bounce to see how the combination works better together. Ok, here goes.

If you’re not a clothesline person like I am, you might not know that the one and only downfall to using the clothesline (never mind the lower electricity bill, helping out the environment, extending the life of your clothes, and just one more excuse to get outside) is that your clothes are (sometimes) a little stiff. My family is tough, so we don’t mind, but adding Downy to my routine sure does help things. My parents used Downy when I was growing up; I’m not sure why I never hopped on the bandwagon until now.

AND if you pick Downy Infusions like I did, your clothes will be softer AND smell like they were dipped in a flower.

Adding Bounce to the rotation was harder, because it meant we’d have to use our dryer. Womp womp. I waited for a rainy day (when you don’t use your dryer, you can’t do laundry on rainy days…which is sometimes awesome because it gives you a non-negotiable break from laundry) and did a load. Starting with Tide, adding some Downy and finishing off with a dryer sheet. The whole thing felt so modern.

The result was awesome. I did my test run on some towels (since I don’t use my dryer, I always think one cycle through the dryer will ruin my clothes), but then decided I couldn’t REALLY review a laundry process unless tried it on my favorite over and over maternity outfit.

My outfit survived the dryer; it actually thrived in the dryer. It came out clean, soft and fresh. I think that’s the goal, right? That your laundry will come out clean and smelling great, so you can put your favorite outfit back on and get outside where there’s a pool party going on.

You can barely tell I’m pregnant, right? …Right?

It’d take a lot to get me to give up the clothes line, so I’ll probably just use Bounce on those weeks of non-stop rain and non-stop laundry. But I love the Downy softener. If I could change one thing, it’d just be that Tide and Bounce also came in the Infusions scent, so I wasn’t using conflicting scents.

P+G also tells me that using all this stuff will improve the life of my clothes, which is great news. Except it doesn’t really matter when you’re talking about maternity clothes;  regardless of wear and tear, they have a short life anyway. When I’m done with this outfit in a week or two I’ll do what I do with all maternity clothes: wash it and send it to the attic…and resist the urge to burn it.

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