This Week We Focus on Creating the Best Diaper Ointment - Day 1

As soon as you have a baby, you will immediately find yourself worrying about the condition of his or her bottom. Diapers are marvelous things, but they do end up causing little bums to become irritated. We’re going to work on fixing that in this week-long series outlining the creation of a diaper ointment.

Ingredients: High Melt Point Shea Butter, Aloe Butter, Apricot Kernel Oil, Lanolin, Tamanu Oil, Neem Oil, and Calendula Oil Extract.

The oils, butters, and additives in the balm recipe are all chosen to keep the skin on your baby’s bottom happy and healthy.

CREATING THE RECIPE:

Lanolin is moisturizing and provides good skin protection. It also helps create a barrier on the surface of the skin.

Aloe Butter is made from coconut oil infused with aloe, and it feels lovely. Aloe’s reputation as a go-to solution for many skin problems makes it natural to use in this application.

Shea Butter is a favorite to use in baby skincare, as it is incredibly moisturizing and good for all skin types. We’ll use High Melt Point Shea Butter to avoid any issues with fractionation.

Apricot Kernel Oil is a light oil that absorbs readily into the skin and helps with the skin’s natural barrier and combats dry and itchy skin. It will help keep the completed product soft enough to spread easily over tender skin that may be irritated.

Apricot Kernel Oil is a light oil that does not feel greasy.

Tamanu Oil is a deep green color and quite thick.

Neem Oil is nearly solid at room temperature in Alaska due to our cooler temperatures. It has a powerful aroma, too.

Calendula Extract is a golden liquid with excellent skin benefits.

Calendula is well known for anti-inflammatory properties, so Calendula Oil Extract is the perfect additive for this formula.

Neem Oil has a reputation for being quite smelly, and it is. But its historical use for rashes and irritated skin makes it an excellent addition. We’ll keep the percentage low to try to keep the distinctive odor to a minimum.

Tamanu is another oil that is great for inflamed skin. However, it is very green and may cause the finished product to be visually unappealing. Even so, we’ll add it to the balm and see how it performs. Fortunately, it has a pleasant smell!

High Melt Point Shea Butter and Aloe Butter form the base of this formula.

The liquid oils are all weighed, with lanolin being added last.

MAKE IT:

RECIPE:

PERCENTAGES
32% High Melt Point Shea Butter
30% Aloe Butter
11% Apricot Kernel Oil
10% Tamanu Oil
5% Lanolin
2% Neem Oil
10% Calendula Extract

INSTRUCTIONS:

Carefully weigh all ingredients except for Calendula Extract in a microwave-safe container. Melt in short bursts (20 to 30 seconds) and stir in between until oils and butters are melted together.

You can also use a double boiler to melt the oils just until all have become liquid. Stir the mixture often as it warms, as the stirring will help the solids melt more quickly.

Once the mixture has cooled below 120 degrees, add the Calendula Extract and stir.

Adding the liquid oils to the solids before melting.

After heating the oils for 1 minute 30 seconds in the microwave, a quick stir helped melt the last of the hard oils.

The finished product is being poured into small jars to harden.

This is how this formula looks after hardening overnight.

We have lots of options to package this ointment: jars, round tins, and slider tins.

Immediately pour into jars or tins, but do not cap; the oils need time to cool and set up. If you put a lid on the container while the oils are still warm, you may risk getting condensation inside the container if your climate is humid. You can speed the cooling process by placing the containers in a cool spot in your home or work area. After the balm is completely cooled, place the lids on the containers.

We have a lot of neat options for containers. For the samples I made, I used our 1-ounce Jar and Cap Set. They are a nice size and easy to work with. I love the slider tins, but they are very small, holding 0.15 ounce of product. They are a good choice for sample or trial sizes. The 2-ounce screw top tin is a good choice for packaging this ointment.

NOTES:

This is a good starting point, but there are some issues that need to be corrected.

The odor from the Neem Oil is very off-putting, and between it and the Tamanu Oil, this balm’s color is not very pleasant, either. It looks way too much like what the baby deposits in the diaper. Blech.

Back to the drawing board! We’ll make some adjustments to fix these issues as well as change the consistency of the balm to be heavier. Check back tomorrow for the second attempt.