Diaper Genie Elite Diaper Disposing System

I wasn't going to register for a "diaper disposal system" because I thought we already had one: THE TRASH CAN. However, my husband is not a fan of gross smells (I guess no one IS a fan of gross smells, but he's so sensitive, he'll start gagging if he gets the slightest whiff of something nasty), so the Diaper Genie was a must-have product for him. Thankfully, someone got us one, and I'm now a convert.

The funny thing is, I like this thing for reasons other than what it's marketed for, which is preventing the aroma of baby poo from settling into every last nook and cranny of your home. It does its job wonderfully as far as smell-prevention is concerned—no stankiness emanating from it to date, and we're going on five months of use.

But I like it mostly because: 1) it's easy to use, 2) it's quick to use, 3) it tucks in under our Pack 'n Play's changing station perfectly, and 4) even when full, it's still light enough that I can pick it up and set it right in front of our back door, blocking my husband's way out, so that he can't possibly avoid emptying it.

It's usually directly underneath the Pack 'n Play overhang, but you get the picture.

What I didn't realize before Baba G came along is just how wiggly babies are. It's like they are trying to test you to see if you're going to stop them from falling off stuff. Diaper-changing time is their ultimate test. So it's great to have the Diaper Genie right there to just step on real quick, pop a dirty diaper in and then catch Junior from catapulting himself through the air.

I didn't understand how one of these things worked before we started using it. It's no big deal. You just pull the tab off the diaper-bag roll kind of like you're opening one of those single-serving OJ bottles, pull the blue diaper-bag plastic out of the roll and tie a knot in it (this knot will serve as the bottom of the bag), set the ring in the diaper genie and push the knot through the pail's jaw-like divider, and you're done. Every time you throw a diaper in, it'll get pushed down through the jaws and into a chamber that is sealed off from the air you breathe. What did the country's first settlers do? So many of them must have died from toxic baby poo fumes!





When I can't easily push the pail around with my foot anymore, I know it's time to tell my husband to take out the "Diaper Sausage." (This apparently is a common term for what comes out of the Diaper Genie and other systems like it, but I'm not in-the-know with mom-slang yet so I just found this out while writing tonight. Hence the lack of my own Diaper Sausage picture... but if you really want to know why it got this nickname, click here for an example.

Would you believe that many diapers could come outta a little guy like this, who's so innocent-looking, to boot?

Who, me? Stink?

Would you also believe that the dude who created this glorified trash can sold Diaper Genie to Playtex back in '99 for a cool $75 miiiillllion? And that he's now founded a company (based in Ohio) that focuses on healthcare for horses, of all things?

BELIEVE IT.

The bottom line: I would highly recommend the Diaper Genie Elite because it does what it's supposed to do—it keeps gross smells at bay and gives you a dedicated, easy-to-operate trash bin for your baby's diapers. They're using the ol' "shaving razor" pricing strategy I learned about in business school, where a company makes the base component of its product fairly cheap (possibly even taking a loss) but then makes up the profit on things you have to keep buying for it. (Another example would be video game consoles and the games themselves.) The Diaper Genie Elite is a reasonable $35, but then the patented refill disks are $19.50 for 3. Each refill disk is supposed to hold up to 270 Newborn diapers total . . . less as your baby grows into bigger diapers.

I haven't paid attention to how many diapers we can stuff in to one sausage and how many sausages we can get out of one refill. You know why? Because I don't really care. I'm going to use this thing no matter what.