One Ingredient Homemade Baby Powder

Do you love the nostalgic baby smell of Johnson’s baby powder?  Do you use it on your baby?  Well once I read the back of my Johnsons Baby Powder bottle I was sad to see this.

That’s right a very serious warning: do not inhale.  Really?  Is that a joke?  If you’ve ever used baby powder you’ll know that it is absolutely impossible to use it without creating a big white talc cloud.  It goes completely airborne the moment the lid is twisted open.  And we’re not supposed to breath it in at all??  And why not?  What’s wrong with it?  Well I’ll tell you. The two very simple ingredients of Talc and Parfum actually mean this.  Talcon powder is a naturally formed mineral but can come in many different forms.  And Parfum simply tells us that they don’t want to tell us what they actually put in it to make it smell nice.

Now mineral may sound lovely and natural but here’s the problem with talc.  It can be easily mixed with asbestos in its formation.  Which is why we should never inhale it as it may cause breathing problems.  Also if you look on wikipedia you’ll find that the use of talc has been highly linked with ovarian and other cancers and was found in 75% of ovarian tumours studied.  So use on girls in particular is not good.  Especially seeing as its best baby use is on the bottom for dry skin.

So now here’s the good news.  There is a super easy, simple and cheap way to make your own safe baby powder.  You only need one ingredient – cornflour.  You may just have this in your kitchen already but if not just grab some from the grocery store and you’ve found a whole new way to use it.  It’s a little heavier in texture than talc but works exactly the same.  I like to add a few drops of lavender essential oil and you’ve just made yourself Lavender baby powder, which costs £1.98* for 400g. Cornflour costs £1.19 for 500g* so it’s a little bit of saving in your pocket but a long term saving on your families health.

I took a knife and wedged off the lid to my old Johnsons Baby Poweder bottle and just reused it.  Look out for my post on my favourite ways to use my homemade baby powder coming soon.

 

*Prices found on Tesco.com and may vary or change.