DIY Snowy Day Spa Soaks

It's been cold here in central Massachusetts the past few months.  It seems like we've had about 12-18 inches of snow just about every 3 or 4 days, school is always being canceled, and people have had enough.  In fact, I just looked out the window, and it has just started snowing again.  True story.  Well, everyone deserves a respite, and for me, it comes in the form of a nice, warm bath.  Luckily, a comforting, pampering bath is one of the easiest DIY spa experiences to create at home.

To start, all you need is a nice, warm tub of water.  Not too hot -- that would be drying to your skin -- but warm enough that you can sit comfortably for 15-20 minutes.  (It's okay to replenish the heat with short bursts of hot water while you're in there, too.)

And now, the best part:  Bath Additives.  You have a whole kitchen filled with possibilities!  The basics are milks, grains, oils and botanicals.   Here's a breakdown for each category.  Mix and match depending on your mood.

Milks:  It's said that Cleopatra bathed in milk.  I'm not sure if that's true or not (I wasn't there!), but either way, added to a bath, milk is mildly exfoliating, cleansing and moisturizing.  Use Cow's milk (skim, whole, buttermilk...), Goat's milk, and even Coconut milk, which creates a super-silky bath and smells like a tropical paradise (can be found in the Asian aisle at your local market).  Add 1-4 cups per bath.

Grains:  My go to bath grain is Old-Fashioned Oats. It's naturally moisturizing and can alleviate dry, itchy winter skin. You can buy cosmetic-grade colloidal oatmeal at the drug store, or you can simply grind up some whole oats in a coffee grinder until they reach a powdered consistency.  Add them while filling the bath.  If you have some cheesecloth, even better.  Fill it with whole or coarsely ground oats (and some botanicals, if you wish), tie up with string, and hang it under the faucet while filling the tub.  Then, just let it float in the water while you soak. 

Oils:  Boost the moisture in your bath by adding oils.  Unless you happen to have an emulsifier on hand (such as one of the Polysorbates), the oil will simply float on top of the water.  But it will leave you feeling soft and moisturized.  Try adding a small amount (a teaspoon or so is all you'll need) of jojoba, hazelnut, extra light olive, rice bran, flax oil, or any other liquid oil you have on hand.  Just be forewarned that these will make your tub slick, so take caution when stepping out of your bath.

Botanicals:  Here's where you can get really creative.  Do you have a kitchen stock-pile of herbal teas?  These work great in the tub, and if you keep them in the tea bag, you don't have to worry about cleaning up messy buds, barks and leaves afterward.  The obvious choices for botanicals are calendula, chamomile, lavender and rose (all are soothing, and smell nice).  But do you have a cold?  Teas with peppermint, eucalyptus, rosemary or fennel will help with congestion, and even sore muscles.  Looking for an antioxidant boost for your skin?  Try Roobios or Green Tea.  A nice chai blend can help to stimulate circulation.  With teas, or any botanicals you choose, keep in mind that in high concentration (like in a cup of tea) they can cause staining... both on you and your tub.  One bag, perhaps two, should do the trick in the bath.  [Caution: if you suffer from hayfever or other seasonal allergies, certain botanicals, such as chamomile or lavender, can cause skin irritation or allergic reactions. Be sure to read labels!  Also, some herbs, such as Chamomile may lighten hair.]

You'll want to limit your soak to about 15-20 minutes as anything more can be dehydrating and can sap energy.  

When you're all done and the water's drained, a quick sprinkle of household baking soda and a wipe with a damp cloth will clean the tub and get rid of any residues.

Sunscreen Can Kill

I actually wrote this blog post in June, but forgot to post it. There's still a few weeks left to New England sunscreen weather, so feel free to pass this info along...

 The sun is shining, and the days are getting longer.  For most of us, the arrival of warm weather is like a new beginning each Spring.  But for me, it begins the season of anxiety.    My son is severely allergic to chemical sunscreens.

With most allergies -- for example, my own shellfish allergy -- there are simple precautions I can take.  I carefully read product ingredients, I don’t  cook shellfish in my home, and I avoid restaurants that have shellfish on their menus.  But with my son’s allergy, it isn’t quite as simple.  Of course, we avoid using any sunscreen with the offending ingredients, and we make sure he doesn’t share things like face masks or flippers which may have traces of the chemicals on them.  And when the kids have friends over, we provide a chemical free sunscreen for them to use so they don’t rub the offending ingredients into our furniture where they could rub off on my son and cause a reaction.  But it’s not quite as easy as that.  This is because of the widespread use of spray sunscreens.  Whereas with most allergies, there are certain precautions you can take to avoid exposure.  A peanut allergic person would never to go, say, Texas Roadhouse, where people are eating peanuts at every table and the dust is surely saturated in the air.  But with spray sunscreens, there really is no safe place in summer.  People use these products because they are quick and easy to apply.  But to the 1-2 percent of Americans who are allergic to  chemical sunscreen ingredients, they can be deadly.  The particles are quite small and travel through the air quickly and with great dispersion.  One slight breeze can carry the product far beyond your beach towel.  With this allergy, there really isn’t much control.

My son was diagnosed with this allergy when he was one and a half years old after several bouts of anaphalaxis.  For the remainder of that first summer and for the next summer, I simply avoided public places during hot, sunny days when I knew people would be spraying sunscreens willy-nilly in an effort to protect themselves and loved ones from harmful rays.  But as the kids got older, they wanted to go swimming, or to parks, and so we ventured out, epi-pen  and doses of Benadryl in hand.  We joined a private pool and I got in the habit, to let the 10 or so other families know about my son’s allergy and apologetically ask that if they could either wait until there was no wind to apply sunscreen and go to a closed-off pre-determined place to spray,  or use the extra bottles of sunscreen I had brought, or just simply alert us they were going to spray so we could leave the area for 30 minutes or so until the particles settled so my son wouldn’t breathe them in.  Most people willingly obliged and offered sympathy to my son for having to be so cautious to simply play outside.  However, once, while we were in a public restroom at a local Petting Zoo, a woman began liberally spraying sunscreen in the confined space.  My son, then 3, smelled the sunscreen and began to panic.  In a knee-jerk reaction, I began screaming like a crazy person, “Stop spraying!  Stop spraying!”  And through tears began to explain my son’s allergy to the other mom while covering my son with a towel.  “Relax.”  The woman said, looking thoroughly annoyed as she rolled her eyes. “ I stopped. No need to panic..”  So I hurried my son outside and looked under the towel covering him to see his eyes, nose and ears swollen shut, and his now-puffy hands quickly tearing at his tongue to relieve what seemed to be an intensely itchy, swollen tongue. Even more terrifying for me was  the gurgling, gasping sound he made, followed by his little head and shoulders slumping forward.  After I administered the Epi-Pen Jr. I always carried with me, I looked up to see the look of fear on the previously annoyed woman’s face.   Then I heard the repeated apologies, which leads me to the moral of this piece:

I can’t think of another product which can invade someone’s persona l space as much as a spray sunscreen.  And for a small percentage of people, that invasion can be fatal.  There should be a warning on each canister that states that individuals should take precaution when using these products because the spray may cause anaphalaxis in some individuals.  It should not be sprayed in confined, public areas, and it should not be sprayed in very windy conditions.

Several of the chemicals in question have already been banned in Japan and in the EU for various reasons (allergy, photosensitivity, increased incidence of tumors, to name a few), and as the U.S. EPA has recently begun to take action to review potentially hazardous ingredients for cosmetics and household products, I believe that eventually these sunscreens will be reviewed and banned in this country as well.  But until then, just letting people know of the potential for anaphalaxis in some individuals, especially with a product that really does disperse readily into the air where it can be breathed in and cause an immediate, potentially fatal reaction, would be a good, responsible start.