The Healing Power Of Oatmeal – Simple Home Remedies For Itchy Skin

healing benefits of oatmeal

Believe it or not, oatmeal is a pretty amazing thing packed with some pretty important vitamins, minerals, and proteins, oatmeal! It’s great for the body both inside and out. One of the most profound ways that oatmeal can benefit your family is on the skin.  This amazing product works wonders for even the most delicate skin, and it can provide needed relief at times when the skin of your child or any of your family members needs it most.

Oatmeal just may be one of the best home remedies for itchy skin, and its gentle effects are a great alternative to many chemicals and over-the-counter itch treatments. From stopping itching to helping relieve insect bites and stings, from rashes to sunburns, oatmeal is a great resource for your whole family!

healing benefits of oatmeal

Here are a few of our favorite ways to benefit from the powerful healing properties of oatmeal right at home!

The Perfect Oatmeal Bath

Use only true organic oatmeal – not quick oats for this and all oatmeal home remedies. Using a coffee grinder, food processor, or blender, grind your oats into a fine powder – this is called colloidal oatmeal. While you are drawing your warm bath, add the powder under the faucet to ensure that it spreads throughout the water. Usually a cup or so of colloidal oatmeal powder is enough to create the most amazing itch-stopping bath you can imagine!

Keep the bathwater warm, but not hot. Hot water can actually dry your skin out and cause more itching – so stay on the cooler side while you soak. A 15-25 minute soak is ideal and will give your skin enough time to reap all the benefits that oatmeal offers. After the bath, leave your skin slightly damp to apply a moisturizer. This prevents the skin from drying out between the bath and moisturizing and it also allows maximum absorption of the moisturizer.

Use your favorite all natural lotion to seal in the moisture and nutrients… your skin will thank you!

Related: The Aquaphor Alternative

healing benefits of oatmeal

Oatmeal Spot Treatments

When a big bite, sting, mild burn, or even chicken pox enters the picture, oatmeal can come to the rescue! Using organic oatmeal that has been powdered in your blender, processor, or grinder, create a paste with cool water. Apply this paste directly to the skin and allow it to dry slowly. The oatmeal will not only help draw toxins from the skin as it dries (much like mud does!), it will also deliver its many healing benefits directly where they’re needed most.

Soak the oatmeal off gently once it has dried, and apply a moisturizer as needed.

Related: Chicken Pox: 8 Must Haves To Keep Your Sanity

Oatmeal Products

When shopping for skin care products for your family, look for organic oatmeal or colloidal oatmeal as an ingredient. You can even DIY it. Use a food processor to turn slow cooking oats into colloidal oatmeal dust to keep on hand for bath water.

A Word Of Caution

Most all oatmeal is processed in grain facilities where other grains like wheat, rye, buckwheat, and barley are processed. It’s rare to find a facility that deals with just one grain, so most oatmeal isn’t gluten free. If this is important or necessary for your family, we suggest the gluten-free oatmeal from Bob’s Red Mill.

Enjoy the healing power of oatmeal!

 

2 thoughts on “The Healing Power Of Oatmeal – Simple Home Remedies For Itchy Skin

  1. Kimberly says:

    I was researching what to do about my little girl’s eczema symptoms and the scratching. We had tried oatmeal soak from Aveeno Baby eczema, but it did not seem to work, and plus I was concern about the ingredients. Therefore, I am glad that I found this post and like the fact that it is natural and its a DYI (do it yourself) product. I had read in the past, that you should bathe first and then do the soak, and do not rinse off, then moisturize after bat time, do you recommend that as well.
    I was wondering how can I make bath time easier for my little scratching machine (while in the bath tub, during diaper change, and during meal times) and she also screams her head off when she is placed in the tub even with toys in the tub. Nothing seemed to distract her from the scratching especially in the bath tub. It drive me nuts, and I am not sure if she is truly itchy or not. 🙁 please some advice. Thank you.

    • Andrea says:

      Hi Kimberly,

      Bathtime is VERY tricky, as you know, when it comes to little scratchers. We set a time when both adults would be available for bath time. One to keep her distracted (or hold her hands) and the other to quickly clean her. We even kept her ScratchMeNot on just so she could soak long enough (about 10 minutes). I’m not sure if this is the same for you, but whenever my daughter even saw skin, she would scratch whether itchy or not. Sometimes I know for sure it was habitual and no itch. Instead of a bath tub, we also tried the kitchen sink. You can turn the bath into a shower when the sprayer and maybe this will distract her some 🙂 I would suggest doing a deep moisturizer after bath time to lock in the moisture. Most of our bath equaled 5 minutes or less, until she got older. If she cannot soak in the tub effectively, you can also do wet wraps.

      Have you figured out what is causing her itchy skin? This was a big help for us as it reduced her irritated skin & scratching drastically. I’ll also post your question on FB and see what other ideas parents have 🙂

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