toiletries & cleaning: (was Vegan perfection and compromise)

September 18, 2006

Instead of shampoo, I've been using baking soda and vinegar for about a

year and a half now -- and my hair is nicer than it's ever been before.

I got the idea and instructions here:

http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/1-nb/53-no-shampoo.htm

For my 3-month-old, we've never used any soap on him, and for

moisturizer we use organic extra-virgin cold-pressed olive oil. It works

wonderfully, and he smells yummy (only briefly -- the smell disappears

after an hour or so). I didn't know about all this with my first two

kids, and we used " gentle " commercial soaps and moisturizers on them --

this baby has much nicer skin than either of them, and isn't having the

problems the others had with eczema or cradle cap.

Heather

earthmother wrote:

>

> well, with the eczema thing, i make sure to make my husband a smoothie

> everyday with a few teaspoons of a cold-pressed evening primrose/flax oil

> mix. that keeps his skin nice and hydrated from within. when he has

> flare-ups (mainly in times of stress or when he's gone swimming or use a

> harsh soap), i either buy borage leaves and crush them, or just buy a

> borage

> extract, and mix it with palm oil, and that soothes his skin and stops the

> itch-scratch cycle. i'm trying to grow borage myself but i guess it's too

> hot here. borgae is really wonderful for eczema. when it gets really bad,

> we use a homeopathic. i don't know if you're into that, but here's a link

> to different kinds of homeopathics to use for eczema:

>

> http://www.publix.com/wellness/notes/Display.do?id=Homeo & childId=Eczema_hm

> <http://www.publix.com/wellness/notes/Display.do?id=Homeo & childId=Eczema_hm>

>

> sulphur is most useful for him. we also are very careful about what kinds

> of soap we use. i usually try to make my own soap but sometimes i just

> don't have the time, so we buy some oil-based stuff from the farmers'

> market. just olive, coconut or palm oil with non-drying essential oils.

> for hair i use a base of castile soap with olive oil (we both tend to have

> dry hair). i add whatever kinds of herbs or essential oils i like, usually

> eucalyptus, lavendar, citrus, rose, etc., whatever sounds nice to me

> at the

> time! and that's it, very simple. it takes some getting used to since most

> women's hair tends to be " addicted " to conditioner. but i haven't used

> conditioner for about a year now and i never have tangles anymore and my

> hair is just as soft.

>

> for our laundry detergent -- for our clothes i use vinegar and baking

> soda,

> that's it. sometimes i'll throw in some essential oil like citrus or

> lavendar or rose for a nice scent. i don't measure or anything, just dump

> some in...i'd guess about 1/2 a cup of each. for diapers, i do one rinse

> with vinegar, then a second rinse with baking soda and tea tree oil (to

> retard bacterial growth). we started doing it this way when my son started

> getting really bad rashes from detergent build-up. this way his

> diapers are

> always nice and clean and free of build-up and stinky smells. he had a

> yeast infection a few months ago and it was just a mess. so since then

> i've

> used my homemade wipes with 1 c. water + 1 tbsp. vinegar and that

> keeps his

> diaper area from being susceptible to yeast from his poop. (we had

> problems

> with this because we don't have a car, so i'd take him on the bus or train

> and wouldn't be able to change him fast enough. so sometimes he'd have to

> sit in yucky diapers and that's how he started getting infections.)

>

> hope that helps!

>

September 19, 2006

Very weird. You'd think these big companies would have the better product. I'll

try the olive oil for moisturizer for my Jeffy. Do you use something in place of

soap for the babies? We've finally found a brand of soap that works for him, but

we've recently stopped buying milk products, and as one would expect, this stuff

we're using has milk in it.

Earthmother- After reading your post about using baking soda and vinegar instead

of laundry detergent I went and ripped everything off the bed and re-washed it

with those. The new detergent we bought yesterday has turned my skin into Itch

Fest 2006. Hopefully it'll fix me!! Thanks for all the other suggestions too.

I'm going to try these things and see if we can't get off these icky chemicals

that are in EVERYTHING!

Kadee Sedtal

Hossfeld Family <jhr wrote:

Instead of shampoo, I've been using baking soda and vinegar for about a

year and a half now -- and my hair is nicer than it's ever been before.

I got the idea and instructions here:

http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/1-nb/53-no-shampoo.htm

For my 3-month-old, we've never used any soap on him, and for

moisturizer we use organic extra-virgin cold-pressed olive oil. It works

wonderfully, and he smells yummy (only briefly -- the smell disappears

after an hour or so). I didn't know about all this with my first two

kids, and we used " gentle " commercial soaps and moisturizers on them --

this baby has much nicer skin than either of them, and isn't having the

problems the others had with eczema or cradle cap.

Heather

earthmother wrote:

>

> well, with the eczema thing, i make sure to make my husband a smoothie

> everyday with a few teaspoons of a cold-pressed evening primrose/flax oil

> mix. that keeps his skin nice and hydrated from within. when he has

> flare-ups (mainly in times of stress or when he's gone swimming or use a

> harsh soap), i either buy borage leaves and crush them, or just buy a

> borage

> extract, and mix it with palm oil, and that soothes his skin and stops the

> itch-scratch cycle. i'm trying to grow borage myself but i guess it's too

> hot here. borgae is really wonderful for eczema. when it gets really bad,

> we use a homeopathic. i don't know if you're into that, but here's a link

> to different kinds of homeopathics to use for eczema:

>

> http://www.publix.com/wellness/notes/Display.do?id=Homeo & childId=Eczema_hm

> <http://www.publix.com/wellness/notes/Display.do?id=Homeo & childId=Eczema_hm>

>

> sulphur is most useful for him. we also are very careful about what kinds

> of soap we use. i usually try to make my own soap but sometimes i just

> don't have the time, so we buy some oil-based stuff from the farmers'

> market. just olive, coconut or palm oil with non-drying essential oils.

> for hair i use a base of castile soap with olive oil (we both tend to have

> dry hair). i add whatever kinds of herbs or essential oils i like, usually

> eucalyptus, lavendar, citrus, rose, etc., whatever sounds nice to me

> at the

> time! and that's it, very simple. it takes some getting used to since most

> women's hair tends to be " addicted " to conditioner. but i haven't used

> conditioner for about a year now and i never have tangles anymore and my

> hair is just as soft.

>

> for our laundry detergent -- for our clothes i use vinegar and baking

> soda,

> that's it. sometimes i'll throw in some essential oil like citrus or

> lavendar or rose for a nice scent. i don't measure or anything, just dump

> some in...i'd guess about 1/2 a cup of each. for diapers, i do one rinse

> with vinegar, then a second rinse with baking soda and tea tree oil (to

> retard bacterial growth). we started doing it this way when my son started

> getting really bad rashes from detergent build-up. this way his

> diapers are

> always nice and clean and free of build-up and stinky smells. he had a

> yeast infection a few months ago and it was just a mess. so since then

> i've

> used my homemade wipes with 1 c. water + 1 tbsp. vinegar and that

> keeps his

> diaper area from being susceptible to yeast from his poop. (we had

> problems

> with this because we don't have a car, so i'd take him on the bus or train

> and wouldn't be able to change him fast enough. so sometimes he'd have to

> sit in yucky diapers and that's how he started getting infections.)

>

> hope that helps!

>

September 19, 2006

my son had very, very dry skin when he was a newborn (because those *******

gave him a bath against my explicit wishes and washed off all the vernix),

and bad cradle cap for about 6 months that persisted despite my best

efforts. all i really used on his skin was olive oil and sweet almond oil

and that's basically it. i had a bunch of burt's baby bees stuff that i

bought pre-vegan but i didn't use it very often because i worried it would

exacerbate his problems. the oils worked wonderfully on his skin but there

wasn't anything really that helped the cradle cap...it just had to go away

on its own. hopefully we won't have those problems with this baby!

September 19, 2006

We used olive oil for cradle cap and it worked pretty well.

earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: my son had very, very dry skin

when he was a newborn (because those *******