Fresholi | Melting Pot Café

My name is Paul, I live in North West England, and I'm interested in treating eczema which can get annoying. I've tried tea tree and lavender and am ready to experiment further to find a blend which will control itching and scaling.  :)

Hi Paul,

I am so glad you have joined us.  Welcome  :)

It might be worth looking through the resources on the main site (the oil profiles might be a good place to start).  There have been some discussions on the forum about eczema - type a search in the search box on the left (some boards you won't be able to see yet but more will open up the more you post  ;)).

Anyway, a warm welcome and I hope you enjoy it here  :)

Hello Paul,

Itchy skin is horrid, you have my sympathies.

Do you want to make a balm or a cream? (or even a soap??)

As Helen said there's a lot of information about o the forum and the main site - but if you need more just shout out and some will be along to help.

Welcome, lots of people have found that handmade soaps and creams help their condition hugely so you'll find tons of help here. 

I suffered for over 40 years with very bad eczema. Never had a full nights sleep due to the itching.
Since changing to my hand made products and not using any commercial products it has cleared up.

I had an awful 8 months (until I got to see a dermatologist) with no sleep.  I really do sympathise Paul.  I found that it was fine during the day, but once I got home and went in the shower I would itch for Britain. 

Perhaps I should just have gone round smelly!!!

Thanks Helen, Elaine, Honey, The Chicken Lady and Suzanne, what a fantastic welcome. I'm initially thinking of a massage blend, but a balm or cream would be a good idea. My colleague Abi has already demonstrated soap making to me, and  i've got some to try :) including some black soap!
I will have a more detailed look at everything in the next few days.
Thanks again :) 

Is that charcoal soap? I do remember somewhere that it's good for skin conditions. 

Experiment with lots of things, you'll find something that really suits you and wonder why you didn't do this sooner!!!

Hello Paul,

Always nice to welcome another male forum member. Hope you find it enjoyable and useful.

Scott

Welcome Paul!
Sorry you have itching eczema. My father had some flaky, itching thingy on his scalp and I made him a balm which has helped. Am about to make a new batch so I'll write down the ingredients (didn't do that last time..  ::doh::...) and post here.

Hello Paul, good to see you here.
I sympathise, itchy skin is no fun...I have it.
I hope you get some tips here that will help.

Welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy your time here  :)

Wow, just thought I'd pop back and found loads more replies.
Honey, yes it is charcoal soap - I've got lavender and a couple of others too - spoilt for choice! The only snag with the lavender is you go asleep in the bath!

Hi Scott, yes we do seem outnumbered, but I can live with that :) I like the meerkat pose by your dog! Must find a pic for myself sometime.

Eva, that would be very helpful, thankyou. The flaky stuff is on the scalp. It's not always there, just every now and again, but while it's there you notice :( .  

Corrie, I sympathise with you too - itchy feelings dominate so and make it difficult to concentrate. I want to see if I can help find something to suppress the itching which is neither toxic nor takes a layer of skin off in the process :D

Oh Hi Wolfhound, thanks I'm sure I will.

I'll check back here tomorrow, bye for now all. :)

Hi Paul

wellcome to the boards. My daughter used to have excema. It really is no fun.

One thing that did help her (although not natural by any means) was anti-histamines (hayfever medication). We never gave it to her every day, as I am not sure how bad it is for people, but once or twice a week, just to give her a good night's rest. Otherwise I can't help much, she grew out of her condition before I started making soap.

Eva, I suffer from flaky skin on my head sometimes, so would also be interested to see if your balm helps

Hi Mad Piano - you've just got to explain that one! Thanks for the thought - i've managed to do without antihistamines for a few years now, took them mainly for easy breathing in the pollen season rather than eczema though. Your daughter is lucky to have grown out of it, bit late for me to expect that i think . . . (not toooooooooo far off retirement :D )

HELOOOOOOO!! (:hug:)

Hi Paul

We already 'met'!   But I just wanted to say a welcome back to you! ;D
I had not read your post & never realised you are in search of something for the eczema, had I realised this on my thread I would
have let you know the basic formula asap!  I feel bad now bout this :-[   Developing it would be great, but it's not essential and later on you could always adapt any oils you already have - if I manage to get them water dispersable!
I'm not sure I can pm you (being so technically incompetent ::)) - but I'll give it a try later on.  :)

Hi  Michaela, Thankyou for the huggy hello :) that's nice. What are your special interests?

As you can see, I'm trying to sort my eczema out at the moment! :)


Hi satorijane, thanks for getting back to me on that. I've never sent a personal message on the forum either, so who knows?! I should have the computer on at work on friday, so could try then though should be able to it anytime and pick it up later if yahoo messenger is any guide . . .

I'll wait and see :)

Hi Paul

Just sent it your way!  Hope you got it! :)

Got it thanks and replied. P

 :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: Hi Paul

Paul,
Finally got the balm made and here are the ingredients.

Oils:
Calendula (home made), Thistle, Jojoba, Macadami, Wheat germ, Apricotkernel

The rest:
Aloe Ver gel, Beewax, Sheabutter, Allantoin, E-vitamin, A-vitamin, Patchouli, Bergamott, Rosmary, Juniper, Geranium, Tea tree, Sandelwood, Myrrh, Vademecum

That translates from Latin (IRRC) as "Go with me" - but what is it as an ingredient please Eva?

Elaine, it's now a days labelled as mouth water. But when I grew up every household had it and used it on insect bites, anything needed cooling and antisepticing and similar.
I have searched like crazy for the ingredients and IMO it should have it on the label. Don't know if they are excluded of that because the brand is so old (mid 1800).
Anyhow, the smell is a strong Eucalyptus, Clove and maybe some Peppermint so I wanted to use it. Probably more in it but it is hard to sniff out what. I suspect most of it are essential oils. Put on the skin it feels cold and lingers for several minutes.

Here is a link to the manufacturers site:
http://www.vademecum.se/

There is no direct link so click on 'Varumärke' (second top left in the red)
Click on 'Vademecum' in left column
Select 'Munvatten' and you are at the page

Hi paul

welcome

 :hi:  Hi Danielle, Hi Lynne, thankyou both for your welcome - I couldn't ask for a better group of friendly people  :D

Elaine - thanks for asking about vademecum - my lowest latin mark was 4% and the highest 8% ! Didn't do it for long . . . I wonder why  ??? Thank goodness google can translate Swedish.

Eva, thanks for sharing that with us, It looks complicated but I'll read up on the constituents. It sounds like a flavour of Scotland, with Macadam(i) and Thistle  ;D

Hi Paul, I've just seen this thread as I was away last week.
Hello and welcome! My inlaws are in the North West of England  :)

My children both get eczema. The thing about eczema is that it is nortoriously difficult to treat and everyone is so different. Also one day something might work on a person then the next day it doesn't !

In my experience tea tree oil is too harsh and sometimes lavender causes irritation. The least amount of ingredients are best to start with. I make a simple balm for eczema - well I make a few but the first one I always recommend has a few ingredients ie sunflower oil, rice bran oil, calendula oil, avocado (oil or butter), evening primrose oil and roman chamomile essential oil. Each oil has a specific purpose and helps support fragile sensitive and irritated skin. My son's skin often responds well to rice bran oil and evening primrose oil blended together, my daughter seems to need a variety of oils and butters.
Oils high in oleic acid act as penetration enhancers however they can also be irritating as they disturb the skin's barrier so always try to limit the use of oleic acid oils and include oils high in linoleic acid (which helps to repair the skin barrier) such as evening primrose oil or borage oil.

Sorry I hope I am not bamboozling you! The best advice I can give is to start simple, don't overload the skin with too many ingredients at once.

Hope that helps  ;D

Hi ShaSha, no, that's great. Thanks for your advice. My colleague Abi recommended I get some Rice Bran oil, so done that. I'd never even heard of that before - and I do sometimes do the shopping  :D

It's quite annoying that there are so many variables when treating eczema - a long time ago i was prescribed tar shampoo which worked fine for a while, but i got sensitised to it and then it made me worse rather than better . . . there seems to be more help on this forum than the NHS  ;D - that might be unfair though - it's a long time since i was bad enough to be in the skin clinic.

I'll look out for oleic acid and keep it to a minimum, thanks.

 :)
 

The easiest way to check the oleic/linoleic acid proportion of oils is to use Soapcalc; although you're not (yet) making soap the acids present in the selected oils are shown.

There was a link in the main Fresholi site but I can't find it now so you'll find Soapcalc here (http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp).

Thanks Elaine,
Just clicked the link and that looks an impressive resource. Too late to study it now, so I'll look properly tomorrow lunch time.
I can see myself getting round to soap making the way things are going . . . it makes a lot of sense to control all of your own skin care.

I wrote to the manufacturer of the Vademecum concerning ingredients and got this list now:
Alcohol, Aqua, Potassium Cocoate, Menthol, Sodium Benzoate, Mentha Piperita, Eugenia Caryophyllus, Benzoic Acid
There are only 5 drops of  Vademecum so you can surely skip that one.  :)

Sha's advice is good, starting out with few ingredients. My first balms had few ingredients but didn't work well enough so I have added stuff with time and this one have worked well on my dad. His problems are almost gone now. He is also using a home made shampoo with the main ingredients Birch leafs and Nettle.

OK Eva,
thanks for the update. Interesting shampoo . . . :)

I sometimes write faster than I think, it's of course water fusions from the leafs in teh shampoo.  :allfaces:

Right, thanks Eva.

Hi Paul  :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

Hi Danielle,
What's new?
P  :)