Natural skin care products have been
around forever—literally! Research has
found that as early as 2000 BC the
ancient Egyptians were expert at using
natural herbs and oils in making
ointments and other skin preparations.
So, while some may view the use of
natural ingredients in skin care
products as revolutionary, it is
actually quite traditional and
completely counter-revolutionary. By the
way, those same Egyptians were using
those natural ingredients for natural
skin care products for their babies and
children.
While the ancient Egyptians had hundreds
of choices of natural herbs and herbal
remedies, we live in a world where we
have thousands and thousands of choices
to make for our own skin care and our
babies’ skin care. Now the choice isn’t
simply whether you will use a poultice
of natural coriander leaves to soothe an
ache on your baby or will you make an
ointment with natural chamomile? Now,
when we consider the choices for natural
skin care for our babies, what we face
is much more complex.
Complexity isn’t just in our choices
around whether or not to use natural
skin care products for our babies, but
complexity surrounds us in all that we
do from day to day. Sometimes that
complexity leads us to make the choices
that we believe will be the most simple.
Simplicity in our culture often has to
do with time. We have millions of
choices in everything and so little
time. Time constraints make it easy to
pick up baby skin care products that are
accessible. So, when you go to the
grocery store you’re probably not
looking to purchase natural baby skin
care products. Speed is the issue and
taking the time to read the ingredient
lists to look for natural ingredients is
not the top priority. A rushed mom or
dad sees a familiar brand of baby bath
and skin care products and it might even
have been the brand mom used for them.
No time to look for natural ingredients.
And did I mention that the price is
probably very competitive?
What a time-crunched mom or dad may not
realize is that besides having not
purchased natural baby skin care
products for their baby’s delicate skin
they may have actually bought baby skin
care products that are loaded with
ingredients that are not just not
natural, but downright un-natural.
Sometimes these products will actually
contain some natural ingredients,
typically lavender and chamomile for
babies. You may also see natural aloe.
What you will definitely see is a list
of ingredients that are definitely NOT
natural. Chemicals like Quaternium-15,
PEG-80 Sorbitan, Sodium Laureth Sulfate,
Acrylic Polymer are typical ingredients.
They are not natural. But, the companies
that make these products and even your
own mom might say that these products
that are decidedly not natural are just
fine. Millions of babies have used these
products and turned out just fine. You
turned out just fine without the benefit
of natural lotion or natural shampoo.
Natural diaper ointment: who heard of
such a thing when you were being reared?
Maybe they’re right—the manufacturers
and your mom. But why is it that in this
modern age of plenty, so many babies and
young children have eczema? Why do women
pull me over to strollers at trade shows
to show me the extremely dry skin or
eczema on a four-week old? Why are moms
being told to shampoo their infant
baby’s hair in adult dandruff shampoo to
rid their scalp of cradle cap? (I
personally know four women in Southern
California who were told this by four
different pediatricians or pediatric
dermatologists. None of them would do it
because of their own experiences of
stinging scalp and burning eyes from
dandruff shampoo.) Why do moms pour on
the mineral oil and still find that
their baby’s skin is dry? Not only is
mineral oil not natural (It’s a
petroleum derivative—think about it!) it
doesn’t absorb into the skin. It just
sits on top of the skin, looks all
shiny, and makes us feel as if we’ve
done something really great for our
baby’s skin.
Instead of mineral oil, which is one of
(if not the) the absolute cheapest
cosmetic ingredient, how would your
baby’s delicate skin feel after being
massaged with a gentle, natural baby
product that features natural aloe or
natural shea butter as the main
ingredients. Infants, babies, and young
children aren’t in a position to tell
you it’s time to try something new on
their skin. They depend on you to do
that. Even if your baby isn’t suffering
from dry skin or eczema, wouldn’t it be
nice to use skin care products that had
natural ingredients. Natural ingredients
that you and I can understand like aloe,
shea butter, vitamin E, olive oil,
beeswax, avocado butter. Not an
undecipherable and un-natural PPG-2
Myristyl Ether Propionate. Can you say
that even once?
In the past twenty years there has been
increasing consumer awareness of natural
and even organic products. It’s not just
an issue of skin care for our babies,
but also our own skin care. It’s about
the food we eat. It’s the clothes we
wear. It’s about the chemicals we’re
bombarded with every day. That’s not to
say that chemicals aren’t good. They can
be and have been very beneficial in our
lives. The research and time that goes
into developing some of the chemicals
that surround us is phenomenal.
But can the time and research a company
spends trying to develop a complex brew
of chemicals ever compete with the
research that ordinary people have done
over thousands of years using and
studying natural products that heal the
skin? Added to the research of
experience is now the research of
science. Chemists and botanists in
research laboratories and universities
have studied and validated the efficacy
of natural ingredients. Lavender and
chamomile are not only natural, they
also both have effective and gentle
antiseptic powers which makes them
wonderful ingredients in natural baby
skin care products. In ancient Chinese
medicine, they used natural coriander as
a children’s medicine. Topically they
used it to treat measles and rubbed it
on children’s legs when they had growing
pains (Do you still think baby massage
is trendy?) Modern research validates
the use of natural sweet orange oil as
beneficial to the skin. The aboriginal
people of Australia have used tea tree
oil for hundreds of years to treat
infectious skin eruptions, acne, and
cold sores. How often do you see a
natural skin care product touting tea
tree oil as the next cure-all for skin
problems? Big companies invested in
research to tell the world what
aborigines have known for a very long
time. This natural oil really works!
Who has the
Time to Research Natural Skin Care
Products for Babies?
You do. While we search for the
simplicity that saves us time it may
seem too much to ask to consider natural
baby products. Doesn’t that mean an
investment of time? Yes, but you only
have to do it once. Take 10 quick
minutes to review the products in your
baby’s skin care regimen. Now, next time
you go to the grocery store or the
department store ask for, look for
natural baby skin care products. If
you’re lucky enough to live near a
natural food store, check out what’s
there. Search the web for natural skin
care products for babies. Go to that
very chic super cosmetics store and ask
them what natural skin care products
they have for babies. Being perfectly
honest, how much time do you spend
researching skin care products for
yourself? The last time you had an
outbreak of adult acne how much time did
you spend at the drugstore of the
department store looking for an
effective product. Be honest. Doesn’t
your baby deserve that extra effort for
baby’s largest organ (skin) and the one
thing that ultimately protects baby from
the external environment.
If it says
natural isn’t that enough?
No. You still have some work to do.
Because a product touts itself as a
“natural skin care” alternative for your
baby doesn’t mean that it’s good. Some
companies may couple natural ingredients
with the same old chemicals and call it
natural. Some may highlight a “natural”
ingredient on the front label or
“natural formula” and it may have a lot
of the same undecipherable chemicals
that you will find in products that do
not claim to be a natural skin care
alternative for babies. Watch for
artificial fragrances, they typically
contain alcohols and often leave babies
so perfumed it’s hard to smell the nice
baby smells. Last, why use a product
that contains synthetic beeswax when
there are so many products that use
natural beeswax? (Of, course, strict
vegans may choose to avoid natural
beeswax as an animal byproduct.)
Because an ingredient is natural doesn’t
necessarily mean that it’s good for
inclusion in a natural baby skin care
product (and in some cases, even for
adult skin care products). Natural tea
tree oil has some wonderful properties,
one of them being its strength. I
believe it’s too strong for a baby skin
care product. In fact, I don’t use tea
tree oil and I am far from being a baby
(unfortunately). Calendula (a natural
essential oil derived from marigold
flower petals) works well for adult
burns, cuts, and eczema, but I believe
it’s too strong to be used in natural
baby skin care formulations. Eucalyptus
is another natural ingredient that I
avoid in baby skin care products.
Natural eucalyptus is used for fungal
infections like athlete’s foot, sores
and wounds, and as insect repellent.
Again, this essential oil is much too
potent for a gentle baby skin care
formulation.
Not all
chemicals are “bad.”
Even some natural baby skin care
products use synthetic chemicals that I
believe are sometimes necessary. For
safety, some personal care products,
like shampoos and lotions that contain
water, need preservatives to guard
against microbial contamination.
Traditionally gentle preservatives like
phenoxyethanol and methylparaben are
fine for inclusion in products described
as natural. Methylparaben is actually a
food-grade preservative and very mild.
One or two gentle preservatives in a
natural baby skin care product are fine
as long as they are the last
ingredients. There is one “upscale”
brand that has six (6!) different
preservatives in a product that has 16
ingredients. What’s worse is that
several of the preservatives appear
half-way in the ingredient list. By law,
manufacturers have to place ingredients
in the order in which they occur. So
lots of preservatives early in a list of
ingredients make a product less
attractive in terms of keeping baby’s
skin care natural.
Daunted? Don’t
Be!
It’s really not hard to evaluate,
choose, and use great natural products
for baby’s delicate skin. Who knows, you
may decide that baby’s natural, gentle
skin care products are worth sharing!
