Holly & Beau Rainwear
With Bud starting school we've been looking for a school coat for him. This is one area that I'd like to him to not have to follow the uniform though, so I knew I wanted a bright and colourful coat to see him through the dark winter days. When Holly & Beau offered to send us one of their colour-changing raincoats I knew that they were exactly what we needed to keep Bud warm and dry on the school run.
Holly & Beau were created by brother and sister team Jack and Fleur who wanted to make children's waterproofs a little more interesting. They noticed nappies which change colour when they get wet and worked to apply this to clothing. In 2012 their range of colour-changing rainwear was born. With raincoats, macs, swim shorts and umbrellas available, the range uses water-based ink for the colour changing designs, meaning that no harmful chemicals or metals will ever be found.
Bud was sent the Boy's Space Raincoat in age 5-6 years. He's rather large for his 4.5 years so I knew that he would get much more wear out of the larger size coat. I was impressed by it as soon as it arrived and the quality was evident just from the feel of the coat.
The colour changing design features white rockets and flying saucers, when they are dry. As soon as they start to get wet the designs begin to colour themselves in with an almost watercolour effect. If the coat gets a soaking all of it will become coloured. As it dries again the colours fade back to the white design.
Bud was very impressed by the concept of the coat as soon as I told him what would happen when he got wet. Of course it arrived during a period of fair weather! Typical! The next thing I knew Bud was filling his watering can so we decided to use that to see the colours change for the first time.
We poured the water from the can and the colours started to change straight away. Bud was delighted! He has worn the coat on several rainy days since and has loved showing the colour change off to people. I've never struggled to get Bud into the rain but, for a child who doesn't like getting wet, I would imagine that this would be a good way to increase enthusiasm levels!
As I said earlier on, we chose age 5-6 and I was slightly worried it would be too big. The coat does have a fair amount of growing space but the adjustable cuffs and generous hood means that it doesn't appear 'too big' and I'm confident that he will get this school year out of it.
When we were initially offered this review I expected to receive a cagoule-type, thin mac. This coat has a soft, fleecey lining, light wadding and fastens with a zip and poppers.Bud says it is really warm. The main label even has space for his name to make sure it doesn't get mixed up with anyone else's, and a generous loop for hanging it up.
It's really reassuring that he can wear this as an everyday school coat and that we don't just have to save it for wet weather. It will keep the wind out as well as the rain.
Holly & Beau coats have an RRP of around £49:99 which is on a par with many other quality school coats. They cover an age range of 3-12 years, I'd love to see them do a range of toddler puddle suits in future as their girls' coats are way too big for LM at the moment. I'm confident that Bud will look great this Autumn and Winter in his amazing colour changing coat and I'd definitely recommend them.
Disclosure: We received the coat for review purposes.
