About Cool Mom Picks

We're just a few moms that track down cool stuff so you can stay busy being fabulous. We know cool stuff doesn't make the mom, but it certainly helps make life a little better.

We have a soft spot for non-mainstream products and services, particularly those from indie or emerging designers and mom/women-run companies. We believe you can stay true to your dazzling design sensibilities and still support an entrepreneur, especially one trying to support her family through her work. But we can be found loving on anything that we think is cool, really. Head on over here to see more about the kinds of things we like.

While we're moms too and we totally get the budget thing, some of the things we feature do cost more than your average big box store bargain bin items. You pay a premium for quality items not made by 6 year-olds in sweatshops. We're all about promoting more responsible consumerism - buy things you truly adore that will last, and just own fewer of them.

You also won't find us ranting about items that we hate or don't work or just plain suck. We weed out those things for you because we know you don't have time to.

If you have an idea or a cool client or own a company yourself, feel free to send it our way at info@coolmompicks.com. You can find more info on submissions here.

We aren't compensated for our reviews, so put that Ben Franklin back in your pocket, missy. But if you are interested in advertising, by all means email ads@coolmompicks.com and we'll hook you up.

Who Are The Moms Behind The Picks?

Photo: Tracey Clark

Kristen Chase, Publisher & COO, is currently residing in Atlanta. By way of Philly. By way of Mississippi. In her former life she was a published textbook author, musician, college professor and designer shoe glutton, all of which she's traded for a satisfying new position as pilot's wife and stay-at-home-parent. What she has not given up, however, is excellent taste, a sense of humor and her avid support of mom-run businesses. Kristen has been seen on The Today Show and CBS Atlanta and in various publications talking about shopping and parenting culture. And keep an eye out for her hilarious upcoming book, The Mominatrix Guide to Sex based on her popular column of the same name.

Kristen tries to stay as cool as possible (in all senses of word) while parenting her daughters Quinlan and Margot and her son, Drew.

Liz Gumbinner, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, is a born and bred New Yorker but without the accent. She's had a successful career as a creative director in the Prada-mandatory world of advertising, writes some parenting columns here and there, and has contributed to a number of parenting anthologies including Sleep is for the Weak, 42 Rules for Working Moms, and the upcoming See Mom Run and Kirtsy Takes a Bow. In 2009 she was named to the Nielsen "Power Mom 50" list of online influencers, and cited on Forbes.com's list of 10 MommyHood Gurus.

Liz is equally at home in the boutiques of Fifth Avenue and the aisles of Target, but can most often be spotted around her Brooklyn neighborhood with the love of her life and their two daughters, Thalia and Sage, trying to coax their stubborn English Bulldog across the street.


Kristen and Liz are often featured in national and local media discussing gift ideas, parenting trends, safer toys, marketing to parents, organic/green products, mom-run businesses, online shopping, and parenting blogs. Broadcast appearances include CBS's The Early Show, Martha Stewart Radio, ABC's The View From the Bay, CBS Atlanta, Fox 5 NY, Better.TV, and their own series of videos on the Alpha Mom cable network. They're happy to talk to you too! Really, they're very nice. Occasionally funny. info@coolmompicks.com will do the trick.

Contributors

Associate Editor Christina Refford endured more than a dozen years in marketing and now spends her time outside Boston with three young children who love sushi and impromptu disco dance parties. She is on a mission to prove homeschooling can be cool. Christina loves finding great vegan shoes, meals her son will eat, and indie bands with lyrics that she can play for the carpool, which is why she reviews most of our music submissions. She also longs for a hair color she can stick with for more than 6 months.

Mir Kamin is fairly certain she's not cool, but as the author of one of the most widely-read parenting blogs on the web, Woulda Coulda Shoulda, the CMP editors have assured her she is. She spends her days riding herd on her son and daughter, marveling at the fact that people pay her to write stuff, and sneaking flax seed meal into everything she bakes. Mir is trying to restore global balance through support for do-good organizations (including years spent volunteering and fundraising for Big Brothers/Big Sisters), attempts to eat local and organic, and more mindful consumerism at her blog Want Not. And ice cream.

It's not surprising that Rita Arens has a thing for great children's books, having earned a Masters in Fiction a full decade after her parents begged her not to study English in the first place. It's finally paying off with her first book - ironically, in nonfiction - the acclaimed Sleep is for the Week: The Best of the Mommybloggers. Rita has one child, one husband, one cat, one house in Kansas City and she likes it that way. She's got a thing for spicy foods so hot they bite back, and with flat feet, she is (reluctantly) permitted to be the lone shoe-hater on the CMP staff.

Betsy Cadel is a suburban soccer mom to a non-athlete son. Basically all of the stigma and none of the trophies. (She does not own a minivan or "work her core" either.) Betsy is a former advertising creative who never lost her passion for style, design and pop culture, and she's a current author, having penned the successful KidSavvy Westchester guide for suburban NY parents. She only regrets leaving her career when she is clipping another human being's toenails.

We've found our token worldly mom in Carrie Damen. Though she's an Atlanta native, she's raising her two kids bilingual and swears she'll travel the globe once again. One day. Carrie a full-fledge etsian, selling cool kids clothes with her best friend of 20 years through the Bright Shop etsy boutique which reflects her love of clean lines and modern design. We also love her because she's the type who swore she'd never drive a minivan but does anyway.

Susan Wagner is likely to wear a dress to the little league field and a cashmere sweater to the grocery; she is almost always the most dressed up person in the room, and she likes it that way. Susan collects vintage watches and has an unhealthy obsession with the J. Crew website. She lives in Oklahoma City with her badly -- but comfortably! -- dressed sons, Henry and Charlie, and her very dapper husband. Susan also happens to be the esteemed editor of Blogher Beautyhacks and writes the Working Closet column for Work It Mom.

Laura Mayes is the mom of a little Hurricane, a VP at an ad agency, the co-founder of Kirtsy and the wife of an extremely lucky dude. Despite the fact that Laura was raised in Austin and surrounding ranches, she's scared of guns and cows. Consequently, she moved to the city, where she currently consumes silly amounts of British music, design magazines, and carbs. She also walks ten blocks to work in platform heels almost every day; she's brave like that.

Other Important People

Director of Ad Sales and CMP VIP  Julie Marsh is the mother of two girls and a baby boy, living in the wild, wild west. She's the modern reincarnation of a 1950's mom, advocating a return to the lost arts of embroidery, baking, handwritten thank you notes, and turning the cell phone off during dinner. She also likes rap music and skateboarding fashion. If you've got any advertising or sponsorship questions, she's your gal. Email her at Julie@coolmompicks.com.

Kari Dahlen saves our lives on a regular basis with all sorts of magical html know-how. She's a dancer turned neuroscientist turned hockey player turned Northern California mom of two boys. She once appeared on an Argentine soap opera, but her only television appearance filmed in the United States involved a broken sewer main and her subsequent admission to all of Manhattan that she couldn't flush her toilet.