Thursday, November 01, 2007

A+D Ointment = Lots of shampoo

While I was cleaning up the dining room after lunch - Anna was apparently decorating her little sister with an entire tube of A+D Ointment. IN HER HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you not familiar with this product - think Vaseline. Thick, petroleum based gel that apparently is impervious to any kind of soap/dish detergent/shampoo combination. After 20 shampoos (of both Anna and Emma) with various cleaning methods I still have one very greasy headed child and one sort of greasy haired child.

So a more in depth search was required. We will take a new crack at the hair tomorrow....

So for those wondering how to get it out.... I have found this info online.

FROM HAIR EMERGENCY: If you apply a little cornstarch to the hair and carefully pat it into the hair, it will absorb some, if not all the vaseline. After you apply the cornstarch you can shampoo it out with a good clarifying shampoo and it should be removed. If the vaseline is not completely removed in the first treatment, it will be removed to the point where one more treatment will remove all of it. Be sure to use warm to hot water in the shampoo. Cold water makes the vaseline worse. Or you can try putting about 1 teaspoon of baking soda and mixing it with a regular baby shampoo and this should help. Unfortunately Vaseline is petroleum based and can be almost impossible to remove. If the clarifying or baking soda does not work, try using soft tissue to blot the hair and see if that removes some of it.

Ok - from wikihow:
Soak your hair completely in olive oil.
Scrub the olive oil into your hair with your hands.
Apply dish-washing liquid; it should cover your hair. Don't use dish washer type, use the kind for manual washing.
Scrub the dish-washing liquid into your hair.
Wash your hair out completely.
Apply conditioner to your hair if you like.
Enjoy your petroleum-jelly-free hair.


Let's just say our water bill is going to be high this month. UGH.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So not fun! My friend's daughter did that too. It was a mess to say the least!

Anonymous said...

OH NO! I wonder why Anna's so obsessed with putting all sorts of junk in her & her sis's hair. I hope it all works out!

Anonymous said...

Still chuckling!!! Sometimes, what goes around, comes around. Heather did the same thing to her brother with vaseline. Thankfully, he didn't have much hair. She, on the other hand, had long hair, and it took forever to get it out.

laurie said...

ohmygod! Wish solution did you use? What worked?

This reminds me of the time my little sister saturated the cat with a lotion called "Rosemilk." She figured that if it made our skin soft, it would only make the kitty softer (or at least that was her excuse). The poor cat couldn't stand up from the weight of it....

Het said...

What ended up working was the least convenient - time.

Method Peppermint Vanilla Dish soap was able to get most of the ointment out of Anna's hair - but left it rather dry (although - I'll take dry over greasy). It did make a dent in Em's hair - but it was greasy and gross until after her bath on Monday.

Cornstarch helped significantly, but so did sleeping on a towel. ICK.

Anna was so excited to only have her hair washed once last night. "oh, no more?"

Abigail's Mommy said...

Thanks for your help. My 2.5 year old just put the whole tub of A&D all over her and her hair in our bed.