The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances (47 page)

You don’t need special cleansers for a baby’s face, hands, hair, and behind. One gentle plant-based cleanser is more than enough. The best green cleansers are based on corn, palm, or coconut-derived surfactants that are prepared without the use of sulfates. These include decyl poly-glucose, coco-glycoside, olivoil glutinate, sodium cocoyl glutamate, and the less green cocamidopropyl betaine.Aloe vera, calendula, chamomile, and olive leaf extracts are soothing and healing. They are usually well tolerated by all babies, even newborns.

To bathe a newborn, you don’t really need anything other than warm water. Many doctors recommend bathing babies in plain water until they are six months old. We tried it, and our baby came out clean and good smelling. Newborns do not get sweaty or dirty except in the diaper area or if they spit up. You will need a foaming cleanser or a mild soap for cleaning the diaper area, though organic baby oil or organic virgin olive oil usually work just fine. If the water in your area is particularly hard, you can alternate water-only baths with foam or herbal baths. And use a mild cleanser to wash soiled cloth diapers.

Green Product Guide: Baby Washes

California Baby Calming Shampoo&Bodywash
is a no-nonsense, pure, and unscented all-purpose body wash and a shampoo that can also double as a facial cleanser for moms. Formulated with aloe vera, sugar-derived surfactants, and softening vitamin E and glycerin, this cleanser is very concentrated, so a little squirt goes a long way. Unlike many products by California Baby, this cleanser contains no paraben preservatives, so feel safe using it on your little green darling.

Weleda Baby Calendula Shampoo & BodyWash
is a gentle, moisturizing, all-purpose body wash and shampoo with emollient sesame and sweet almond oils and soothing calendula extract. Rinses off clean and doesn’t seem to irritate the baby’s eyes.

Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-1 Hemp Pure-Castile Soap (Baby
Mild)
is probably the most economical organic product available on the market. Just a dash of soap in warm water makes sudsy yet nonirritating bubbles, and you can also use it for baby laundry and to soak cloth diapers. Unscented, vegan, and organic—a truly ingenious product!

Green Product Guide: BabyWashes

You can quickly create a baby herbal bath blend or bath oil using just a few basic ingredients. Please note that any essential oil may pose the threat of irritation to your baby’s skin. Always perform a patch test if you are concerned about allergic reactions, especially if you have a family history of skin allergies. Dilute a drop of the essential oil in two tablespoons of virgin olive oil and apply a dot on the back of your baby’s arm (the oil won’t end up in her mouth). Leave the oil on overnight and check for any signs of redness in the morning. If no reaction occurs, the oil is likely to be well-tolerated. If you see any kind of redness, do not use the oil on your baby. You may use the scented batch of oil to massage your skin, though!Always use half the amount of essential oil that you would use in an adult product.

Although many baby products are formulated with lavender, I prefer to err on the side of caution with this aromatic herb. Suspected endocrine-disrupting abilities of lavender are currently being researched. However, lavender has been used in traditional medicine for centuries, and its ability to promote sleep is well-proven. Remember, it’s easy to go overboard with lavender. When used in excessive amounts, this fragrant flower can stimulate instead of promote sleep.

Skin-Clearing
Herbal Bath

4 cups of purified water

½ cup dried birch leaves

½ cup marigold flowers

½ cup dried sage leaves

Yield:
4 ounces

This is a traditional Russian recipe that we used to soothe
redness and mild rash in our baby when she was one week
old.

1. Boil all ingredients for fifteen minutes in 4 cups of purified water.

2. Strain and discard the herbs and flowers.

3. Use two cups for one bath and store the remaining two cups of the infusion in the refrigerator. It must be used within two days.

Soothing
Milk Bath

⁷
/
8
cup organic milk powder

5 drops chamomile essential oil

2 drops rose essential oil

Yield:
4 ounces

This blend was inspired by the popular (and quite expensive)
Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Buttermilk Bath Soak, but we
skipped an unknown “fragrance” and used well-diluted
chamomile oil instead.

1. Mix the essential oils with three tablespoons of milk powder and blend thoroughly so that the oil completely disappears into the powder. Mix this in with the remaining milk powder.

2. To use, dissolve two to three tablespoons in a warm bath. Let your baby relax in the milky water for ten minutes.

Baby Oatmeal
Bath Pouches

2 cups organic oatmeal

2 cups organic milk powder

½ cup organic lavender flowers

½ cup dried calendula or chamomile flowers

2 drops chamomile essential oil

Yield:
4 ounces

You can use muslin or pieces of organic cotton to make
reusable bath pouches. Cut 4-inch by 8-inch fabric rectangles
and sew three sides together. Use fabric ribbons to
tie the top. This recipe makes enough for twenty pouches.

Blend all the ingredients thoroughly and fill the prepared pouches. To use, immerse one pouch in the bathwater and rub it over the baby’s skin like a washcloth.

Making Your Own BabyWipes

I had an upsetting experience with baby wipes, which I discussed in Chapter 2, “Beauty and the Toxic Beast.” There are many truly green baby wipes available, including TenderCare Flushable Wipes, Seventh Generation Unscented BabyWipes, and Tushies BabyWipes, but I now prefer to make my own. It’s cheaper, and I know exactly what goes into them.

Green Baby
Wipe Solution

1 cup purified water

½ cup witch hazel

5 drops calendula extract

5 drops aloe vera extract

3 drops tea tree essential oil

5,000 IU vitamin E (as a preservative)

Yield:
4 ounces

Some DIY fans prefer to make baby wipes from a roll of paper
towels cut in half, but I found that any really worn-out cotton
T-shirt cut in squares works just fine. Start with twenty
squares (a day’s supply) and see how it goes. If you decide to
modify the formulation, you won’t waste too much fabric.
Added bonus: fabric wipes are super-eco-friendly, as you can
wash them with the rest of baby’s laundry or diapers.

1. Blend all the ingredients in a bottle. Shake well to dissolve vitamin E.

2. Place paper or fabric squares measuring approximately 4x4 inches in airtight, waterproof container and pour the solution over them. The fabric should be completely saturated, and some fluid should remain at the bottom. You can use an empty box from refillable baby wipes such as Tushies (when you have used up the wipes). Alternatively, any ceramic, glass, or polypropylene (plastic #5) food storage container would be suitable, too. You can find such containers in most discount stores and online.

3. Put the lid back on the box and turn it upside down so the solution is absorbed.

Green Baby Massage

A baby massage is a greatly underestimated nonmedication solution for many baby ailments. Massage therapy has been consistently shown to increase weight gain and decrease stress in preterm babies (Lahat et al. 2007), and various studies show that baby massage helps ease colic, soothe stomach disorders, and help with sleep (Under down et al. 2006).A study in Finland showed that 93 percent of participating parents reported that colic symptoms decreased during the three-week baby massage therapy (Huhtala et al. 2000). Baby massage is great for moms, too—by gently stroking and rubbing her little bundle of joy, a mom can alleviate symptoms of postnatal depression, British researchers reported in July 2008 (O Higgins et al. 2008).

You can easily perform a baby massage at home without attending courses or buying instructional videos. Choose a moment when your baby is content and relaxed, ideally after a bath but before the evening feeding. Put the baby on a clean receiving blanket and pour some massage oil on your hands. Rub them to warm the oil.

You can easily perform a baby massage at home without attending courses or buying instructional videos.

A baby massage flows from the head to the toes. Work with soft and gentle touches on the head, face, shoulders, arms, chest, stomach, and legs. Learn how much pressure you can use by closing your eyes and pressing on your eyelids. That’s it! Unlike adult massages that penetrate to the muscles, baby massages shouldn’t go any deeper than the skin. Use your fingertips to massage hands, feet, and face, and use the palm of your hand to massage the stomach area, legs, and arms. There is not one “right” way to massage your baby. Listen to your heart and be gentle. Don’t worry: baby will love whatever you do!

Among some things to avoid are the following:Make sure not to massage the genital areas; do not put any pressure on the baby’s knees or elbows; do not massage baby’s face with any massage oils that contain essential oils; do not press too hard on the baby’s neck or stomach. Do not force your baby to lie on her stomach; if she wants to turn over, use this opportunity to massage her back. Keep the massage oil away from your baby.

Here’s a soothing, nourishing baby oil blend that you can also use to moisturize dry areas and for general cleanups after poops or spit-ups.

Virtually any unscented organic plant oil can be used to moisturize a baby’s skin. Avocado, grape seed, and virgin olive oils are among the best. Just pour the necessary amount into a pretty glass bottle with a pump top and use as needed. I know that glass bottles may break when dropped, but this is still a better option than contaminating the baby product with chemicals leaching from plastic bottles.

Soothing Baby
Massage Oil

½ cup grape seed oil

½ cup wheat germ oil

Optional:

3 drops lavender essential oil

 
or

2 drops rose essential oil

 
or

3 drops calendula herbal oil (available at Mountain Rose Herbs)

Yield:
4 ounces

Combine all ingredients in a glass bottle with a flip-top cap. Shake well to allow oils to blend uniformly.

Natural Diaper Area Care

There’s a saying by Canadian social reformer and educator Martin McLuhan: “Diaper backward spells repaid.” One thing is pretty certain— a wise choice of diaper care products can be repaid with quieter nights and happier daytime play.

Almost all babies develop at least one bout of diaper rash before they are potty-trained. There’s no way around it. Frequent diaper changes, water rinsing instead of baby wipes when practical, a regular application of lightweight baby oils, and use of all-natural baby wipes can help control, if not completely prevent, diaper rash.