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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Many Uses for Milk of Magnesia!


Who would have thought that the thick, white, chalky, foul mixture called Milk of Magnesia (MoM), normally used as a laxative, could be used for other health issues. Yes, according to Joe and Terry Graedon's The People's Pharmacy, Milk of Magnesia may help with the following:

1. ACNE: Rub it on face, at bedtime. One reader wrote how it helped their son's cystic nodular acne. The Graedons had no explanation as to why it helped.

2. SEBORRHEIC DERMATITIS: Rub on skin. According to the Graedons this has been known to help.

3. ANTIPERSPIRANT/DEODORANT: Spread on underarms with fingers. Some people swear by this. And, it's safe to use because it contains no aluminum. And no stains.

I have no idea if any of these home remedies actually work, but it's probably worth a try. If MoM is made to ingest, there certainly shouldn't be a problem applying it to the skin.

However, I remember being told, as a teen, that Mercurochrome was good for skin problems. So, I liberally applied it to my face one evening. I was scheduled to take the SATs the following day. When I woke up the next morning and went to wash it off, I found that nothing could remove the red splotches plastered all over my face. They failed to specify it had to be the white Mercurochrome.

Considering Milk of Magnesia is white, you should have no problems.

UPDATE 10/08: I decided to give it a try as a deoderant, and it does work!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im in the process of inventing my own natural facial foundation cream. I have tried a couple of homemade recipes but they leave my face very oily, and I have an oily skin already so that didnt work for me. Then one day I just wet a cotton with milk of magnesia, applied it on my face (thin layer) let it dry and then applied my regular face powder. It worked great!!Not oily at all, face looks silky and clean. Now Im goint to experiment with mini bits of cofee (strained)or maybe organic cocoa powder to give it some 'skin color' and see if this works. By the way, I have been using milk of magnesia as a deodorant for 4 weeks now, its perfect, zero odor, zero staining. I put it on a spray bottle and give myself 3-4 sprays under each arm, let it dry or dry it with the blower and I will be odor free for 12 or more hours. My husband tried it in the morning, then worked all day mowing the lawn and doing hard yard work, came in in the evening sweating heavily and... no smell at all. We love it.

Incognito said...

That's interesting about using it on the face as a foundation!

And I still use the m.o.m. for my underarms and it really helps! I do put some powder over it and then add my Tom's Of Maine deoderant, but it's great. doesn't work as well for me as it does for your hubby, but so much better than without.

thanks for your comment!!

Anonymous said...

Never heard of using MoM for underarms. This sounded so strange that I had to try it. I put it on yesterday when going to work. I had my regular deodorant to take with me just in case MoM didn't work. When I left home, I realized I had forgotten to bring my deordorant wtih me. So now it was all or nothing. UNBELIEVABLE!!! No odor all day, nothing! This is too good to be true! I will continue with this. I think it works better than deodorant because I have sensitive skin and can't use all of them and sometimes the "mild" ones didn't protect long enough. But MoM is the truth. Never would've believed it.