About Us

Hi,

I’m Chrisda, a homeschooling, crunchy mom of 4. My journey with natural products and essential oils started about 7 years ago in 2013.

We had 2 kids at the time and my youngest had terrible eczema over his whole body. Our 1st reaction was to take him to the doctor, but after multiple visits and using up various tubes for expensive ointments, there was sadly no improvement.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and started researching possible causes of eczema. These were wide & varied but included the following:

• Washing Powder
• Baby Bath Products
• Cleaning Products used in the home
• Allergic reaction

And so started the process of elimination. The 1st thing to go was commercial baby wash. We replaced it with some fragrance free hand made soap. We also added oats & rooibos tea to the bath water by hanging a sock full over the tap. This seemed to help ever so slightly but my boy was still full of red crusty, itchy spots. A big mistake I unfortunately made was to use aqueous cream on my poor boy. This seems to be the 1st thing EVERYONE recommends for people with skin conditions, but it is one of the worst things you can put on your body.

Next up was our washing powder. It was replaced with an entirely home made version with natural ingredients and essential oils. Although this didn’t help the eczema improve, we continued using it as it felt good knowing we were using a more environmentally friendly washing powder. We hadn’t used any fabric softener for a few years, so that was luckily not a concern.

Then came the tile cleaner. This was also replaced with a more environmentally friendly home made version. We used a combination of vinegar, rubbing alcohol & essential oils in a spray bottle with a microfiber mop.

Still the rash didn’t clear and my poor baby was scratching himself until he bled. So my research & process of elimination continued. I decided to start eliminating possible allergens from his diet. My daughter had a confirmed allergy to wheat which caused her to have tummy cramps so we started with that.

After about day 4 of eliminating all wheat from his diet, my poor baby’s skin eventually started to show signs of improvement. About 2 week after we started the elimination his skin was almost back to normal. We continued to completely eliminate wheat from both the kids’ diets for about 4 years. Then we slowly started to reintroduce it and they seemed to be fine, except when the youngest had a bit too much too often he started to break out again.

We continued using natural products & essential oils over the years. My interest in all things natural was sparked again when my friend Charme introduced me to Liza & Dōterra essential oils. And that was the inspiration for starting DIY Naturally.