All Natural Diaper Cream with Calendula

Baby products are supposed to be safe. Right? Yea. I thought that too. When you start looking into all the things related to health, it’s a bit startling to realize how many products are on the market with questionable ingredients. Even baby products. One product I’m constantly using is diaper cream. My second baby has extremely sensitive skin. Way more so than his brother. I have to use cream on nearly a daily basis just to keep diaper rashes at bay. I choose for a handmade natural diaper cream.

Why do you need natural diaper cream?

The EWG rates various products based on its toxicity levels. I typed in a typically used diaper cream *cough* Desitin. It got a score of 5. They consider a 5 being moderately hazardous. I don’t like the idea of applying a moderately hazardous ointment to my babies irritated bottom. They got this rating because of ingredients like:

Fragrance: This is an ambiguous term that could mean a variety ingredients, but could potentially cause allergies, irritations, and organ toxicities. Because they are not listed on the product and just labeled “fragrance” we don’t really know
BHA & Methylparaben: Which are endocrine disruptors. Meaning they mess with the bodies hormones. (Probably not great for a developing human)

I love the honest company’s organic healing balm. However, when I realized we were going through multiple tubes a month, I had to find another solution. It’s just too expensive for us. So I decided it was time to make it myself.

Most of the ingredients I used I usually keep on hand for various projects. But if you don’t have them they are pretty easy to find online.

For this recipe I used:

1 Cup of calendula infused oil (click the link to find out how to make it yourself)

2 oz of Shea butter (about 1/4 cup)

0.5 oz of beeswax

1 TBS of Bentonite clay

Cost Breakdown (skip this if you don’t care about the cost.)

If you add up these ingredients individual in large amounts it seems pretty expensive, but really for us its not. Each of these ingredients I use in many of our household personal care products. Besides this recipe calls for a very small amount of each of these.

The cost breakdown for these (mostly organic) products for this particular recipe are as follows: (please note these are the prices at the time of writing this post)

Organic Calendula is $19.25 1/2lb of dried, organic flowers, for my calendula infuse oil i used roughly 1 oz of dried herb: equaling 2.25 (If you can harvest this yourself and dry it, its free)
Organic Coconut oil: 54 oz = $14.99 8oz = %2.22 (This is the oil I used for the infused calendula oil)
Organic shea butter: $14.00 for 16oz, I used 2oz = $1.75
Organic Beeswax: 6 -1 oz bars = $6.00 I used half of 1 bar equaling 0.5 oz = 0.50 (Note, my cream came out very soft, add more wax if your wanting firmer cream)
Bentonite Clay: $5.95 for 1 lb, I used 1TBS (there is roughly 60 TBS in 1 lb of fine powder) = $0.10

Total cost for 10 oz of diaper cream = $6.82

Not too bad for 10 oz of organic diaper cream. (Compare it to your current cream cost)

How to make your natural diaper cream

Melt your wax in a double boiler. I used a glass bowl over a pot of simmering (not boiling) water.
Add your shea butter when your wax is mostly melted and allow everything to melt well.
Add your infused Calendula oil and heat just long enough that everything is liquid. (Heating your calendula oil too much may destroy some of the beneficial properties.)
Remove from heat and stir in your bentonite clay with non-metal spoon. (Metal deactivates bentonite clay)
Allow to cool completely.

*If you are concerned with how soft or firm the finished product will be take a spoonful and stick it in the fridge for a few minuets. If its too soft you can melt more wax and add it in while everything is still warm. If its too firm you could add more coconut oil. Its all a matter of preference. I will say mine came out pretty soft. This makes it easier for me to apply to an irritated bottom gently.

Apply to the irritated baby skin during diaper changes. Enjoy your less expensive calendula infused natural diaper cream.

Find out more about the Calendula and its benefits.

Wondering what else you can do with Calendula?

Want to make this recipe? Do it easily by printing out a recipe card. You can get it by signing up below and receive a link to your free printable recipe card. (I like printing recipes that I like and putting them in my herbal studies binder.)