Natural Skin and Body Care

There’s nothing worse than the itch of eczema, especially in children.  I have known many mothers who have children that suffer from this skin condition as well as reading many stories on the Internet about baby eczema issues. Both my daughter and my husband suffer from mild forms of eczema now.  However, my daughter suffered from bleeding eczema when she was an infant.  During my search for an eczema cream that would help both her and my husband, I discovered a whole world of not only people with the eczema skin condition,but also a wide array of skin creams that supposedly treated the condition.

In my search for that magic eczema cream that would ease my daughter’s itching, as she had it much worse than my husband, her pediatrician directed me towards Eucerin, Vaseline as well as  hydrocortisone cream.  Reading the ingredients on these items was enough to make my hair stand on end – I’m not a big fan of mineral oil mixtures or petrolatum jelly.  Mind you, these two oils do have their uses, but in my opinion, they are not for regular use on the skin.

After much research, I found my own magic eczema cream that worked for my daughter and my husband.  The base of the eczeam cream was unrefined shea butter to which I added other oils such as soybean oil.  After using this natural eczema cream on my daughter’s legs and my husband arms, there was a marked improvement in the appearance of their skin.  Of course, I used this shea cream on my two sons also and their skin improved, even though they had no marked skin conditions.

As it stands, I have not purchased commercial lotions or eczema creams since I discovered my recipe!  Please understand that I don’t claim that this cream will cure your eczema – I’m just relating my own experience.

However, if you would like to try out my homemade eczema cream, take a look at http://www.neosoulessentials.com/store/WsDefault.asp?Cat=FortheBody and try a product today!

My daughter’s experience with bleeding eczema began when she was barely a year old. Since then, it has been my focus to find a treatment that gave her relief from her discomfort and was as natural as possible. This search for a natural eczema treatment has taught me quite a bit about eczema, its triggers and its treatments.

What is Eczema?

Eczema is a non-infectious skin condition which may be aggravated by allergens such as animal dander, foods and some of the chemicals in soap and body care products. An outbreak is usually characterized by red, inflamed skin that is scaly and itchy. Sometimes the outbreak may lead to bloody, oozing lesions which eventually heal over to thickened, darker skin, especially in African Americans. In many cases, the eczema can be found on the backs of knees and the insides of the elbows. In my daughter’s case, the most severe appearance of eczema was on her calves and ankles, where the skin was rough and dark after the bleeding of an outbreak would cease.

Treatment Approaches

I can say from experience that I have used treatments such as petrolatum jelly, Crisco and Eucerin looking for that “magic bullet” that would help alleviate her itching and the outbreaks that made ME wince. Unfortunately, I found that either the treatments would work, but only for a short time. I did not want to use steroid creams or hydrocortisone, but it was truly difficult watching my daughter crying and scratching at her legs. Therefore, I began my research.

In my research, I discovered that there is no one treatment for eczema and that it is the type of condition that must be treated both from inside and the outside. Because the skin is the largest organ in the body, what one takes in often manifests itself through the skin.

The goal for treating eczema, of course is to eliminate or at least greatly reduce the occurrence of outbreaks. Or, if that is not possible, then to at least reduce the severity of the symptoms. Fortunately, childhood eczema often lessens in occurrence when the child gets older.

Note: I am not a doctor, nor an herbalist. I make no claims about this information except what has worked for me and my family. This is no way is meant or implied as medical advice. Please seek the advice of a medical professional for a personalized diagnosis.

Internal Treatments:

Flax Seed Oil (not to be confused with flaxseed or flaxseed powder) – Flax seed oil is high in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) which is an omega-3 essential fatty acid. There is some evidence that taking flaxseed oil will raise the level of ALA in the body, which in turn will help to relieve symptoms such as itching, flakiness and rough skin. In addition, omega-3 fatty essential fatty acids can reduce inflammation and promote skin healing. Inflammation is the cause of the discomfort with eczema breakouts.

Flaxseed oil may also be used in foods such as smoothies, or mixed as a salad dressing.

Because this is a natural product, the recommended dosage depends greatly, depending on where you look. Dosage amounts range from three grams to fifteen grams daily. I’ve also seen dosages by weight – 1 TBS per 100 lbs of body weight. A tablespoon is 14 grams and the capsule form of flax seed oil is usually 1000 mg = 1 gram. However, please see your health care provider to ensure that you are taking the right dosage and that there is no interaction with other medications you may be taking. Flax seed oil may also be applied to the skin to heal the dry scaly patches.

Canola Oil – This is a cooking oil that is freely available (right next to the corn and vegetable oils) in your local supermarket. Canola oil is 11% omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid) and is low in saturated fat. This oil may be a good choice to “sneak” a few more omega-3 fatty acids in your diet. Use it to cook, to sauté, to make salad dressing, etc.

Evening Primrose Oil (EPO) – Taking a supplement of evening primrose oil may also lessen the severity of outbreaks. According to the Mayo Clinic (mayoclinic.com) the recommended dosage of EPO is .5 g (500 mg) per kilogram of body weight. The overall dosage is 3 g (3000 mg) per day for children under 18 and 8g (8000 mg) for adults. Consult a medical professional before undertaking any dosing.

External Treatments:

Shea butter – In my experience, a single application of unrefined shea butter was enough to visibly improve my daughter’s eczema rash. It also alleviated some of the itching. Shea butter is high in oleic acid, which is an omega-9 fatty acid and close in composition to human sebum. Oleic acid assists in skin repair and shea butter is good for healing rashes, eczema, dry skin and may also be helpful in reducing the appearance of stretch marks and scars.

Flax Seed Oil – Flax seed oil, as written above, is high in an essential omega3 fatty acid and can be topically applied to the skin.

Hemp Seed Oil - Hemp seed oil is a great source of essential fatty acids such as omega 3 and omega 6 as well as linolenic acid, all of which are good for the skin. Hemp seed oil is an excellent skin emollient and nourishes the skin and helps to regenerate skin cells. Because hemp seed oil is absorbed into the skin rather than just coating the skin, the essential fatty acids are able to penetrate the epidermis and “go to work”. These essential fatty acids can play a preventative role in minimizing aging of the skin and to assist in maintaining a healthy moisture balance in the skin.

These are some of the treatments that I’ve used with success for my daughter’s eczema. In addition, the supplements of the extra oils and benefits have helped the entire family’s health. Again, please consult with a medical professional as this lens is not meant at medical advice.

In my brief experience with my dd, age 3, it seems that the best that we can do with eczema, short of prescription medication, is to keep it under control. So, you may ask, what can I do to alleviate the dry and itchy skin of eczema? During her worst outbreaks, I know that I have to apply some sort of emollient to my daughter’s skin at least twice daily and once before she goes to sleep at night. Even then, I place a jar of Eva’s Shea Buttah Whip on her nightstand so if her skin bothers her during the night, she can apply it herself. Before I developed my formulas I used quite a few things from my kitchen. It’s all oil, isn’t it?

Please understand that I am no way giving medical advice and you should always consult with a medical professional.

Believe it or not, there are some kitchen cabinet remedies that you can use with your children or for yourself. Crisco (or any solid vegetable oil) is comprised mainly of hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils. Try applying a bit to a patch of dry skin – although it may not be the most attractive looking moisturizer, it does work in a pinch. You might also try canola or olive oil. Try applying it after a bath or shower – a quick and easy alternative to after bath oil, which may contain chemicals or fragrances that might cause your or your child’s skin to react.  Better safe than sorry and I do prefer the hydrogenated cottonseed/soybean oil combination to the petroleum jelly route.

Of course, you can always visit us at www.sheaproducts.info for dry skin needs.  Our products are created to soothe the skin as well s teh sprit – our fragrances are especially selected with our clients in mind.  However, if you are sensitive to fragrances, our products are available in unscented.

Shea butter saved my daughter’s skin!!! This is not an exaggeration. As I wrote in my first post, my daughter suffered terribly from eczema. I suffered along with her, especially when I would see the scratches caused by her nails as she scratched her seemingly always itchy legs. It was terrible until I found out about shea butter and began mixing it with other oils to create a mixture that would soothe her skin.

In my experience as a bath and body products maker, there are two types of shea butter, refined and unrefined shea butter. To the inexperienced consumer, refined shea butter may be the best way to go, as its white color and odorless quality may be easier to blend with different fragrance/essential oils and colors. However, to be a well informed consumer and to truly get the skin benefits of shea butter is to know exactly how refined shea butter is made and how this process can detract from its skin benefits.

Refined shea butter is pure white and has no odor. Most makers of refined shea butter use hexane or other chemicals to strip the unrefined shea butter of its color and slight nutty/earthy fragrance. Through the refining process, the hexane also removes much of the healing components of the unrefined shea butter. While the white color and neutral odor of the refined shea butter may be appealing, remember that many of the moisturizing qualities and skin nutrients may be lacking. Refined shea butter may also be harder to the touch than unrefined shea butter and depending on where one purchases the shea, may be “grainy’ or have small granules. This is not to say that the refined shea butter is not suitable for use in many applications – often this type of shea butter is preferred when one wants the label appeal of shea butter without the variation in appearance and/or odor, which can occur with unrefined shea butter.

Unrefined Shea butter

Unrefined shea butter is extracted from the seed of the karite tree by boiling the opened shea nuts, which releases the shea butter from the meat. Then the shea butter is usually hand kneaded until it reaches the desired consistency. Though this process can take much longer than the hexane extraction process, the result is a creamier product that retains the nutritive essence of the shea nut.

Unrefined Shea butter is the preferred raw ingredient. It contains the natural Vitamin A and E as well as many antioxidants which are not found in refined shea. Unrefined shea butter is said to help heal wounds, sooth sunburn, prevent and/or lessen the appearance of stretch marks and to lessen the appearance of wrinkles. Unrefined Shea butter is also said to have many natural qualities that help skin cell regeneration and capillary circulation. My grandmother claims that that unrefined shea butter can help eased her arthritis pain! On top of it all, shea butter is an excellent skin moisturizer.

Our products use only unrefined shea butter for its skin-nutritive properties.

Welcome! If you’re reading this, it means you made it to my new blog for sheaproducts.info, a website owned and operated by neosoul.essentials, llc. The first thing I’d like to do is to welcome you to my business blog (which is finally hooked up to my selling site) and to give you a little insight into how I got started in the natural bath and body business.

I’ve always taken a holistic approach to life, even before it was cool to be “green”. I hated taking excess medications and never kept a whole bunch of remedies, i.e. antacid tablets, Alka-Seltzer, cough medicine and the like. I felt that these things only treated the symptoms, not the underlying causes of the problem. It also helped that my mother was a nurse with a firm belief in “riding it out” and was aware of the many side effects of medications that doctors sometimes prescribed so freely.

When I had my own children, I realized how doctors, either because they received perks from the drug companies, or they were trying to alleviate a parent’s worry, would prescribe medications for babies and toddlers that (to me) seemed too strong. However, I was a smart enough parent to use the doctor’s knowledge, my knowledge and my intuition to create a solution that worked for me and my children.

My daughter developed bleeding eczema when she was about 10 months old. Although she was my second child and had been through the alarms and “scares’ as a new parent with my first born, this was something totally new for me. Thinking it was because she was introduced to cow’s milk too soon, I immediately took her off the cow’s milk and began giving her soy milk. That didn’t work because she reacted badly to the soy milk. Next was rice milk with coconut oil and finally, goat’s milk. Her eczema stopped bleeding, but was still raw and irritated.

As she grew older and the eczema began appearing in cycles, I approached her doctor on how to control the itching. I was told to use Vaseline and/or hydrocortisone cream. I didn’t have such a problem with Vaseline, besides the fact that it didn’t really help heal, but was dead set against the hydrocortisone cream because I’d read it thins the skin. So, I began intensive research about other oils and/or butters that would protect and heal irritated skin. That’s when I discovered shea butter! And, you know, it was all good from there. I created balms that were a mixture of shea butter, cocoa butter, and different oils that really helped my daughter’s skin heal so well that at three, she only has the slight scarring of eczema on her legs.

So, that’s how I got started! I’ve enjoyed my natural product journey and look forward to creating more products for your use.

Currently I am offering whipped shea butter, which contains unrefined shea butter and organic soybean oil, as well as my signature megamix whip, which is a great combination of shea butter, hemp seed oil, organic virgin coconut oil and organic soybean oil Both products are simply wonderful for the skin.