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!

This is my first attempt at a “commercial” for my biz.  Let me know what you think!

There are many skin care creams and lotions on the market. They claim to fix everything from extreme dry skin, eczema, psoriasis, wrinkles, cellulite - there is even a lotion that will give you a tan1 Because of research and consumer demand for an all in one lotion fix, manufacturers of these skin care creams strive to offer products that will give the purchaser the lotion of their dreams. Even though the competing commercials for the various creams and lotions may claim the contrary, there is really not much difference between one lotion and another besides the added ingredients.

Choosing a skin care cream is a matter of personal preferences, which accounts for the fact that there are so many lotions available on the market. It seems though, that many consumers prefer a non-greasy skin care cream as opposed to a heavy, oily cream that may leave the skin feeling coated and greasy. Furthermore, as the natural products trend continues, consumers are even beginning to read the labels to choose a skin care product that contains more natural ingredients.

A skin care cream choice is personal for the consumer. If a person is suffering from dry, cracked skin, it is much better to choose a product that is more natural. Natural ingredients have been in use for years – there should be no reason to choose an artificially created ingredient when a natural product will do just as well, or better.

Cocoa butter is a great emollient. It can help fade stretch marks and keeps the skin moisturized and flexible. It is also used in many natural skin care products but careful reading of some of these labels show that while cocoa butter is featured on the label, it is not high up on the ingredient list. The same goes for shea butter or other exotic oils/butters that are being used in skin care products. More often than not, mineral oil or petrolatum jelly are the main “emollients” in these natural products.

The best choice is to choose a cream or lotion that has the most natural ingredients possible with a minimum of extra chemicals or preservatives. Read your labels and be aware of what you are putting on your skin.

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.