Wow, both your cats "like" vaseline?  That seems strange to me, but I
believe you.  Might have to try it.
Thanks for responding, I was just concerned that there might be some
kind of bad "don't use the Friskies Hairball Remedy" stories out there
since I have never tried it with my cats.

On a side note, the reason I want to use something on a consistent
basis is this - I have previously given her petromalt once in a while,
if I noticed she had not pooped for two days, or her stools were
consistently small, which hers often are.  But, we just got recovered
from one bad dental cleaning experience....
Jewel is six.  Her vet said her teeth were not in bad shape, but she
did have tarter build-up, and doing a cleaning now before she got bad
was a good idea.  Of course I had heard all about the cleanings, did
more research, and asked everyone I knew that had cats about them
(previously my cats had never needed one).
Her cleaning went well, pulled the two small teeth alongside the lower
incisors because of root decay, she tolerated anesthesia with no
problems.  She came home and ate a little bit that nite.  The next day
she still only ate a little bit, same for the next two days.  Back to
the vet, gums are all healed, she is probably nauseous from the
antibiotics and maybe the pain meds.  She got fluids, Vit B12, cypro
to stimulate appetite, stopped all other meds.  Over the next few days
she started to pick up her appetite a bit, but still was very quite,
had an extremely strange cry-like meow, rarely purred... then one week
from the dental, she started vomiting.  Back to vet.  Labs, and xrays
done, showed stool backed up her descending colon and across the
transverse.  So the day before christmas she gets an enema.  Not a
good experience at all.  That day she felt too crappy to clean herself
well after trips to the litter box, so all she could do on christmas
was scoot, and lick her bottom and expel anal sac stuff.  No way could
I get her cleaned up back there despite my efforts.   A very
unpleasant day.  Next day back to vet to get her bottom shaved, her
skin was raw from the enema solution and dried on stool.  Finally she
starts to eat (was given a shot of prednisolone after the enema
because her bowel was inflamed and slightly bloody) but now she won't
poop because it hurts too much (she screamed the first time she
tried).  It is now three weeks to the day after the routine dental,
and this is the first day she is running around knocking her toys down
the steps and being her funny, pleasant self.  
So now you know why I want to give her bowels some help in keeping
things moving along.  And why none of my cats will be getting "routine
dentals" again.  
Teri