Waterproof Sophie la girafe: ideal for summer and bath all year long

Can you believe summer is almost over....?

It always starts slow..June..July.... and suddenly we are at the end of August! Just like that!

 It is true that this July we were busy with a new shipment. that means new toys! ^_^ Always fun! yes! even for the grown-ups!

We particularly fell in love with the new Sophie the giraffe for the bath.. It has been on the market for the past couple of years and slowly but surely this bath toy is finding its place.

Here is what we like about it:

* Just like the original Sophie the Giraffe, this healthy toy is made from 100% natural rubber, derived from rubber tree sap, and decorated with food grade paints.

* She floats! She is completely waterproof ensuring optimal drying.

* Shaped like a buoy with the cute face of Sophie la girafe, it is easy for little hands to grab and to chew safely on it!

* As with the rest of the So' Pure range, Sophie the giraffe for the bath comes in an attractive gift box made from recyclable materials.


What more is there to ask! 😃

A picture you say?  yes..of course... here it is!

and in action?

of course!!  In the bath... by the pool...She likes to go to the beach too 😊 ( Merci les  bébés 💖)

As always you are welcome to visit us on our website  .. Get in touch via email  sofi.hagirafa at gmail.com   or on our Facebook page

Wishing you a lovely end of summer..



The team of Sophie la girafe in Israel

What gave you the idea to import Sophie?

Excerpt of a recurrent comment in a conversation:

...Yeah yeah, it is great! She is made of natural rubber...

Yeah yeah, I get it: no chemical and no harmful components in her...

Yeah yeah, you say she stimulates the 5 senses of a baby....

But what I want to know: What gave you the idea to import Sophie ???

This has to be the first question I have to answer whenever I start talking  and presenting Sophie Hagirafa.
And the answer is actually quite nice and simple and I think it shows that in life opportunities are everywhere.

A year ago, actually a bit more, I met with one of my friends, K.  She was a new mom of a three-month adorable baby girl who had started teething. As the old mom of teens that I am, I told her that she should get Sophie The Giraffe.
K. had never heard of her so I told her: simple! I will get you one as soon as I see it.
Except that after a couple of weeks looking here and there, I could not find any Sophie. Not a problem: my friend Alexandra had one shipped to me from France, the Land of Sophies and off I went back to K. giving her the Sophie.
K. looked at it, said that she looked very nice but really what was so special about her?
And I had no answer.
All I know is that in France: new baby = Sophie la girafe. It is a given, it is a must. No one will think twice.

My children were born in various countries and whenever I visited France, Sophie was on the shopping list without wondering why.

So now I had to find an answer for my friend and for me:  How can a 47 year-old teether survive all this time? There must be a good reason.

I found several.... and to the risks of boring you my dear faithful readers, let me repeat them for the benefit of new readers ( hopefully) to Sophie's fan club!  ^__^ Sophie The Giraffe is 100% natural made, 

Sophie the Giraffe is 100 percent natural rubber , Sophie la Girafe is Phthalates and BPA free. And she stimulates the 5 senses of the Baby.

Yep! All this!


With this precious information I went back to my friend K. who was very pleased and relieved that her daughter had such a safe and useful toy. And her baby loved her Giraffe!

On my way back home I thought it was really strange that I did not find Sophie the giraffe here in a country where there are so many Babies, so many parents looking for organic clothes and diapers and eco-friendly toys. I emailed Vulli the company that makes Sophies and to make a long story short: I became their exclusive importer of Sophie.

Of course that meant a lot of work, besides my regular work as QA in a Hi-tech company. We had to build a website, have the products tested to the norms of the country ( SII ) , pay here and there for those tests, papers, tax etc etc. But almost a year after here we are!

I have now decided to quit my job and dedicace 100% of my times for Sophie La Girafe. With her I became an importer, a seller, a promoter, a facebooker, a tweeter, a blogger in a country where we relocated in 2006 and where I can speak but barely write or read. But no panic! We will get through it one day at the time, learning along the way! Vive 2010....

Thank you Eddie

Sophie The Giraffe is 100% natural

 One of the first thing one hears about Sophie The Giraffe is that she is made of "100 percent natural rubber derived from the sap of the Hevea tree".

I must admit that prior to my getting involved with Sophie la girafe,  I did not know much about rubber and Hevea tree.

Since then I found out that Rubber is  a name given to a lot of different polymers  that are all elastomers. That means that they can be stretched out and they will return to their original shape when you let go.
One of the tests Sophie The Giraffe goes through is the Streching test ( or so I call  it!). She is stretched to her maximum, completely deformed and yet she comes out of that exercise as if nothing happened!

The first natural kind of rubber comes from the sap of hevea trees in Central America. Ancient Mayans and Aztecs harvested it and used it to make waterproof boots and the balls that they used to play their ritual game of  Mesoamerican HipBall.

Rubber was introduced to Europe 1744 by Charles Marie de La Condamine  a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician who discovered rubber in Peru while originally sent there in 1735 "to determine the length of a degree of the meridian in the neighborhood of the equator". He also gave us the word "latex" for it (Latin for Fluid).


The word "Rubber" was adopted when people in Britain figured out that the latex could be used to erase or "rub out" mistakes made with a pencil.

Sophie's Rubber is made from the sap-like extract Latex. It is a complex emulsion in which proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins, and gums are found. In most plants, latex is white, but some have yellow, orange, or scarlet latex.

The Hevea trees Sophies are made of are in Asia.

There are many types of rubbers. If the topic interests you, have a look here or here. ^__^


So how is the Rubber collected?

Each night a rubber tapper removes a thin layer of bark along a downward half spiral on the tree trunk. If done carefully and with skill, this tapping panel will yield latex for up to 5 years. The spiral allow the latex to run down to a collecting cup. The work is done at night so the latex will run longer before drying out.

 Thank You Goosmurf for your pictures ^__^

Claire

Why is Sophie la Girafe called Sophie?

And why is she a Giraffe?

It is all due to Monsieur Rampeau, an expert in transforming tree-sap from the Hevea tree. He decided to create an animal that would not be the classic farm animal or pet figure.

Luckily for Babies, he decided on a Giraffe. It would probably have been very different had he chosen  an hippopotamus even if it had been as cute as Hippo .

So Monsieur Rampeau designed Sophie.

Sophie went into production on May 25th, on Saint Sophie's day, hence her name. One day earlier or one day after we would have been talking about Donatien or Berengere! ^__^

So Sophie it is! It is a variant of Sophia (Greek) that means "wisdom". Monsieur Rampeau was indeed a Wise man.

Apparently Sainte Sophie was not a person. According to wikipedia, it is now Hagia Sophia, a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey.

Thank you Kristin for the original picture

www.sofi-hagirafa.co.il/

Sophie The Giraffe is actually a multi sensory teether.

 Yes, it is true: Sophie La girafe stimulates the 5 senses of Baby.


•Baby's Sight:
Baby eyesight develops rapidly after birth and for the next months. From the start, Babies can make out high contrast and the dark and contrasting attention-catching spots all over Sophie the Giraffe’s body provide visual stimulation.Baby quickly develops a level of recognition for Sophie, so she will easily come to love and recognize this toy on sight.


•Baby's Hearing:
The sense of hearing in an infant develops much before the birth of the baby. The funny sound Sophie makes when she is squeezed helps to stimulate baby’s hearing, and then later, helps him to understand the link between cause and effect. Parents may not enjoy the squeaky sound as much as Baby, but most Babies 's reactions to it are priceless !


•Baby's Taste:
Sophie the Giraffe is made of 100% natural rubber and food paint, and is completely safe to chew, just like a feeding bottle teat. Her soft texture and her shape make her perfect for soothing baby’s sore gums during teething.


•Baby's Touch:
Babies respond to touch in similar ways as adults do. Infants use their fingers and hands to 'feel' the things and people around them. Sophie the Giraffe’s very soft feel stimulates physiological and emotional response that soothe baby and promote healthy growth and well-being.

•Baby's Smell:
Smell is the most advanced, out of the five senses, present in babies at the time of birth. Made with rubber directly from the Hevea tree, Sophie has a smell that is recognizable to your baby and increase the attraction to it.


•Bonus! Sophie is very easy to grip:
Sophie the Giraffe’s shape and her 18 cm -7 inches-  size are perfect for baby’s small hands. She is very light, and her long legs and neck are easy for baby to grip, even from his earliest days.

Ok I just cannot end the post like this. ^__^

I feel like Sophie la Girafe is like my baby and being a proud mother I have to tell you that :

she just won the ASTRA - Best Baby Toy of the Year 2009 in the USA!

And she was on the cover of the magazine Mothering

Yep! A true Star!

You may wonder... or not!

But let's assume you do:

" so why did she embark on such adventure with a Giraffe?"

" What is that toy anyway?"

Very valid questions... ^__^ and this post will bring more questions, you will see ;)

When my friend K. (the mother of the Baby -- mentionned in my very first message) asked me what was so special about Sophie, I looked at her with big eyes, and told her I did not know!

But I did know that in France, where I grew up, my generation all had a Sophie and it is still so nowadays. In 2008 there was over 800 000 births in France and almost as many Sophies the Giraffe sold. Amazing, isn't it!?

So I can imagine you getting impatient for the answer: "why? why is Sophie la Girafe so special?"

Condensed answer: Sophie la Girafe is the only natural teether made of natural rubber. It is Phthalates and BPA free. And it stimulates the 5 senses of the Baby.

OK so now you may wonder-- if you were ignorant like me: what are those Phthalates and how do you even pronounce it? And what is BPA?

It is pronounced "THAL-ates." Forget the Ph. I am actually having a very hard time pronouncing it whenever I talk about Sophie!

Phthalates are a group of chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics. They have been used in plastics since the 1930's and it's only recently that concerns have been raised. There are dozens of types of phthalates .Young children can ingest these chemicals when they suck or chew on the soft plastic items.


A Pediatric Study reports that infants are exposed to those phthalates and those have been known to cause reproductive deformaties.


Now the BPA: it is short for Bisphenol A, an organic compound with two phenol functional groups suspected of being hazardous to humans since the 1930s. According to Wikipedia it is an endocrine disruptor, which can mimic the body's own hormones.

I only have a general HighSchool level background in Biology and a bit more in Motherhood, and all those infos are enough for me to conclude that the less exposure to Phthalates and Chemicals in general the better for our babies and children!


So Sophie is Phthalates-free. She is tested very regularly in France and has been through more testing here. I am happy to report she has a squeaky clean bill of health.


And this is why I concluded it would be wonderful to bring such a unique toy in a new country!


Tomorrow I will talk more about how Sophie la girafe does stimulate the 5 senses of Babies.... Oh what a suspense! ^__^




To conclude today's long post : a Beautiful Picture taken by Loic

.........

The Beginning

This adventure all started very simply. I was visiting a friend whose Baby was teething and annoyed. I told my friend she needed Sophie The Giraffe. My friend looked at me puzzled as she had never heard of that Giraffe. I told her not to worry, I would bring her one. I was sure I could find it in Israel!

To my surprise I did not, so I asked a friend of mine in France to send me one. No sooner said than done, Sophie was in the hands of my friend's baby.

Then I thought how strange I cannot find it in Israel. Surely it is somewhere?

I contacted Vulli that confirmed that there was no Sophie The Giraffe in Israel and after a few exchanges, I was offered the opportunity to bring it here. I accepted happily aware that it was going to be a huge challenge for me and a lot of learning in the process.

And now 8 months later ( one more month and it would have been a delivery!) I am extremely happy to report that Sophie and other toys are now available in Israel...well at least as soon as the customs clear them.

You are welcome to meet them on our (Hebrew only at the moment)website : http://www.sofi-hagirafa.co.il/