Advice comes from everywhere when you have a baby. One piece of advice that we’ve got from midwives, health visitors and friends is: don’t use (Johnson’s) baby oil, use sunflower oil (or olive oil).
It’s better for their skin because it’s natural, seems to be the argument. But what kind of argument is that? Nature produces many poisons. Johnson’s baby oil is “petroleum based” we are told, as if that is supposed to scare us. My instinct is that most oil-like substances are very similar molecules, whether they are plant based, or plants and animals that have been crushed into the earth for millions of years and then extracted and refined.
Johnson’s baby oil contains perfume that can irritate the skin, we are told. This sounds plausible. Perfume is found in “nature”, so I suspect the perfume in Johnson’s baby oil is made from plant extracts. And plants make pollen which irritates me so it is more plausible that their perfume could irritate a baby’s skin than any kind of oil, “petroleum based” or otherwise.
But hang on, sunflower oil and olive oil also contain plant stuff that gives them flavour. How is this better than perfume?
A quick look at the ingredients on the back of our (unopened) Johnson’s baby oil bottle: “paraffinum liquidum” is apparently a fancy name for “mineral oil”. Why can’t they just write that then? Anyway, my old friends The Beauty Brains have an article about five myths about this stuff. While I haven’t heard of the five myths, they are probably the origin of the fear of mineral oil. The Beauty Brains argue that it is harmless, although not from a chemistry angle, which is what I’d really find convincing.
The next ingredient is isopropyl palmitate, which Wikipedia lists as a moisturiser. The Internet says it is derived from palm acid and it can cause skin irritation and clogged pores. But who knows?
Parfum is the final ingredient, and it just means perfume. Why don’t they write that then? Wikipedia has a fascinating article about perfume and what it is made of, which seems to boil down to oils from various sources. I can see how it might be possible to be irritated by some of these molecules, but I don’t see why it would be any more likely than to be irritated by molecules found in cooking oil.
The sunflower oil we have is labelled “pure sunflower oil” and doesn’t have any other ingredients. It is composed of palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, lecithin, tocopherois, carotenoids and waxes. At first glance that’s more scary sounding ingredients than the baby oil, but we don’t really know what’s in that parfum.
I wonder if palmitic acid in sunflower oil has any relationship with the palm acid that isopropyl palmitate is derived from. In any case, it “impairs leptin and insulin’s ability to regulate food intake and body weight”, or at least it does when eaten by rodents. Makes me wonder if the lack of scary articles about sunflower oil used on the skin is simply that no-one has thought to do such research on a food.
Stearic acid, on the other hand, does sound dangerous when applied to the skin. It is carcinogenic and toxic. It seems like we know this because it is used in cosmetics. Also it can be extracted from animal fat, and PETA says it can be harsh and irritating.
Those who want to convince me not to use certain products will have to stop using the meaningless adjective “natural”, which is a marker for a particular strain of sloppy thinking, and explain why the same substance is safe when it is found in natural, pure sunflower oil and dangerous and irritating when it is extracted from poor, helpless animals and used by evil, multinational cosmetics companies.
Don’t be a big baby. Are you still rubbing yourself with baby oil? You wouldn’t cook (or maybe you would!!) with petro oil because you inherently know it is not good for you, so why would you argue that it would be good for the skin which absorbs these oils into the body? Do you work for Johnson & Johnson???
Is mineral oil harmful to eat? I doubt it: as I said it seems like the molecules would all be very similar. I’d be interested to hear otherwise, though. I don’t think edibility has anything to do with what you can rub on your skin, though. I wouldn’t eat mud and people smear it on themselves and say it’s good for their skin. I wouldn’t rub hot chillis on my skin, either, and I eat them all the time.
Old blog entry, but I’m REALLY bored.
Mineral Oil Is used as a laxative, so it can be eaten safely…. That is if you call explosively crapping your self “safe”. But it prolly won’t kill you or cause cancer.
Then again every thing when examined closely causes cancer, look at the sun (well… don’t actually “LOOK” at the sun) They used to think that the “naturalness” of the sun was good for you too. guess again.
Also this “unnatural stuff” doesn’t come from radioactive comet dust from the far reaches of our universe or from bio-hazardous waste processing. It all comes from the earth. And the term “chemicals” is an oxymoron in its own right. EVERY thing is made of chemicals, unless that was just a dream I had in high-school science class. (very well could have been) In any case it’s not the chemical free “purity” or the “naturalness” it’s the composition and context of things.
Chlorine is a yellow-green, poisonous, corrosive substance, it is the main ingredient in the poison gas known as bertholite. Sodium is a corrosive flammable metal that when mixed with water will explode into flames do to the creation of hydrogen gas and lots of heat. But when you mix the two together you get ordinary salt. Like the essential for survival, found every where in the ocean, put on your steak salt!!!
Bottom line, when it comes to “chemicals”, you really can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
P.S. global warming as well as free energy is also a myth. sorry
No need to apologise, anon, you won’t get much disagreement round these parts.
Done lots of research on baby oil and yes it will eventually fuck up ur skin. Don’t use it unless it’s already got u addicted to it.
Hallo! I bougt a baby oil, made in Denmark for the finnish brand Pirkka. I’ve been using it for a while and I got skin irritations. Dry skin also. The same for my baby. Dry skin. Now i read on Internet that a baby oil with isopropyl palmitate is not recommended. Isopropyl palmitate can cause cancer. Not good at all. I won’t buy it again.
Mona-Lisa in Finland
I’ve never heard of a baby dying from ingesting olive oil. But yes, ingesting baby oil is VERY BAD and it can kill you. You would not want to cook with it. Also, babies are more susceptible to things put on their skin than adults. Proof is here: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/babyoil.asp
So there you go. I hope your mind is changed.
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I am looking for an oil for my soon to be newborn and I think I am just going to stay away from everything and use nothing. I find it quite amazing that our parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc etc etc used not alot and guess what…were still alive! amazing isn’t it. All that dirt I used to eat, worms, picking up frogs from bogs, running half a mile with tadpoles to put in my fish tank and the like.
On a topical note I use baby oil to shave. I can use it without preparing my skin, I use cold water, I splash my face once with cold water, the razor goes in cold water, the razor is typically several weeks old because I prepare sharpening by rubbing up and down a small mirror (glass resharpens razor blades!) shaves like a beauty, less than 1 min, no need for useless balms, conditioners, softener’s, aftershaves blah blah, costs 6 quid a year to shave plus about 12-15 blades a year. i have extremely tender and sensitive skin but this stuff works like a gem.
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nice work, love your look, suits the page well
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Herewith an interesting post on greenmedinfo relating to how mineral oils contaminate and accumulate in our bodies
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/crude-awakening-mineral-oil-contaminates-everyones-bodies
New reasearch is proving that there are serious adverse healith effects linked to exposure to mineral oil.