DIY Cloth Diaper Safe Butt Balm

One of the more difficult parts about cloth diapering is when baby has a rash and you need to break into the diaper rash cream. Regular rash cream is bad for cloth diapers - it gets into the fibers and makes them repeal water instead of absorb it (like it would do on baby's skin). Its really tough to get out, but not impossible. I'll include some ways to get diaper rash cream out of your CDs at the bottom of this post.

There are, however, brands of balm and cream that are cloth diaper safe. They include ingredients such as beeswax, coconut oil, and essential oils instead of zinc oxide. Now, there is nothing wrong with a zinc based rash cream (and sometimes you need to break into the big guns like Butt Paste or Triple Paste for a particularly stubborn rash), but you'll need a barrier to protect your diapers or temporarily use disposables.

I adapted this recipe from my friend Loni who made us a stick of it a few months ago. It works so well I'm making a stick of it to send to daycare. We don't just use it for rashes - we use it as preventative as well. The ingredients are good for your skin, rash or not, so it even goes on dry skin spots. With winter on full blast, its good to have in our diapering arsenal.

My kitchen helper

Ginny's Cloth Diaper Butt Balm

Ingredients:

1 ounce Beeswax (about 3 tablespoons when chopped)
1 tbsp Shea Butter Cream
2 tbsp Coconut Oil
1/4 tsp Vitamin E Oil
10 drops Lavender Oil
4 drops Tea Tree Oil

All of the ingredients I purchased were organic and easily found on Amazon.com. Overall, it cost about $35, but you can make quite a bit of balm, plus use all of the ingredients for other health and beauty related purposes.

Directions:

A lot of the recipes I've seen ask for a double boiler, but I don't have one and a mason jar just seemed easier to pour from. Stick a mason jar in the middle of a pot of water and bring to a boil.

As its boiling, chop your beeswax if it doesn't already come in pellets or shreds. Mine came in 1 ounce bars, so I needed to chop chop chop. Put the beeswax in the mason jar and let it melt.

Once its melted, add the shea butter, coconut oil, and vitamin E oil. Let it all melt. I used a wooden shish kabob skewer to stir it a little and break up clumps of the shea butter. That way, I could just throw the stick away when I was done. This stuff can be tough to get off utensils and what not.

Also, shea butter kinda feels like play doh and scoops like ice cream.

Once everything has melted, take it off the heat and add in the lavender and tea tree oils. You can use any scented oil you'd like, I happened to have lavender. The tea tree oil is a good antimicrobial/antibacterial oil to have on hand. Don't use too much though - too much can irritate the skin. Plus, it kind of stinks.

This batch filled the 2 ounce twist up tubes I had perfectly. I ordered these tubes off Amazon in a set of 6 for about $15. They're currently not available for some reason, but you can use any twist up container - even an empty deodorant container that you've used up and cleaned out.

I popped it in the fridge for about 20 minutes to set and it was good to go!

I made a few tubes and one of them had a tad bit extra after filling the larger tube. I used an empty lip balm tube to make a travel sized butt balm. Just do yourself a favor....and label it clearly.

These ingredients have natural healing properties. They are antibiotic, anti-fungal, antiviral, antioxidant, antibacterial, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory...all that good stuff!

This recipe can (and should) be tweaked to reach the consistency you want. If you're putting it in a jar, you may want it to be a bit more like a cream, but in a stick it should be a little more firm. Adding or subtracting different ingredients will change the consistency. Beeswax will firm things up because it has a higher melting point, but coconut oil and shea butter melt at room temperature and will create more of a creamy texture.


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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links through Amazon.com. I may receive funds through purchases via these links, but it doesn't change the purchase for the customer.