Diaper Rash Cream

I decided to put lip balm making on hold because a more pressing need presented itself: diaper rash cream! My little girl gets very few diaper area irritations, but when she does we have limited options for treating them because we use cloth diapers. Cloth diapers don't mix well with Desitin or Petrolium products such as A&D Ointment becuase these products interfere with the cloth's absorbency and lead to leaks. I had a few samples of natural, cloth-friendly creams but when they ran out I decided to try my hand at making my own; how much harder could it be than lip balm? The ingredients I chose were coconut oil (natural anti-fungal, therefore anti-yeast), avocado oil (emollient, so helps the skin absorb the product), vitamin E (antioxidant), olive oil (natural antibacterial), and candelilla wax (vegan thickener - for consistency). I chose unrefined coconut oil because it adds a mild fragrance of coconut giving my baby a slightly tropical-smelling bum! The finished product is smooth and creamy, relieves her diaper area irritations within 2 uses and seems to have no negative interactions with our cloth diapers!

I start with a double boiler. A small amount of water is in the pot and the metal bowl sits on top.

In go the ingredients (I didn't get a picture of the olive oil, but it went in!)

Heat slowly until all ingredients are completely melted and the mixture is a clear amber color.

Cool slowly while mixing with a hand blender (this step is only necessary if you want it to be creamy; if you skip this step, it will be a soft, pliable solid).

Spoon into airtight container, and keep at the changing table!

When I was 21 years old, my lips were suddenly more chapped than they'd ever been. I'd always been an avid user of lip balms and chapped sticks (all except those deliciously flavored like chocolate and coffee which had caused an irritation since my adolescence), so I responded as usual with a thick balm coating. I remember the exact one I'd been using because it was a novelty--a tube about an inch in diameter, rich purple in the package but then shiny and translucent on the lips, and exceptionally sweet berry-flavored. When my lips continued to be chapped, it was time to start problem solving.

Could the hot summer in Davis, CA where I was attending University have caused me to be dehydrated? I drank more water. I still had excessively chapped lips. Could I have accidentally neglected to put sunscreen on my lips when applying into the rest of my face thereby allowing a lip sun burn? I applied sunscreen. Lips stayed chapped. Had I burned my lips on something I'd eaten? No; it was Davis, CA in the summer and the airconditioner was broken in my car and in the place I was renting, so I'd been eating cold (frozen when possible) foods. 

Nothing was helping, so it was time to take matters seriously. I put away the luxurious berry lip balm and brought out the dreaded pot of slimy Vaseline, which I used only as long as was absolutely necessary to get the excessive chapping under control. Almost as soon as I resumed using the berry lip balm my lips chapped right back up, but this time they progressed beyond being chapped and were also a little swollen and bright pink (one of my roommates complimented my lipstick not knowing I wasn't wearing any!). I was sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car relishing her air conditioning, slathering my lips with a fresh coat of berry lip balm when it suddenly occurred to me that this new favorite cosmetic might be the unfortunate culprit! I held it in my hand and stared at the tube with shock and denial realizing that this might mean the end of the use of lots of products, not this one alone. How could it be?? I turned to my friend and told her my horrible suspicion. My allergy-free friend relied, "You can be allergic to chapstick? I didn't know that was possible!" 

It is possible. And after systematically testing a variety of cosmetic and food products, I have determined that in this case the allergy is to a few artificial colors and artificial flavors, meaning no more lip balm, lip gloss, lip stick, Jolly Ranchers, Tootsie Pops, popsicles, etc, etc. I rarely wear makeup, and most of my sweet-tooth satistfaction requires chocolate, so most of these new restrictions weren't terrible impositions, except the lip balm. But I was determined not to live my life with a tube of Vaseline in my purse, so I got to work on the Internet researching recipes for homemade products. 

It seemed that with access to the right ingredients, lip balm was a relatively simple product to produce! As with all my kitchen experiments, this turned out not to be immediately true. In theory, the process is simple: combine solid and liquid waxes in different ratios until you have your desired consistency. Finding the ingredients, ratios and process to successfully accomplish this proved more complicated. I discovered that I don't like the smell of beeswax, too much olive oil feels greasy, and of course I identified allergies to a few ingredients. The melting process necessary to produce the proper consistency needs to be ideal as well: a double boiler is necessary because the microwave and direct stovetop melt inconsistently or cause burning; some ingredients need to be added right at the end, otherwise they react to the heat; all ingredients need to be thoroughly melted and mixed, otherwise they don't combine properly! It took several tries, but I think I've perfected my process. I now have a stockpile of smooth lip balm made from all natural, simple ingredients. Now that I make my own, when I occasionally look at the ingredients in a tube of lip balm at the store, I'm overwhelmed by the number of ingredients and usually put the tube down without bothering to finish reading. My lip balm contains avocado butter, mango butter, apricot kernel oil or olive oil (sometimes infused with coffee or cinnamon for color and fragrance), and vitamin E. That's it! It's smooth and moisturizing, and I love it. (I'm having trouble finding lip balm tubes made in the USA! If anyone knows where I can find them, please leave a comment!)

The tubes pictured here are my "original" recipe: avocado butter, mango butter, apricot kernel oil, and vitamin E (no coffee, cinnamon, or olive oil).

My next venture in the world of lip balm making is going to be adding more colors, fragrances, and perhaps flavors from all natural sources. Stay tuned to find out how it turns out!

Thanks for reading!

Yaffa

Unrelated to lip balm making or living chemical-free, but for info about my speech therapy practice visit yaffaspeech.com

I was born with allergies.  And not the more prevalent ones to things like dogs, peanuts, or pollens, but the hard to identify ones like chemicals in shampoo.  My mother had to use cloth diapers on me because I was allergic to disposables; she had to find gentle detergents because I was allergic to the mainstream options; she had to avoid most sunscreens because they gave me hives. In middle school when chocolate and coffee flavored lip balms were all the rage, I discovered that I couldn't use them unless I wanted my lips to look like Angelina Jolie's on steroids. Then in my early 20s when I was in college my allergies took on a life of their own! I now had common allergies (to pollen, thankfully not to peanuts or dogs, otherwise my diet would have suffered from a prevalence of jam sandwiches, and I would have needed a permanent box of tissues because I absulotely will never give up my bed-sharing relationship with oversized furry snugglers). The hard-to-identify-and-almost-unheard-of allergy list grew to include every drug store variety of lip balm I tried, scented lotions and soaps, perfumes and body sprays, deodorant and other personal hygiene products, artificial colors and favors, cleaning supplies, several medications, and I lose track of the rest! In short I was doomed to avoid common make-your-life-easier chemicals found in many young women's day-to-day lives.

What to do, what to do! It's nearly an emergency when a girl with chronically chapped lips is allergic to lip balm (and let's face it, Vaseline is no pleasant substitute). And don't even get me started on the problems facing a woman with a deodorant allergy in the summer heat of central California in a car without air conditioning! So I began learning about chemical free alternativs, and in the process I became much more environmentally aware. What began as a search for products that didn't upset my sensitive nervouse system led to a healthier, more responsible, informed consumer lifestyle. For example, did you know that FD&C Yellow #5 food coloring is made from coal tar, and may cause problems for people with asthma or aspirin sensitivity? Or that FD&C Red #3 contains a chemical that may be carcinogenic according to studies that caused thyroid tumors in rats. These studies probably used enormous quantities of dye much greater than we would actually ingest at once, but I'd still prefer Safron and concentrated beet juice for my yellow and red needs!

Now that I'm a mother, I think about the nutrients I pass to my daughter through breast milk and how they may be accompanied by toxins from the things I eat. We all know that a nursing woman shouldn't shoot whiskey, but she also shouldn't consume the hormones saturating conventionally raised beef. I think about what on earth may be soaking into my baby's skin when I clean her adorable little tush with commercial baby wipes. And I visualize my own private mountain at the dump grown from disposable diapers every time I've waited a little too long to run a load of cloth. I also think about the example I'm setting for my daughter. If I want her to grow up caring about her world and making conscious, contentious decisions then she needs to see me going to farmers' market and selecting locally grown, organic, heirloom tomatoes rather than the pesticide-smothered grocery store varieties imported from around the globe.

As a disclaimer, I want to note that I don't make perfect choices every time! I do occasionally consume high fructose corn syrup--I simply prefer it be in things that are obviously sugary, sweet and bad for you, like Milky Way bars, not hidden in products masquerading as healthy foods, like orange juice and breakfast cereal (yes, I said breakfast cereal--check the ingredient lists!). I prefer natural healing methods like massage and relaxation breathing, but for a bad headache I do take aspirin and tylenol. Some grocery items in my cart are not organic (pasta, for example), while for others I'm willing to pay 3x the price for organic or skip altogether if organic isn't available (dairy, eggs, potatoes).

I'm on a mission to reduce my and my family's exposure to the chemicals and toxins that my body has always known were bad for me. And if I can take a few friends and blog readers along with me to help me brainstorm, the more the merrier!

Thanks so much for reading,
Yaffa