We first noticed Minois Paris because it didn't really look like children's skincare.
The packaging was beautiful and understated, the sort of thing you wouldn't mind leaving out in the bathroom, and the whole range felt distinctly French. But good packaging isn't a particularly good reason to choose something you're going to use on a baby's skin, so what interested us more was what was behind it.
Minois was founded in 2016 by Hélène Fulchi after she had her daughter, Paz. She had gone looking for baby skincare that combined gentle formulations, effectiveness and beautiful design and, unable to find quite what she wanted, decided to create it herself.
It's a simple idea, but one that makes a lot of sense to us.
The products are made in France and formulated for delicate and sensitive skin, using an average of 98% ingredients of natural origin. The brand favours organically grown ingredients and avoids parabens, phenoxyethanol, sulphates, silicones, phthalates, mineral oils and colourants.
There are ingredients you recognise, too: calendula, shea butter, sweet almond oil, aloe vera and the orange blossom water that has become something of a Minois signature.
And this is probably where Minois won us over.
It smells wonderful.
That might sound like a rather frivolous thing to say after talking about formulations, but we don't think it is. Bath time, washing hands and putting cream on after swimming are some of the most ordinary parts of looking after children. A product can be gentle and well formulated while also being genuinely lovely to use.
Minois seems to understand that caring for children isn't a clinical exercise. It's physical and repetitive and intimate. It's washing grubby hands, rubbing cream into cold cheeks and wrapping somebody in a towel after a bath. The products we use become part of those little routines without us particularly thinking about them.
We like knowing that what's inside the bottle has been carefully considered. We also like the orange blossom scent, the pleasing bottles and the fact that using them feels just a tiny bit luxurious.
Perhaps children's things don't always have to announce themselves as children's things.
Sometimes they can simply be good things, made thoughtfully, that happen to have been made for them.