Playtex Diaper Genie - First Refill Included
by Playtex
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Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Playtex Diaper Genie - First Refill Included
Customer Review: Tried FOUR diaper pails. Genie ranks #2
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to disagree about the Genie being the best. It's close, but I like the NEAT better. I've owned several of these things (the Dekor, Champ, Genie and NEAT...why so many? All had issues...read on). Frankly, the Dekor and the Champ both smelled (and "smell control" is the reason I want one of these), so those two now serve as garbage pails in other areas of our home.
The Genie is good at controlling odor, but the top is a pain to use, and the top on my Genie broke after about 2 months, so another one bites the dust.
As for controlling odor, Genie and NEAT are both the best (they both seal off the bad stuff with different "sealing-off" mechanisms that the other models just don't have). And features other reviewers have commented that they like about the Genie are also in the NEAT system:
-put a dirty diaper into a clean bag every time
-plunge the top to contain the smell and section off the mess
- change the bag every few days to a week. (Our 16-month old is in daycare M-F, so we only change our two NEATs once a week. And never a smell. Ever.
-easy to replace the liners. Takes 30 seconds. (No smell when changing it, either).
Plus...
-the handle/plunger on the NEAT is easier to use one-handed than the Genie. Just push and pull. No grappling to get the top off or the bag to grab the diaper and start twisting (with a dirty diaper in one hand and a squirmy baby at the other).
-less plastic is wasted because it pushes straight down. The Genie rotates plastic on plastic which sends more down the chute.
As you can see, I've dumped a ton of money into this wisdom. But now, I finally have a stink-free environment in my son's room, and so far, nothing on the NEAT has broken (I'm only afraid that because it's an underdog, they're going to discontinue it, and then the refills will be hard to find). - If that happens, I would try another Genie and hope the lid holds out.
I rank the Genie #2 out of all of these models.
Customer Review: I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one....
Summary: 2 Stars
Like thousands of expectant mothers, I too received a diaper genie as a shower gift. At first, I thought that this was a neat and useful gizmo. No smell, no muss, no fuss. That is until I actually USED it. My complaints are the following: it is extraordinarily difficult to change the VERY EXPENSIVE plastic liners that seem to evaporate before your eyes. A newborn (and if you are like me and change your child's diaper as soon as it is soiled) can fill this thing up in no time. I also had to literally cram some of the diapers in it (not a problem with the smaller newborn sized diapers but just wait until you get to the bigger sizes!) which needless to say is a mess. Then there is the issue of the smell. Over time, plastic being plastic, the genie takes on the odor of a soiled diaper. By eight months, mine was pretty pungent. NO amount of Lysol, bleach or deordorizer will remove it. Trust me. My sister-in- law was loyal to her genie and refused to give it up so much so that she actually put it OUTSIDE on the back porch. So, everytime she had changed a diaper she had to walk across the house to the kitchen and to the porch to put the diaper in. Now I ask you, what is the point of that? BUT the genie smelled so bad that even changing the bags didn't help it. The best and CHEAPEST thing is to get a regular old fashioned plastic garbage pail with a lid and a big box of those odor control trash bags and then change the diaper pail every other day. You are going to do it with the genie anyway. Oh...others have mentioned it so I won't belabor the point but my husband is a mechanical engineer and even he had trouble figuring out how to replace those plastic liners! One word of advice: you had better be in a good mood when you sit down to change it and give yourself a lot of time. You will need it because I think in the 8 months that I used the genie I MAYBE got it right the first time one or two times.
Customer Review: I'm buying a second one and I know it stinks.
Summary: 5 Stars
I used the Diaper Genie with my first child for over three years. At first there was no noticeable odor, even when the pail was opened. After a few months of smellier diapers, when my son was weaned from breast milk and began eating solid food, there was a strong odor that began to build up in the pail, literally soaking into the plastic. It was a sickening smell, but I found ways to reduce it considerably. I found that it was necessary to empty the pail of diapers twice a week and to always make sure to twist the plastic casing each time I added a diaper to the daily load. Just remembering to twist the platic liner nice and tight ameliorated the odor problem enormously. Spraying the pail out with Lysol was also necessary after each dumping and made an immediate and noticeable difference. I even rubbed charcoal into the bucket one time, but that had little effect. I did find that washing the plastic bucket out with soap and water and letting it dry in the sun did something to bake the odors out of the plastic. Fresh air and sunlight kills bacteria and removes odors when nothing else will. It's also nice to let the nursery air out for a few hours too.
Eventually I sold my Diaper Genie, but with a new child on the way, I plan to purchase another one. Although the name of the product implies magic, it really is just a plastic container with two lids and a liner. There is no magic diaper pail that is going to make a poopy diaper smell good, especially if you let heavily soiled diapers sit around in a plastic bucket for week. I am sorry so many of the reviewers have been disappointed, but I think it isn't realistic to expect any diaper bucket to remain odor and maintenance free. I have looked into other products and compared experiences with other moms, and I'm happy to get another Diaper Genie.
Customer Review: Used Diaper Champ for 7 months. Switched to Genie.
Summary: 5 Stars
We did alot of research on diaper pails before our first child was born. We knew a few couples with the Diaper Genie, and one couple with the Diaper Champ. The couple with the Diaper Champ has a baby that is 3 months older than our child. This couple liked their Champ just fine, saying they noticed no odors. We also read tons of reviews, mainly here on Amazon, of both products. And from the reviews, it seemed there were many happy customers of both products. So we decided, if they were about equal, we would go with the more convenient and cheaper solution, the Champ.Well, we were pretty happy for about 4 to 6 months. We very much liked that we could use our regular trash bags. And changing the Champ's bag is very easy. But after our child was well into eating solids, at about 7 months, the smell became unbearable. It really is true that babies' poops really start to stink much, much worse when they eat lots of solids. So we went out and bought a Diaper Genie. We have been using the Genie now for 2 months and very happy with the Genie. The Genie has 2 big advantages over the Champ, in regards to smell control. 1) Each diaper is contained in its own litte pouch via the Genie's twisting mechanism. 2) The filler bags progress in thickness, so as your child gets older, and her poops get smellier, you can get thicker, better bags.
After using the Genie for about 2 months now, we are very pleased. The Champ is essentially a simple waste pail with a fancy hood. The hood and ordinary trash bags don't do much for odor prevention. The drawbacks to the Genie though, are that you must buy their fillers, and the bag changing mechanism is much more complicated than the Champ's. We thought these were worth dealing with to prevent the odors.
Customer Review: The Novelty Didn't Last Long...
Summary: 2 Stars
This was one of my must have items before my son was born. Once I had it home, it took half an hour with the user manual to understand how to operate it. I took my husband a bit of practice to figure it out. Still I was pleased with my purchase. Then my son was born and we started using it. While the Diaper Genie does do a good job of controlling odors, it quickly became more of a frustration than a help.
First of all the liners run out without warning. Not a welcome thing when you have a dirty diaper in one hand and an upset infant on the change table! Second, the Diaper Genie won't twist the first three or so diapers that you put into it. Making it operate like a regular garbage can unless it was somewhat full already. Third, whenever someone else changed my son's diaper, I had to show them "how to operate the diaper pail". This got old really quickly! Forth, when the diaper genie is emptied, the long rope of diapers comes untwisted very easily. I found that I was emptying the diapers into a regular garbage bag to compensate. And this brings me to my last point; buying expensive refills every week or so gets old. The company claims that the refills should last for 2-4 weeks, but they do not. Diapers, wipes and other daily supplies add up quickly on thier own. Essentially I felt like I was constantly re-purchasing my diaper pail.
After four months, I put this thing back in the box and put it in the garage, where it has remained for the last six months. I now use a regular garbage can with a lid that opens with a pedal. It gets emptied every day, along with all the other household trash cans.
In hindsight I should have purchased the Diaper Champ because it uses regular garbage bags that have to be purchased anyways!