Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry Swear By This Baby Snot Sucker—Here’s the (Gross But Effective) Way It Works

Parenting isn’t always pretty—even for celebrities. Actor Orlando Bloom, 44, was recently spotted commenting on an Instagram post promoting a popular tool for removing snot from a baby’s nose. The device, a Fridababy NoseFrida, uses a filter and tube to allow parents to suck snot from their baby’s nose using—get this—their mouths.

“I’ve sucked out so much snot with this thing,” Bloom commented from his verified Instagram account. “Katy [Perry] and I take turns to see who can get out the biggest booger. So far she’s winning or maybe that means she’s losing? Lol. Parenthood is weird but at least our daughter can breathe at night.” 

If you’re scratching your head about how this product actually works, here’s the gist: On one end, there’s a mouthpiece for a parent to use, and on the other, there’s a tube that goes against the baby’s nostril (not inside of it). In the middle is a hose. When the parent sucks on the mouthpiece, it draws snot from the baby’s nose into the straw—which has a “disposable booger catcher” before the hose so the parent doesn’t actually get a mouthful of snot. A lot of parents—clearly both famous and not—sing the praises of this thing, as evidenced by the Fridababy NoseFrida’s Amazon reviews.

A stuffy baby nose is a common symptom of viruses like the common cold, according to the Mayo Clinic. Obviously, little babies are too young to effectively blow their own noses. So it’s up to parents to do it.

It’s not the first time a pediatric nose-clearing technique has taken off. As SELF previously covered, some parents have taken to clearing their children’s noses by shooting saline through their nasal passages using a syringe or neti pot. With saline, you need to make absolutely sure the water is distilled or sterilized to avoid dangerous pathogens like brain-eating amoeba. (And you need an actual saline mix, not just salt, since the wrong mixture could burn your baby’s nose.) That said, it might be easier to use a few drops of saline solution to loosen mucus and then use a suction device, like the one Bloom and Perry have turned to, to actually suck it out.

Perry, 37, gave birth to the couple’s daughter Daisy Dove in August 2020. Earlier this year, she shared that the first six weeks after having a baby were “wild,” as SELF previously reported. “I was giving birth to the greatest gift of all, for me, and then my album came out the next day. And I was in the hospital and I could not, uh, wipe my own butt,” she explained.

Just four or five weeks later, she was filming American Idol. “I didn’t plan that. But it was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ It was so intense, you know?” she said during a February appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan. “Giving birth, then going back to work and breastfeeding, like—holy crap! ‘This is what women do? Oh, my God!’”

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