Crisco- cloth diaper safe?

[lala317]

Does anyone know if crisco is safe to use with cloth diapers for diaper rash? I know coconut oil is, so I thought crisco might be too?

[Kylasmom]

No idea. Are you specifically looking for something that would be in your pantry?  

I swear by California Baby Calendula I swear it is magic. Otherwise you could mix your own using calendula and some aloe?

[lala317]

I just like to use it in general. I used to use it before I started cloth diapering for diaper rash cream and I use it now on my daughters eczema, because it works better than anything else I have tried. I also use it in the kids bath to help keep their skin moisturized. It doesn't have an odor and it works great, plus it is cheap! I know that you can use coconut oil, but I would just prefer to us this, since I already have it. I can't seem to find any info on it, if it is ok for cloth dipes though....

[MoonStarFalling]

Fish oil and petroleum products are warned against but vegetable oils of various kinds are usually recommended. Sounds like it might be OK.

[Llyra]

I wouldn't use any oil or fat, or anything containing oil or fat, with cloth diapers. It's very hard to get those to wash out clean, and they can cause the diapers to start repelling moisture. If you do use it, be prepared to pay attention to your wash routine, to be sure the oils are washing out clean. They don't even recommend putting cloth soiled with cooking oils into washers and dryers, because of the risk of spontaneous combustion-- there are big warnings emblazoned all over my dryer.

What IS Crisco, anyway? I've never heard of it being used topically. I'm a little skeptical, to tell you the truth.

[pampered_mom]

Originally Posted by Llyra 
 What IS Crisco, anyway? I've never heard of it being used topically. I'm a little skeptical, to tell you the truth.

According to their website:

SOYBEAN OIL, FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM AND SOYBEAN OILS, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID (ANTIOXIDANTS).

I don't know that it would necessarily be "bad" per se (although the hydrogenated stuff is certainly bad for you to eat).  The reason why coconut oil (extra virgin or virgin usually) is recommended is because the MCFA (medium chain fatty acids) have anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties (some of which has been studied in double-blind medical trials).  For that reason, I would say that they are not interchangeable.

Also...this is totally OT, but I would encourage you to search out other healthier alternatives to Crisco.  Spectrum makes a shortening that's just expeller pressed palm oil that would work interchangeably with Crisco.  When it comes to Coconut Oil the cheapest I've found is from Mountain Rose Herbs - although if you have a Frontier buying club in your area then Nutiva's is fairly reasonably priced.

[lala317]

Hmmm, I didn't realize it had TBHQ in it. I got a big tub of it from Costco like two years ago, so it has been a while since I have read the ingredients. I never eat or cook with it. A pediatrician had actually recommended it for my daughters eczema, since nothing else I had tried worked and I did not want to use prescription creams. After reading about it online, I found that people use it for diaper rash cream as well as a lot of other things. I figured it was good (natural) since it is just vegetable oils. I do use olive oil on my kids skin as well and have heard that you can use it on diaper rash's  too. I guess I will be switching to coconut oil since the Crisco has the TBHQ preservative in it. I was reading that a lot of the coconut oils contain TBHQ as well, so hopefully I can find some without it!

Many people on the cloth diaper board that I frequent use coconut oil for diaper rash cream and they say it washes out fine. I am assuming any cloth diaper cream that you use will contain oil. I guess the only other option is to use a liner and I would prefer to not have to do that!

Thanks everyone for your help and thanks pampered_mom for listing the ingredients for me!

[emilysmama]

Originally Posted by lala317 

Does anyone know if crisco is safe to use with cloth diapers for diaper rash? I know coconut oil is, so I thought crisco might be too?

Certainly Crisco is safe for cloth diapers.  Lots of people used to use it in the old days.  I used it at one point for a long time when my dd was using diapers several years ago. cheap, simple, and does the job. The only downside was the jokes that my husband kept cracking about the crisco. I didn't have any problems washing them out of my dd's cloth diapers.   I also rotated around a lot of very expensive diaper rash creams, instead of crisco, too. At some points, I also used petroleum products.  None of them affected my dd's washing cloth diapers in any way, including absorbancy. And my dd had all kinds of diapers.  She had both prefolds, and very bulky one size hemp fleece diapers, and all of them rinsed clean whether we used crisco, or not.  If you're not having trouble getting your diapers to rinse clean now, then crisco won't cause any problems.

I don't think I would ever consider using coconut oil.  That's way too expensive for me! I certainly wouldn't consider switching from crisco to spectrum.  We are talking about a moisture barrier for a baby's butt, not cooking food for ingestion.

The only preparation that i had a problem with cloth diapers was Bordeaux's Butt paste.  One of the ingredients, fish oil, permanently stains the diapers (and any cloth that comes into contact) brown.  So when I used the Butt paste, I cut up some flannel and used them as liners to keep my beautiful cloth diapers from staining.

Edited by emilysmama - 1/3/11 at 9:08am

[GAMZu]

I am afraid to ruin my daughter's diapers so I just use disposables whenever I need to use cream. Whenever she has a rash I like to use cream for the night, which means at least one sposie a day. By the next diaper change, she still has a thin film of cream on her skin, so I use a cloth diaper with a reusable fleece liner. If there is a cream that is safe for diapers, I'd love to try it. We are using Burt's Bees diaper rash cream. It works in one diaper change and smells like herbs and plants and all. Yum! But it's like super glue.

Is coconut oil easy to wash out? Do I need to do anything different? I'm a bit cautious because I don't want any chance of ruined diapers. I did a search for coconut oil and the options are overwhelming. Is there one specific one that is foolproof?