Worth the Money, Not Worth the Money - Reviewing a Year of Baby Eczema Purchases
The first wave - realizing we can’t live on Vaseline alone
Let’s start with some definitions. There are some words that we quickly realized we needed to know (a much deeper dive for the nerds among us can be found here):
Emollients: Help to fill in cracks in your skin
Occlusives: Keep moisture in
Then there’s the form-factor:
Ointments are super thick, low water content, and great at keeping moisture in (great occlusives). They tend to sting less when your skin is very raw.
Creams are in between ointments and lotions - they’re thinner than ointments and absorb more easily, but don’t keep moisture in quite as well.
Lotions are usually what you’ll find at a drugstore moisturizer aisle. They sting more but are easy to apply and absorb.
Finally, oils are easy to apply and absorb, but don’t keep moisture in as effectively.
Based on our early Googling and advice from the pediatrician, ointments seemed like the way to go - specifically, lots and lots of Vaseline. It’s kind of gross but pretty cheap and readily available, so we were on board for that plan.
So began our greasy baby phase. After nightly baths, first thing in the morning, every diaper change - we slathered T in gobs of Vaseline. He was visibly oily all day long (at one point our beloved daycare teacher suggested kindly that he needed more frequent bathing), his beautiful hair slicked to his scalp as a result of interminable itching and rubbing at his ointment-covered face. T hated the gummy greasy feeling that Vaseline left behind, and because of this, the Vaseline-focused method actually seemed to increase his irritability and discomfort. Not what we were going for.
Next, as the frigid January walks to school and dry heat indoors cracked the skin on T’s face and hands, we briefly shifted to an attempt at other drugstore-available ointments and creams; at best, they were ineffective, but most of the time, T seemed more irritated rather than less.
Enter an era of late-night shopping
So began the start of our journey into the world of $30-a-bottle specialty eczema skincare products. We were tempted to look for samples, because we never could guess what would work for T’s skin, but these products were coming from far away (often the UK, interestingly - is eczema more prevalent there?) and the shipping costs seemed prohibitive for testing lots of small batches. We bit the bullet on our first test brand, and over the course of a few months, tried:
First the readily-available:
Aquaphor
Eucerin
Cetaphil
CeraVe
Then:
Honest Company eczema
Tubby todd
Mustela baby
Mustela eczema
California baby
At the recommendation of our beloved daycare teacher, we took a left turn in the spring and hunted down an old brand - Keri lotion - infusing it at home with rosemary water before sending it to school for a stint.
Finally, we landed back in the land of CVS, with our current fave - Aveeno eczema therapy.
In the coming days, I’ll be sharing how we decided when to switch, what was working, and what didn’t work so well. Some general learnings so far have included:
Washing with water, leaving skin a bit wet, and putting on emollients and moisturizers IMMEDIATELY is the #1 thing that has worked for T - this includes nightly baths and every time he eats anything or gets something interesting on his skin. It’s resulted in lotions and ointments stuck in every corner, everywhere.
Like wine, more expensive doesn’t always mean better.
Weirdly, sometimes it changes, and you can’t really explain why, but your routine isn’t working anymore and you need to try something else.
It’s so hard to separate potential exposures or other things in your life that might be causing worsening flare-ups from the effectiveness of your moisturizer/emollient strategy!
Next up - how we tested, and all the many other things we have bought (including some awesome pajamas and some less-awesome scratch sleeves) in the name of relief, happy skin, and a less sleepy baby.
p.s. more on what Folia is doing for eczema here.