You Should Know
Safe Skin Ingredients For Kids
Founder of BEB Organic Skincare and Co-Founder and CEO of Bambini Furtuna, Kim Walls shares her best advice for making the safest choices when it comes to your child's skin.
- Written By
- Kim Walls
When it comes to choosing safe skin and body ingredients for kids, the answers aren’t always obvious, and they can be extremely surprising. Think of safe skincare ingredients as if they were teenagers at school. They have the potential to behave beautifully or act horribly, depending on the company they keep. Nearly every skincare ingredient that stands alone can be made better or worse by the ingredients around it.
One surprising example of a potentially unsafe skincare ingredient is water. I know… that seems strange. But our skin is more acidic than water, and it is important to maintain a healthy acid balance (the pH) on our skin surface to keep it safe. Washing frequently with plain water or a water based cleanser that has the wrong pH will likely cause a terribly dry and damaged skin surface. Always avoid using castile soaps on skin. Though they usually have an ingredient list that is simple and natural, castile soaps have a very high pH that can wreak havoc on skin, especially for babies and kids.The safest ingredient to clean baby and kids skin is not a single ingredient, but a combination of plant based ingredients that have a combined pH of about 5.5, like the BEB Organic Bubbly Wash.
Just as water doesn’t seem like an ingredient that could be bad for skin, there are ingredients that seem like they would be terrible, but in fact they are very safe and valuable when used in the right combination with other ingredients. For example, hydrogen peroxide and sodium citrate are ingredients that are commonly used by natural skincare and clean beauty companies to change the pH of a skincare formula. Though sodium citrate is harmful when used alone, it can be the perfect partner to balance out the pH of other ingredients in beautifully formulated skincare products.
Another great example of a powerful, healthy, and safe skincare ingredient that might seem scary at first glance is phenethyl alcohol. In our homes and daily lives, the word “alcohol” probably refers to gin, vodka, or a glass of wine. But in the world of biochemistry, the word alcohol simply means that something contains a hydrogen and an oxygen. How confusing! In reality, phenethyl alcohol is derived from rose petals, it is one of the best, safest and most expensive preservatives known to skincare.
As you evaluate skincare ingredients on any label, especially those for babies and kids, know that there are certainly some bad players. In fact, there are many commonly used skincare ingredients that, whether used alone or in combination with others, are simply not good for the skin.
When I do a detailed ingredient analysis of products, leaning on my background in biochemistry and organic skincare product development, it proves true time-and-time again that when a skincare product contains any of the 4 ingredients listed below, it almost always also contains other ingredients that may not be safe ingredients for babies and kids.
As a basic rule of thumb, avoid these 4 ingredients altogether:
Fragrance (doesn’t matter if it is claimed to be “natural" or not; I find it isn’t worth the risk or time to figure it out)
Petrolatum (other names include: petroleum jelly, mineral oil, paraffin)
Parabens
Phenoxyethanol
Kim Walls is an educator, esthetician, entrepreneur and recognized pioneer in the skincare industry. She is Founder of BEB Organic Skincare and Co-Founder and CEO of Bambini Furtuna, a new line of organic topical health remedies for kids. Kim works closely with doctors, nurses and lab chemists to research and develop clean beauty and organic skincare products. Kim was born into beauty. Her family legacy in skincare began with her father, the founder of Epicuren, and has continued with the creation of several skincare companies of her own. You can follow her @kimwallsla.
One surprising example of a potentially unsafe skincare ingredient is water. I know… that seems strange. But our skin is more acidic than water, and it is important to maintain a healthy acid balance (the pH) on our skin surface to keep it safe. Washing frequently with plain water or a water based cleanser that has the wrong pH will likely cause a terribly dry and damaged skin surface. Always avoid using castile soaps on skin. Though they usually have an ingredient list that is simple and natural, castile soaps have a very high pH that can wreak havoc on skin, especially for babies and kids.The safest ingredient to clean baby and kids skin is not a single ingredient, but a combination of plant based ingredients that have a combined pH of about 5.5, like the BEB Organic Bubbly Wash.
Just as water doesn’t seem like an ingredient that could be bad for skin, there are ingredients that seem like they would be terrible, but in fact they are very safe and valuable when used in the right combination with other ingredients. For example, hydrogen peroxide and sodium citrate are ingredients that are commonly used by natural skincare and clean beauty companies to change the pH of a skincare formula. Though sodium citrate is harmful when used alone, it can be the perfect partner to balance out the pH of other ingredients in beautifully formulated skincare products.
Another great example of a powerful, healthy, and safe skincare ingredient that might seem scary at first glance is phenethyl alcohol. In our homes and daily lives, the word “alcohol” probably refers to gin, vodka, or a glass of wine. But in the world of biochemistry, the word alcohol simply means that something contains a hydrogen and an oxygen. How confusing! In reality, phenethyl alcohol is derived from rose petals, it is one of the best, safest and most expensive preservatives known to skincare.
As you evaluate skincare ingredients on any label, especially those for babies and kids, know that there are certainly some bad players. In fact, there are many commonly used skincare ingredients that, whether used alone or in combination with others, are simply not good for the skin.
When I do a detailed ingredient analysis of products, leaning on my background in biochemistry and organic skincare product development, it proves true time-and-time again that when a skincare product contains any of the 4 ingredients listed below, it almost always also contains other ingredients that may not be safe ingredients for babies and kids.
As a basic rule of thumb, avoid these 4 ingredients altogether:
Fragrance (doesn’t matter if it is claimed to be “natural" or not; I find it isn’t worth the risk or time to figure it out)
Petrolatum (other names include: petroleum jelly, mineral oil, paraffin)
Parabens
Phenoxyethanol
Kim Walls is an educator, esthetician, entrepreneur and recognized pioneer in the skincare industry. She is Founder of BEB Organic Skincare and Co-Founder and CEO of Bambini Furtuna, a new line of organic topical health remedies for kids. Kim works closely with doctors, nurses and lab chemists to research and develop clean beauty and organic skincare products. Kim was born into beauty. Her family legacy in skincare began with her father, the founder of Epicuren, and has continued with the creation of several skincare companies of her own. You can follow her @kimwallsla.