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What do eczema and diaper rash have in common?

1) the skin barrier is broken
2) almost any product you apply will sting and/or hurt
3) they can be self-inflicted ailments.

In the case of diaper rash, it can be inflicted by a mother on a baby if the mother does not know how to read an ingredient list and she is obsessed with “natural products”.

A mother obsessed with “natural” “honest” “green” etc will choose a dangerous product for her baby. How, you will say, if the FDA does now allow dangerous ingredients in skin care products?

The FDA does not legislate on allergy, it can’t, because allergies depend very strongly on the individual. This, however, depends on the chemical, and the European Union bans certain natural substances because they are so likely to be allergenic. What I mean is that people with a tendency to develop allergies, are extremely likely to develop allergies to those substances banned in the EU because of its allergenicity. This is what happened to one of my granddaughters when she had an unfortunate encounter with a plant extract banned in the EU. Where did she have the encounter? In a dangerous garden? No, she had it at home when her mother applied to her bottom a crazy bad product marketed for babies, a product containing one of the most allergenic plant extract you can encounter in nature (and in Facebook and the supermarket).

Balsam of Peru reminds me of Paddington but (from Wikipedia)

Balsam of Peru contains 25 or so different substances, including cinnamein, cinnamic acid, cinnamyl cinnamate, benzyl benzoate, benzoic acid, and vanillin. It also contains cinnamic acid alcohol and aldehyde, farnesol, and nerolidol.  A minority of it, approximately 30–40%, contains resins or esters of unknown composition.

Why would you reject a pure synthetic substance in favor of a natural substance containing unknown chemicals? You would do that if you believed, in your heart of hearts, that Mother Nature looks after you and would never create a natural subtance that can hurt you. In that case, think of cicuta, poson ivy, viruses, lectins, snake venom, botulinic toxin, strychnine, etc. You get my point, right?

I would like to say that I trusted my mother completely, but I would not trust Mother Nature enough to spend a night in nature without a mosquito net plus a lot more stuff.

So, be a good mother/father and read the ingredient list. You can then check Wikipedia to make sure that the butt paste you are applying to your baby’s bottom will not produce a long lasting irritation that will be painful and disruptive and that the doctor will confuse with a fungal infection.