USDA Organic Certification. Don’t buy anything that is not explicitly USDA Certified. In order to acquire USDA organic certification, a product’s ingredients must comply with the very strict standards and definition of organic, as specified by the United States Department of Agriculture. Organic means that there are no artificial additives, no chemicals, no preservatives, and nothing that should irritate your little one’s skin.

Ingredients. Always read the ingredients list in its entirety. Skincare manufacturers sometimes like to stick some surprises in at the end, where the fine print is. You should be able to recognize all of the ingredients, and they should be household names to you – like cocoa butter, shea butter, and olive oil. Steer clear of any product that includes cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, decyl polyglucose, or ammonium lauryl sulfate.

Shop local. Oftentimes, when you shop from small, mom and pop organic growers in your area, you can get the inside scoop about how their products are made, as well as develop a bond of trust with the people who grow the stuff you will eventually be using on your baby. You may even be able to tour the grower’s organic garden, and there’s no better testament to a product’s origins than that!

Talk to your pediatrician. If your baby develops eczema or any of the variety of other common baby skin problems, then your pediatrician may be able to lead you in the right direction as far as organic skin care products that are also formulated for problem skin.

As you can see, there is a lot to consider when shopping for organic skin care products for your baby. It’s certainly not as simple as walking into a store and picking up the first “organic” item you see, as most of those so-called organic products are nothing more than hype and fancy packaging. Do your best to protect your little one’s skin by considering all of these tips the next time you go shopping for baby’s organic products.

About the Author: Shea Piatak loves all things green and organic. When she’s not looking for ways to help her family live a healthier lifestyle, she’s also looking for ways to reduce per production of waste by using email fax services and other online sites to reduce paper waste.

The night after her baby brother’s birthday party, my 6-year-old daughter came into our bedroom at around midnight saying “Mom I feel si….” and promptly projectile vomited in the middle of our doorway. The next 24 hours were awful, she couldn’t hold anything down, had a fever, and felt absolutely terrible. Classic symptoms of gastroenteritis. And what I find most annoying is that earlier in the week I had received a letter from her school saying that there were multiple cases of gastro going around the school, and it gave necessary measures on how to avoid it – washing hands, keeping clean, etc. Obviously not easy to do for 6-year-olds in the playground or school canteen.

So now that she had indeed caught the bug, the only thing I could do was to protect the rest of the family, especially her two little brothers. Aside from issuing a strict handwashing policy at home, I took on the task of disinfecting crucial areas like the kitchen, toilets and places my daughter used. I resisted the urge to buy the heavy-duty Lysol, and instead found a website which had some great information on how to make your own less-toxic disinfectants – so you save money, save the earth, keep healthier and hopefully kill a few germs while you’re at it.

Home-made Alternatives

Disinfecting/Deodorizing Cleaner
Add 1/2 cup of borax to 4 litres of warm water.

One hospital used this formulation for cleaning for a year. The monitoring bacteriologist reported that the solution satisfied the hospital’s germicidal requirements. (Dadd)

Disinfectant
Mix 2 teaspoons borax, 4 tablespoons vinegar and 3 cups hot water. For stronger cleaning power add 1/4 teaspoon liquid castile soap. Wipe on with dampened cloth or use non-aerosol spray bottle.

Tea Tree Disinfectant
20 drops tea tree oil (approx. 1/5 tsp. or 1 ml)
20 drops emulsifier
1 cup water or vinegar
Put emulsifier in container. Add oil and blend. Add 1cup water or vinegar.

Cinnamon Disinfectant
12 drops cinnamon oil (approx. 1/8 tsp. or 0.6 ml)
12 drops emulsifier
1 cup water or vinegar
Put emulsifier in container. Add oil and blend. Add 1cup water or vinegar. Shake before using.

Welcome to Yurto, the blog about eco-friendly living in the home. Inspired by the yurt, an ancient circular dwelling place built in tune with nature, we hope to explore the ways we can all make a change for the better in the world that we live in – beginning from our homes.

Why is it so important to go green? Al Gore, who woke up the world with his now-famous documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, puts it succinctly:

“…Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point of no return, beyond which it’s much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future…”

10 years??? Now that’s a scary thought.  If you have children like me, that’s enough reason to stop procrastinating and do something about NOW.

So from plastic to canvas, wasting to conserving,  lets find ways to care for the earth while we can and live healthier, happier lives.