Oatmeal Bath

I’m not really a bath kinda girl, but when I was pregnant with the Little Guy I fell in love with Oatmeal Baths – it was a wonderful way to soothe my tired back and relieve my itchy skin.

Now the pediatrician is recommending the same approach to help my fair-skinned, outdoor-loving son survive the impending winter — the cold winds and the wood stove can really be tough on the epidermis!

Unfortunately, the little boxes  of Aveeda Colloidal Oatmeal (which I adore) also happen to be pretty pricey.

And since I would much rather keep $10 in my pocket than hand it over to the grocery store clerk, I decided to make up a batch myself.

And honestly, this about as easy as it gets!

How to make Colloidal Oatmeal to help with itchy, dry skin:

Buy some Oatmeal (apparently you can use any type, but I stayed with the old fashioned, slow cooking version.  Just get it plain – no apple cinnamon flavoring required!)

Grind up the Oats:  I used my food processor to do this, but you could use a flour mill, a coffee grinder, a blender…  the key is to get as fine a substance as possible.

Test the Consistency:  You can see if you’ve gotten it fine enough by adding a tablespoon of powder to a glass of water – stir it up and you should have a milky liquid without too much settling on the bottom of the glass.  If you do see a lot of sediment, keep grinding!

Sift the Oatmeal powder (optional):  Okay, this is where my mom is thinking “Good Lord Sharon, I’ll give you the $10 to buy some,” but I’m on a mission to save! I wasn’t getting the quality of powder I wanted, so I threw the powder into my sifter.  Sixty seconds later, I had separated out the bigger chunks and I was good to go.

Add a cup of your Oatmeal powder to bath water:  Add a cup of oatmeal powder into your bath water while the tub is filling and stir (use less for toddlers, since they don’t use as much water).  You will see that the water gets a little milky which is the oatmeal doing it’s thing!

I told you this was easy!

If you are looking for some other simple home made tutorials be sure to check out How to Make Gummi Bears, a simple homemade Chocolate Syrup, and a really COOL tutorial on how to make homemade Mozzarella!

And just little more info on Oatmeal for the brainiacs out there…

What is “Colloidal Oatmeal”? A colloid is a type of chemical mixture in which one substance is dispersed evenly throughout another. The substance doesn’t dissolve, but is suspended in the mixture (unlike a solution in which the particles are completely dissolved).  In this case, the oatmeal is pulverized into small, powder like particles that interact with water to create a milky substance.  Ancient cultures regularly used oatmeal to treat a variety of skin conditions – and if they can do it, so can you!

You can find more information on uses for Oatmeal baths here