how many times have you walked through the baby section of a drugstore cooing over all those cute,

adorable, teddy-bear adorned bottles and tubes? There’s everything your baby (or any baby in your
life) will possibly need: moisturizers, bath gels, body washes, powders, diaper creams, and even
sunscreens. They smell like little pink roses and feel much softer and gentler than adult versions. We
automatically assume that the creators of these cute-as-pie concoctions have gone to great lengths to
formulate completely safe, gentle, and soothing products for all those little behinds and toes. Well,
don’t assume anything.

We all know that a baby’s skin is much thinner and more delicate than an adult’s. As a result, it can
absorb anything applied to it at a much faster rate. Babies scratch themselves more easily, they are
more prone to irritations and rashes, and even a loose cloth tag left inside a onesie can leave scary
red wounds that look worse than they are and heal by the next morning. Babies are soft, helpless,
vulnerable human beings, and their skin cannot yet protect them from the dangers of the outside world.

Despite this obvious, commonsense information, virtually all conventional baby products you find
on grocery and drugstore shelves are filled to the brim with ingredients that are anything but safe for a
baby’s health. Fragrances, penetration enhancers, sulfate detergents, preservatives, and synthetic dyes
are not safe for babies. Neither are they for any adult. Yet these ingredients are contained in baby
products at high concentrations. I know this may sound harsh, but the truth about baby products is that
they are often worse for human health than adult ones. Ninety-nine percent of products marketed for
delicate, fragile skin are nothing but bottled irritations, chapping, diaper rash, and watery eyes. Here
is a quick checklist of things you should by all means avoid in your baby products:

I know this may sound harsh, but the truth about baby products is that they are often worse for
human health than adult products.
Propylene glycol. This penetration enhancer and emulsifier can cause intense burning in the
vaginal and perianal area. In 1998, a premature infant went into a coma after absorbing too much
propylene glycol from topical applications when this chemical was used as a solvent in antiseptic
dressings (Peleg et al. 1998). I certainly hope that your average drugstore baby wipe doesn’t contain
enough propylene glycol to send your baby into a coma, but the irritating, allergenic qualities of
propylene glycol are well-known and well-documented.

Mineral oil. Also known as liquid petrolatum, mineral oil is praised for its lubricating action and
low price. Mineral oil is a by-product of petroleum distillation, and its production is quite toxic,
involving sulfuric acid, absorbents, solvents, and alkalis. It only takes a drop of synthetic fragrance to
transform mineral oil into baby oil. In baby products, mineral oil is also used in lotions, diaper rash
creams, and baby wipes. While it’s considered to be nongenotoxic and generally nonirritating,
mineral oil forms an airtight film on the skin’s surface, preventing it from normal functioning. And
there’s another bothering fact about mineral oil. Researchers from the Innsbruck Medical University
say that mineral paraffins appear to be the largest contaminant of our bodies, “widely amounting to 1g
per person and reaching 10 g in extreme cases” (Concin et al. 2008). They found mineral oil in breast
milk and fat tissue in new moms, and since mineral oil is frequently used to protect nipples between
breast feedings, babies ingest this petrochemical from the very first days of their lives.

Triethanolamine (TEA) is a popular emollient and acidity adjuster. We have already learned that
this irritating chemical may be contaminated with the potent carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane. Why take
chances? There are lots of green baby lotions and creams that do not contain triethanolamine or any
member of the TEA/DEA/MEA family.