She Ate the Lotion

Things never stop around here. In fact, today Ellie ate the Eucerin. I think it was out of affection, because her skin itches and she loves it when I rub it on her legs. She points and says "this! this!" Tonight she has bloody diapers. Soooooo for the sake of everything FPIES, I take a deep look at the ingredients of Eucerin. Remember, ignorance is bliss. Please accept my warning and read no further if you prefer not to know.

Here is what I found:

Ingredient 1 = Water. WHEW. This one is easy. I can live with this.

Ingredient 2 = Petrolatum. Hmm. Ok...so....that is another word for petroleum jelly, or Vaseline. This is not really something that should be ingested, and has been known to cause lots of bad things, beginning of course, with skin cancer. (side note: It is no longer recommended that you rub Vaseline under a dry nose in the winter because they now know it causes a specific type of petroleum induced pneumonia.)

Ingredient 3 = mineral oil. What in the world is mineral oil anyways? Mineral oil is also marketed as baby oil. Sounds good. And it is made from minerals right? That has to be good for FPIES! No food in minerals...only rocks! My search reveals that mineral oil is...drum roll please...liquid petroleum.

OK now we are 1 for 3. Water, petroleum, and petroleum. I think I could make this at home.

Ingredient 4 = Ceresin. AKA a white wax extracted from ozokerite. Great! Wax! What is ozokerite? Ozokerite is a naturally occurring mineral oil, derived from petroleum.

uhhhh...I am sensing a theme.

Ingredient 5 = Lanolin Alcohol. WHEW! At last! Isn't lanolin from wool? It is! And the 'alcohol' version is just that, a version. SHEEP LANOLIN. Right on!

Ingredient 6 = Methylchloroisothiazolinone. hmm. That is a long word, and I can already guess that she probably should not have ingested it. But hey, FPIES is all about artificial and fake, so this may be a good one! What is it? My first link brought me this: The isothiazolinones are, perhaps the most potent allergens on the consumer market. They are very effective preservatives. It has antibacterial properties, anti fungal properties and is an excellent preservative. It appears to be in many baby wipes. And it is one of the most toxic and allergenic items on the US market. In smaller, diluted forms, it is allergy and reaction free (insert rolling eyes here). So, methylchloroisothiazolinone is a isothiazolinone, which is a group of antimicrobials, which are used as preservatives, biocides and disinfectants. That's the sum of what I found, and I am sticking to it. If you want to become a fan you can visit it's facebook page: here.

Ingredient 7 = Methylisothiazolinone. This one is shorter! But looks vaguely similar. Otherwise known as MIT, this biocide is used to keep fungus or bacteria from growing in cosmetics. Guess it gets the ones that the previous methyl-sister doesn't tackle.

SO, in summary, if you have survived this far in my most intriguing blog post, Eucerin is a combination of:
water, petroleum, petroleum, petroleum, lanolin, chemical preservative to kill bacteria, and chemical preservative to kill bacteria.

Nice. I started using this instead of my straight Lanolin because it was easier to spread and rub in. Now THAT is ironic.