Balance Jan Issue 2018 - 63

My turning point

REAL LIFE

Daughter in distress led
to relief for thousands
Natalie Balmond, the founder of Pure Potions, tells how reaching her wits' end over
her daughter's health inspired her to take a life-changing leap into the unknown
as told to JA M E S G IL L

W

hen my second daughter was
eight months old, she started
to develop patches of dry skin
behind her knees and on her elbows. Nothing
too serious, I thought it was pretty standard.
But it got worse and by the time she was 18
months old, she was covered head to toe in
weeping, bleeding skin.
We went to the doctor's and tried to
work out what was going on. We'd been
prescribed various creams and lotions, all the
conventional stuff you're given when you've
got a dry skin condition. It was diagnosed as
eczema, but we never really found out what
was causing it. What we really wanted was
a way of managing it. I tried everything:
exclusion diets, lifestyle changes, Chinese
herbs, removing dust mites, and so on.
My daughter was in bandages every day and
in a lot of pain. She didn't sleep at night and
was constantly itching and tearing at her skin
until she was referred to Great Ormond Street
Hospital, where she was going to be put on an
intensive course of steroids on a drip.

I HAD THIS
MAD IDEA TO
TRY TO SELECT
INGREDIENTS
MYSELF...

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Since then I've adjusted the formula a little,
but essentially what I created that day in my
kitchen is the same as is now on the shelves
at Boots, Holland & Barrett and available via
shopping channel QVC. Bear in mind I was an
actress, with no background in this sort of thing.
Before long I was making it for friends and
family. Now we've looking for investment
for the next expansion. My daughter is 20
now, and still uses the cream. The eczema
didn't go away completely - this cream
isn't a miracle cure. What it
does do is help with the
temporary symptoms,
like the itchiness and the
soreness, and also feeds
and nourishes the skin
long term. B

CHEMICAL REACTION
At that point, I lost my rag. In
desperation I'd scour books for
traditional ways of dealing with
skin issues, because what I'd
noticed in the ingredients of
some creams was there'd be one
useful ingredient, such as
calendula, and then lots
of chemicals they claimed
to be 'natural', but were not.
I had this mad idea to try
to select ingredients myself
and put together something
that didn't have a massproduced chemical base with
synthetic preservatives in. I
read about various plants and

what they did; things that have been used for
centuries by people with dried skin.
One of the things many people with dry
skin and eczema lack is enough essential
fatty acids in the skin. So I selected some cold
pressed organic oils and blended all the herbal
ingredients with that. Instead of chemical
emulsifiers I chose beeswax, a natural, unrefined
way of doing the same job. I started tinkering in
my kitchen, putting things together and mixing
it into an ointment that was 100% natural.
Then I tried it on her, one arm at a time. There
was no negative reaction. I started using it more
and more, and the first time I applied it all over
her body, she slept through the night. Prior to
that, she'd been waking six or seven times every
night. She was so peaceful I actually had to
check to make sure she was OK. When I realised
she was, that was the moment I knew I may have
hit on something that was going to help her.

I started tinkering in my
kitchen mixing an ointment
that was 100% natural.

January 2018 BA LA N CE

For more information,
see purepotions.co.uk

63
http://purepotions.co.uk
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Balance Jan Issue 2018
