Although I do not have a small, cheeky baby with buttery skin and malleable chin(s) in the house any longer, when my third guy was smaller (he’s ten) he spent quite a few winters with raw, red, chapped cheeks and chin and upper lip. It was not quite eczema—but at the least in that family. It was all about cold, dry weather. It hurt. Once it got warmer, the whole thing went away. This happened, more then less, for about three or four winters.
The only thing that brought some relief was California Baby Calendula Cream. The pudding-like cream comes in a tub.
For the past couple of years, the fingers on my right hand get red when the cold, dry weather sets in. Mine is similar to his former redness, although without getting raw to the point of chapping or flaking, just red, and somewhat swollen. Ouch.
This year, Weleda brought out a new product—Calendula Weather Protection Cream—in its baby line. It’s a thick salve you squirt from the tube. It’s actually protective and it’s soothing and I am telling everyone I know with red skin in winter, winter or babies in winter, because it’s so… very… wonderfully soothing and protective. It even smells nice.
I remain a fan of the first—and have some upstairs I continue to use often. But I am in love with the second.
Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser is a freelance writer and blogger whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Brain Child Magazine and Salon the Huffington Post, Babble and Ceramics Monthly. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies including The Maternal is Political and Wait a Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra. A writer for Preview Massachusetts Magazine, she keeps a personal blog, Standing in the Shadows at the publication’s news site, the Valley Advocate and a tumblr Refractions. She is a sometime contributor to Momfilter. Follow her on twitter–@standshadows or Pinterest.