Ablutions!

Now if you knew me when I was little, you'd understand why I was in my element with this next project! You know all those ghastly bath sets you'd get for christmas and birthdays? Not just the one but about 6 of them? Well i'd spend hours over the bathroom sink mixing these things up and creating what was knows to my parents as my 'ablutions'. For weeks after these hideous coloured liquids with added glitter or petals would be lined up along the side of the bath no one daring to touch them (except my dad, he's not scared of anything!) for fear of what they might mutate into after.
Eventually my mum would have a clean up and all my hard work was washed down the sink. Literally. Of course this just freed up the bottles for more ablutions! (if I could dig them out the bathroom bin quick enough!)
I also enjoyed eating bubble bath... but thats a story for another day!
So hoping these skills wernt lost along with being able to climb a tree without breaking anything or eating a family pack of oreos in less than 2 minutes, I decided to have a go at making my own baby bath products. Now, call me a hippy but I don't believe all the chemicals they stick in baby stuff is really necessary. Not even just baby products, any bath products! I've been using soaps, deodorants and moisturisers free from all that rubbish for years so why would I suddenly start sticking it on my babies delicate skin?! Now I'm not going to try and scare you with what these chemicals are and do, these plenty of places on the internet you can find that if your interested but its definitely worth thinking about this. Nicotine patches. Think about how they work, one little patch and so much crap absorbed into your body from it. Enough to stop one of the strongest cravings there are. Makes you think doesn't it?
I don't let it rule my life, I still use shop bought washing powder (granted it is ecover so I am trying) when I know I could quite easily make my own or use soap nuts or something much more natural, I also have lots of cleaning chemicals under the sink (again amongst the 'more natural' variety) that I wouldn't dream of looking at the ingredients list for, when I know full well a bit of vinegar would do the job just as well.
Sorry, I'm rambling, I didn't write this post to start preaching but sometimes I just can't help myself!
Lets have some pictures!

So here are the baby products i've made so far, with a few more ideas let to come.
We have a body wash / shampoo, baby powder, nappy wipe spray and bottom cream.
I needed to put labels on so Mike (my better half) wouldn't get confused with whats what and end up whipping out the johnsons! At first I was just gonna do boring sticky labels but thought what the heck, i'll go all out and made some simple ones on print shop.

 These are the labels on the back which are the 'ingredients' labels. I made these so when I need to make some more I can remember what went in them and how much will fill each container.
I had a bit of a job finding a container I was happy with for each, especially for the baby powder but in the end I just used herb jars which do the job fine! I put the wash / shampoo in a foam dispenser (was rather expensive from amazon) as the soap isn't very 'soapy' but using the dispenser is brilliant! Plus makes it go further.



Here a close up of the label. I called it 'Little OM' as this is little mans initials as well as the sacred hindu symbol (also spelt OHM) The picture was from google so I have no rights to it, but I'm not planning on selling this stuff so its not going to hurt!






Recipes -
Baby wash and shampoo
1 1/2 cups castile soap (I used the baby mild one which has no scent)
4 1/2 cups water
10 drops lavender oil
5 drops tea tree oil

Any essential oil can be used (would be worth looking up those that are baby safe though)
but I picked these for their antibacterial benefits but any other or none at all would work too.
This is not tear free so careful of getting it in babies eyes.
This was enough to fill the big blue bottle but I can't remember how much that holds.

Baby wipe solution
1 tbsp olive oil (could also use almond oil)
1 tbsp castile soap
2 cups of water
2 drops lavender oil
4 drops tea tree oil

This is to spray onto cloth wipes to be used at nappy changes. It could also be poured over them in a container if you prefer to do it that way. Again any or no oils can be used but any antibacterial oil will help with nappy rash.
As far as I'm aware this is safe for cloth nappies.
This made roughly 350ml

Bottom balm
1/2 oz beeswax
3 1/2 oz coconut oil
2 drops tea tree oil
5 drops lavender oil

To make this melt the wax in a double boiler then melt the coconut oil in with it. Once melted together completely, allow to cool a little and add oils.

Apparently this is good stuff to put on cuts and scrapes as well!

Baby powder
200g Arrowroot powder
30 drops lavender oil

This can also be made with cornflour but apparently it feeds yeast infections so I just stuck with arrowroot.

As you can see, you don't need loads of different ingredients for everything, most use the same, especially if you use the same essential oils. That way its not all that expensive and quick and easy to put together. Plus it doesn't need to be only for baby, you can use some of them too!
There are loads of different recipes for natural baby products on pinterest (or anywhere on the internet I'm sure!) just pick the one you like best and give it a go!
I'm going to have a go at making my own vapo rub next!