Apart from nourishing your baby with healthy nutrients, the amazing properties in breastfed milk have tons of amazing benefits that will help you in many ways.
The newborn food has antibacterial and antibodies properties that helps in baby acne, diaper rashes, eczema, stretch marks and other skin disorders.
The content in breastmilk is healthy to skin, however, the milk alone is thin hence the need for further preparation to make it a little thicker, beneficial and easy to apply.
If you’re breastfeeding, you can easily prepare a homemade (DIY) breastmilk lotion and bar with just a simple breast milk recipe.
Ingredients
- Beeswax 1 tbsp
- Grapeseed oil – 100 ml
- Few drops of vitamin E oil
- Fresh breastmilk (100 ml) at room temperature
- Couple drops of essential oil like lavender or olive oil (optional)
Method
- Set the microwave on low heat setting. Heat beeswax and oil together. It should take you around 3-minutes until the beeswax softens into liquid.
- Add Vitamin E oil
- Pour the breast milk slowly and whisk the mixture. The blend should emulsify and thicken
- Leave it to cool before using it. It should continue to solidify until it’s completely cool
How to Store Breastmilk Lotion
- Store the lotion in a dry, dark and cool place, preferably in a sealed container. Beeswax is highly responsive to light so it will fade when left in a bright place.
- Don’t store the lotion in the fridge, it will freeze and you may need to bring it back to room temperature before application.
- Storing the lotion in a freezer will ravage the texture.
- Don’t store the lotion close to a heat source as beeswax is a highly flammable compound.
- It gets spoilt quickly, so be sure you use the lotion for up to 3-months.
How to Make Breastmilk Lotion Bar
Lotion bar (soap) is an excellent alternative to lotion bottles. Here’s the recipe of how to go about when making DIY lotion bars.
Ingredients
- Breastmilk – 3 ounces
- Coconut oil – 3 ounces
- Beeswax – 2 tablespoons
- Few drops of Vitamin E oil
Directions
- Prepare a mixture of coconut oil, beeswax, and vitamin E oil. You may need to melt the Beeswax first for proper and even combination.
- Slowly pour the breast milk and whisk vigorously
- Add essential oils
- Pour the blend into a silicon mold
- Leave it to refrigerate for up to 3 hours
If you’re preparing the bars to use on your baby, I suggest you leave out essential oils.
But you may experiment with lavender for a calming effect during the night, citrus for energy or tea oil to eliminate the face blemishes.
Is Breastmilk Lotion Good for Sensitive Skin?
Since all the ingredients are natural, the lotion is safe and very gentle on sensitive skin.
It’s rarely your baby will have allergic reactions unless there are allergic ingredients in breastmilk resulting from the food you ate.
If there’s a reaction and you’re unsure of the culprits, it could be your baby is allergic to essential oils and it would be a good idea not to add it in your next breast milk recipe.
About the Ingredients
Beeswax
Because of its high melting point, beeswax is solid at room temperature. This helps keep the lotion bar hardened.
This is helpful considering the presence of coconut oil which has a relatively low melting point and is liquid at room temperature.
When applied on skin, beeswax forms a protective barrier that locks moisture into the skin. The barrier protects the skin against environmental irritants and toxins.
It also has Vitamin A that prevents the skin from drying up while promoting cell regeneration at the same time.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is a rich source of antioxidants that helps protect the skin from free radicals.
Free radicals may result to skin wrinkles, eczema, contact dermatitis and other skin disorders.
The anti-inflammatory properties neutralize the free radicals that may cause inflammation.
It has antimicrobial as well as antibacterial properties that protects the skin against harmful microorganisms and growth of bacteria.
According to one study, what makes coconut oil great is the lauric acid content that is effective at inhibiting the growth of fungi and certain types of bacteria.
Vitamin E Oil
Like coconut oil, Vitamin E oil has antioxidant benefits that blocks the skin from free radicals.
The ingredient is helpful in slowing down the aging process and make your skin to look youthful.
Due to its anti-inflammatory properties, it will moisturize and help your skin in many ways.
Previous studies have found Vitamin E effective at treating hyperpigmentation and delayed wrinkles.
Essential Oils
Essential oils add a favorite scent to the breastmilk lotion and bar. There are tons of them with unique aromatic essence according to the health benefits you want to focus on. The most favorite are:
Lavender – Best in stress relief
Rose – Boosts the mood and lessens anxiety
White chocolate peppermint – Boosts the energy
Chamomile – Improves the mood and promotes relaxation
Alternative Ways to Use Breastmilk
Diaper rash: Pat breastmilk droplets onto the baby’s bottom. Make sure it dries before you put the diaper or cream.
Eczema: Both the lotion and breastmilk itself are equally effective on red, swollen, itchy and cracked skin.
Stuffy nose: Breastmilk has anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties effective to relieve congestion and clear up the mucus. Pump some milk in a cup and use the syringe to dispense it.
Eye infection: Collect the milk with the eye dropper and a few drops will treat the infected eye.
Insect bites: There are two ways to do it. You can place a breastmilk ice cube on the affected area for a cooling relief. Or add a few breastmilk bags to some water and apply the cloudy solution.
Sore nipples: Let some droplets of breastmilk onto the nipple after breastfeeding and let it to air-dry. Breastmilk has antibiotic properties like other prescription creams and ointments.
There you have it!