Average Price: $199
Official Site: http://www.booninc.com
Rating:

I began my hunt for a high chair for my son with that great enthusiasm that all new moms have. That didn’t last long. High chairs seem to fit into three categories: large, ugly, and large and ugly. I was giving up hope and was simply shopping for something that wasn’t too bad and was even strongly considering one of those booster seats that straps to a regular chair. At least it would be tiny enough to ignore.

There are stylish high chairs out there, but most of them seemed to be priced in the range of a high end stroller or crib. When I came across the Flair chair I was pleasantly surprised by its modern aesthetic and even more happy to note that its price tag was not reminiscent of that of a 50 inch wide-screen Plasma TV.

FEATURES

The Boon “Flair” high chair is a pedestal high chair with a 5 point harness and center restraining post. Its wide stable base houses a pneumatic lift and a foot-operated braking mechanism. It offers unique parent-friendly features such as one-handed tray operation, two dishwasher-safe tray inserts, and a soft foam pad that is stain- and chemical- resistant. The seat is made of molded plastic and is seam free (mostly) for easy cleanup, and the harness straps and seat pad both remove for easy washing.

STYLE/AESTHETICS

It is stylish and modern enough to blend in with adult furniture. There are other high chairs out there that have a nice aesthetic, but at about 2-3 or more times the cost of the Flair. And without much or any improvement over the design.

The wide base is finished in a silver-colored plastic that is suggestive of stainless steel or aluminum without coming across as a tacky imitation. Branding is minimal with a small green and orange “boon” logo on the seat pad, a semi transparent white “boon” logo on the tray liners, and a logo on the clip of the five point harness. Only the logo on the seat pad is noticeable and I don’t mind it at all as it evokes pleasant thoughts of Florida orange juice.

ASSEMBLY & MANUAL

The Flair chair arrives in was fully assembled after about 20 minutes which allowed for some initial confusion over the “insert into base and twist until it locks into place” step. Sometimes the pedestal doesn’t lock after the first few attempts. I found that I had to push some of my weight into the pedestal while turning it before it would lock into place. When you check to see if it has locked, pull it, jiggle it, and pick it up by the pedestal. If you have completed the step properly it will NOT pull out. If it pulls out, try again. It took us four tries to get it right. This still beats the assembly of some high chairs where I’ve managed to put parts on backwards and have needed to unassemble the entire thing to fix the one step that I had bungled. One other thing to be careful of is when you complete the final step and screw the metal piece onto the underside of the chair, make sure that the strap does not get caught up in it, otherwise you’ll have to unscrew it at some point when you decide it’s time to wash the straps. Simply push it out of the way before screwing the metal piece down. The only tool needed for assembly was a basic Phillips screwdriver.

The manual is 11 pages long and done with black and white line illustrations. It contains instructions in English and in Spanish. The instructions are easy to follow, and the diagrams are clear. The manual is available on the “Customer Care” page for Flair/Flair Elite by clicking the link in the “Download” section. Interestingly enough they also offer Disassembly instructions. Nice!

EASE OF USE

The tray has two levers on the underside that retract the tabs on the sides of the tray so that you can slide the tray into place (see illustration to the left). Once they are released they lock into one of two sets of slots on the side of the chair. This design means that the tray can easily be removed or snapped into place with only one hand, a refreshing change from most high chairs which require that you have a few extra hands available.

The harness tends to fall into the seat and it would be nice if there was some sort of mechanism to hook it out of the way while you inserted your child into it. However, the harness is pretty easy to dig out, and the center piece securely holds your baby in place while you’re fixing the harness. A nice change from other high chairs where you have to hold your baby down with one hand while fishing for the lost harness with the other. One slight improvement could be made if the center strap were somehow affixed to the center piece, as it tends to be the harder part to locate. However, this would be a compromise since it would become harder to clean. Personally, I prefer the ease of cleanup.

CLEANUP & STAIN RESISTANCE

I actually contacted Boon Inc. to ask them what sort of magic treatment they applied to this chair, because food quite simply refuses to stick. I was convinced that they would tell me it was Teflon coated or that there was some magic proprietary plastic that they had used. They simply responded that it was made of polypropylene, a fairly standard material used in high chairs. I think that the secret may simply lay in the fact that this chair is not coated with the high gloss coat that many high chairs are coated with. The first time I cleaned some crusted on food off of this high chair after being accustomed to other high chairs, I approached it with a scrubby sponge ready to pick things off with my thumbnail and scrub until I wore the finish off. I was shocked when the dried on food came off when I had barely touched it. Since that first time, I have simply ran a damp paper towel or diaper cloth over the chair quickly. No scrubbing needed, even with dried on banana.

Another benefit of the matte-finish of this chair is that scratches are practically invisible and doThis chair comes with two dishwasher-safe clear snap-on tray liners so that you can have one tray in the dishwasher and one tray for use. This is a feature that I wish more high chairs had. While the tray liner doesn’t cover the entire tray, it snaps on in the inner rim and keeps that part covered. Only small amounts of food will become stuck to the outside of the tray area- requiring a quick swipe with a wet cloth. The liner itself can be rinsed and put in the dishwasher. I was surprised by this touch of genius until I remembered that the industrial designer behind Boon’s product line is an experienced mother.

The two shoulder straps and the crotch strap all can be removed easily from the chair by pushing a fabric tab through the slots of the chair and pulling the straps out. And the dense foam seat pad can be removed as well for more intense washing.

Strained carrots. Finger paints. Crayons. Visions of stained and discolored plastic briefly danced through my head as I first surveyed the Boon Highchair with its frosted off-white plastic and clear tray. I momentarily considered feeding him only beige foods, or perhaps green beans which don’t stain that much at all. Reality came rushing back. “Ahh well,” I thought, “It’s a high chair, it’s going to get ruined eventually anyway.” and dove into feeding my son carrots. After he was done eating I quickly cleaned the tray expecting it to be stained already. It wasn’t. I became progressively more and more relaxed. Carrot splattering off the tray liner onto the tray itself? No stains. Carrots crusted on from an earlier feeding where my husband didn’t quite clean every bit of splatter? No stain. I was shocked. I had seen plastic become discolored simply from touching strained carrots for 20 seconds. Here I was removing carrot that had been there for hours, that had DRIED ON, and there was no discoloration.

The straps, being fabric, were obviously going to stain. Again. Wrong. The foam seat? It has to stain! Nope. Not even a little bit. Neither of these items is as easy to clean as the rest of the chair, but they are still unstained after months of use. I haven’t even machine-washed them yet. A simple soak in warm water rinses out all the food even if it has been crusted on for a while.

The hardest parts to clean are the “Boon Inc.” logo that is in the center piece of the five point harness, and the center post. Food becomes trapped in the engraved logo, and in the seam that runs through the middle of the center post and around where it attaches to the seat. Even this washes out pretty quickly, however. I had to use a toothpick on the center post once or twice, but only after my husband fed our son without attaching the tray first.

This chair, for all its stain resistance, DOES have a weak spot. Tomatoes. Do not allow tomato sauce, tomato juice, etc. to sit on the seat pad for any length of time or you will be left with yellow stains that don’t fade with any amount of scrubbing, use of bleach, Oxy cleaners or other stain treatments.

STABILITY & SAFETY

The chair rocks a bit, and can feel slightly unstable at first. However, almost all high chairs have a slight bit of wobble. The wide base of the Flair makes it virtually impossible to tip over. I pushed it around quite a bit trying to get it to tip. I pushed it from a carpeted area over a metal edge-finisher onto a wooden floor. No tipping. From the wood floor to the carpet. Through a doorway with a raised threshold. No tipping. It turns out that virtually the only way you can tip this high chair is if you intentionally lift it partially off of the floor and tilt it over. This makes me feel VERY secure. Boon Inc. put a lot of thought into the stability of this chair, efforts that have rewarded it with JPMA certification. (Juvenile Product Manufacturer’s Association Certification: A certification stating that a product has passed rigorous safety tests.)

The chest clip of the five point harness is a little bit low and does not adjust to be higher, which sometimes allows the shoulder straps to ride down a bit on a child’s shoulders, and a wiggly toddler can and will pull their arms out. The design of the Flair chair makes the harness seem almost superfluous, however. The chair is a molded snug fit with a raised center piece that is similar to the design of bumbo seats. Between this, the high molded sides and the high back of this chair, and the fact that the bottom of the harness would remain locked.. It would be almost impossible for a child to wiggle out. Combine that with the five point harness and the tray… Even the most squirmy toddler can’t escape the grips of this chair without a lengthly process that is easy enough to interrupt.

COMFORT

Some reviewers on other sites complained that the Flair chair has no “recline” feature. This feature is mainly useful for babies that do not yet have good head/neck control or that cannot sit up on their own. Since these are crucial signs of readiness for solid feeding, I don’t hold the lack of a recline feature against this chair. It might be nice if it reclined, as then moms would have the option of using it for bottle feeding or to allow a younger infant to hang out with her in the kitchen while cooking or cleaning. However, a baby of that age will be happier, more comfortable and just as safe in a bouncy chair or infant swing.

ADJUSTABILITY

The Flair chair has two shoulder harness positions, allowing the chair to grow with your child up until approximately 4 years of age. The pneumatic lift allows you to adjust the height from about the level of a low dining table, to about the level of a bar stool. This allows your child to sit at eye level at a wide variety of dining surfaces including a breakfast bar.

The one area in which this chair is NOT adjustable is the rigid molded seat. Once your child outgrows the seat, the chair is no longer usable. However, you will run into the weight limits of this chair first, and will likely want to transition a child of this size/age to a booster seat for a more age appropriate dining experience.

SPECIFICATIONS

CONCLUSION

This is a great, stylish high chair that is easy to clean and quite stain resistant. It is well-made, safe and comfortable. I love it and would recommend it to anyone.