Saturday, September 27, 2014

Eczema Fest

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I had written Amy Eczema Fest on the calendar for Thursday.  Eric saw that and asked me, "Does that say Eczema Fest?"  Why yes, yes it does.  It did not occur to him that Eczema would be the sort of reason to have a Fest.  There is not much reason to party when you have it, and even less so when your loved one has it.  Exactly.  So my friend Amy and I decided to have a little Oily Fest to whip up some things that we could try to use to Combat it.  Jacob and Sam both get Eczema in the winter, and Jake is already getting some rough spots on his belly and leg and it's only September.  Some folks are predicting another Nasty Winter, I'm glad I'll be armed with my oils, and my oily goodies.


I was a little overwhelmed at my first Eczema recipe.  I called for Whipping up the Coconut oil.  
How do you whip it?  In a blender?  By hand?  With a stand mixer? I didn't know.  So we improvised.  Our first recipe called for 1/3 cup of Shea Butter, 1/4 of coconut oil, and 2 oz almond oil.  We didn't have almond oil, but I did have Sunflower oil.  We were supposed to melt the solids, which I did in the microwave.  And then we incorporated the oils, and I put them on the Kitchenaid.  They were still pretty warm, so to cool them, we put the metal bowl in the fridge for 1/2 hour while we continued to work.  1/2 hour later, it was chilly, but not solid.  I turned on the mixer, but nothing happened.  So then I decided it needed to be cooler, so I put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.  That did the trick, it solidified Right Up!  So we added our oils, 25 drops each of Melrose, Lavender, and Frankincense.  It smells nice, not overwhelming of one scent or another. But it didn't want to whip, stuck to the beater.  So I chiseled it off, and whipped it up by hand.  My warm hand and chest on the bottom of the metallic bowl, warmed it to moving, but not so hot as to melt it entirely.  It stirred up very nicely, to a nice pourable liquid.  I split it between a couple of baby food jars, and called it done.   This stuff has the most luxurious buttery texture.  It's a lotion, or a cream, depending on your room temp.  But for me, it's "like butta".


Then Amy found another recipe for another cream that used straight Melaleuca (tea tree).  Mine used Melrose, which has Melaleuca, Rosemary, and Clove.  This one was much easier using just coconut oil, with simply 15 drops each of Melaleuca, Lavender, and Frankincense in 1/2 cup of coconut oil.  And I divided that between a couple of jars.  We started talking about what other oils we had, and what we might want to use.  I mentioned that I had wanted to make sunscreen a while back, but I was iffy as to whether or not I would need it now.  She mentioned getting sunburned while going apple picking. Yes, the season is still strong enough for us white girls, that I should.  We perused some recipes but in the end decided to make up our own.  I took 5 mL rollons and added 10 drops of Carrot Seed oil,  which has a natural spf of like 30-40 but smells Foul,  so we added 15 drops of Lavender, and 5 of Roman Chamomile to it, and filled the rest with Sunflower Oil.  I can't wait for a nice outdoor day to use it.  Bring on the extreme weather, I'm Ready! 

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