Antibacterial/antiseptic bath oils are often used in the treatment of eczema. They can be used with emollients, but should not be used with any soap products. Both of these bath oils do not require any prescription and can be purchased directly from your local pharmarcy.
Caution: These oils are not recommended for use on infants 6 months of age and under. In our personal experience, our daughter actually reacted very badly to Oilatum Plus when a doctor suggested we try it in her bath when she was 6 months old. Her skin broke out into a terrible rash all over and actually made her eczema worse. Instead of just treating eczema on her arms, her whole body flared up with it after the bath! However, we tried using it again when she was a toddler and her body responded to it much better and helped clear up the bacterial skin infections. I suspect the chemicals were just a little bit too strong for her when she was 6 months old.
The most common antibacterial/antiseptic bath oils are:
Oilatum Plus (official website)
Active ingredients: Light liquid paraffin 52.5% w/w, Benzalkonium
chloride 6%w/w, Triclosan 2%w/w
Available sizes: 150 ml and 500 ml bottles.
Cost: From NZ$20 for a 150 ml bottle, or from NZ$48 for a 500 ml bottle. Oilatum Plus costs more to purchase, but contains a much higher amount of the antibacterial medication so you actually use a lot less. This is good for more severe eczema or when there is quite bad skin infection present, and you need to get it sorted asap!
QV Flare Up Bath Oil (official website)
Active ingredients: Light liquid paraffin 65.1% (w/w), benzalkonium chloride 2.0% (w/w) and triclosan 0.7% (w/w)
Available sizes: 200 ml and 500 ml bottles.
Cost: From NZ$15.20 for a 200 ml bottle, or from NZ$28 for a 500 ml bottle. This is cheaper, but is more diluted than Oilatum Plus. This is useful for “maintenance”, when eczema is generally gone / under control and you just need to treat a couple of spots of early infection.
Iodine
I’ve just come across this as a much more natural antibacterial bath additive as noticed a doctor bathing their child in this (and not any of the above products!). I have been wondering if the over-use of the man-made antibacterial products above may encourage “superbugs”? I’ll do a bit more research into this and how one can get access to iodine, and will update this site with info in the near future.
Eczema 101 