How to Choose a Diaper Rash Cream Without Harmful Chemicals

Diaper creams are used to prevent or treat diaper rash. Some of them moisturize and protect the skin by forming a barrier. Other creams have active ingredients that treat diaper rash. 

Whatever the purpose, these products contain ingredients lists that can be difficult to decipher, making it hard to know if you’re choosing the right option for your baby and a safer and more sustainable product. 

To prevent diaper rash, all that’s really needed in a cream are ingredients to moisturize and protect the skin, ingredients like plant oils, butters, and waxes. And to treat active diaper rash, a cream with the active ingredient zinc oxide is ideal.

To make it easier, we’ve identified three crucial things to look for when reviewing product labels.

Mineral oil, petrolatum, and paraffin: Those ingredients, all byproducts of the refining process used to make gasoline and other petroleum products, can create a barrier on the skin, locking in moisture. But identifying them on labels can be tricky because their names are often incorrectly used interchangeably. And all three ingredients can go by other names, such as white mineral oil, liquid paraffin, petroleum jelly, and more.

The extent to which mineral oil, petrolatum, and paraffin are refined indicates their grade and also raises some health concerns. That’s because during the manufacturing process, these ingredients can be contaminated with substances called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which have been linked to cancer. The good news is that when they’re fully and properly refined, PAH contamination is low. The bad news is that companies that make cosmetics or personal care products aren’t currently required to use fully refined petroleum ingredients, and you typically can’t tell from labels if that’s the case.

Even if these ingredients are highly refined and without contamination, these ingredients are associated with other problems. Canada and the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. say that mineral oil isn’t biodegradable. Petrolatum is classified as not biodegradable in Canada and as a reproductive toxin in Australia. And Amy Ziff, the founder of Made Safe, says, “The use of these chemicals raises another question: Do we want to perpetuate the use of petroleum-derived ingredients in a climate-challenged world?”

Given the potential problems and lack of transparency surrounding these ingredients, we recommend avoiding them. Instead, look for products that use moisturizing and protecting ingredients like plant butters and oils, as well as beeswax and plant waxes.