First off, I’m not a dermatologist. But I have visited plenty of them in my youth and now again, for my daughter’s eczema. Not much has changed. The dermatologist usually sends me home with a ton of samples of topical ointments and creams or sells me a product “to try”. I got the same advice back then that I do now: Try them out and see what works (and if none of the topical stuff works, then they start prescribing the heavy drugs which I won’t go into here). So there you go. It’s all trial and error. Even with the skin doctors. What may work for one person may not for another even though you have the same skin problem.
These specialty lotions and creams can be pretty expensive, especially if they have to be prescribed by a physician. If you’re willing to try all these products, why not try making them yourself? Look at the ingredients list and see if you can replicate something similar. I bet you can come pretty close. You might even be surprised at how common some of these ingredients are. Leave out all the preservatives since you don’t have to worry about shelf life for your own personal home use.
This is exactly what one reader did. In the simple 3-ingredient moisturizer post, he commented on his experiment which I thought was worthy of posting here. His formulation is partly derived from his positive results using uremol, a Canadian product that contains urea, and udder balm. Between the two products, he derived his ingredients list:
- water: 1/2 c + 2T
- olive oil: 2T
- urea: 4.75t
- stearic acid: 2t
- glycerin:2t
- lanolin
:1.5t
- aloe vera gel: 1t
- vitamin e: 3/4 t
I haven’t tried this myself, but many of these ingredients are typically found in lotions for dry, cracked, eczema skin conditions. The only ingredient I’m not familiar with is urea. In addition to uremol, he shares that you can find a 10% urea lotion called Nutraplus
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