By Nancy Webster

Being prepared isn’t just for Boy Scouts. It’s also essential for a good mom. But sometimes, real life throws a few curves that make staying prepared seem impossible. More than once I’ve held a crying child in one arm while digging frantically with the other through a messy cabinet of old lotions and potions for something appropriate to treat an owie. And finding the right treatment has only become more challenging as our family’s approach to diet and health care has gotten more and more alternative. There are very few “traditional” items I want in our medicine cabinet anymore.

Usually when I write an article like this one, I share a variety of (hopefully helpful) ideas, some of which take advantage of a select product or two in Beeyoutiful’s line-up. This time, though, I must tell you there’s only one way I’ve found to adequately address the two-pronged problem of preparation for emergency treatment and having healthy, natural options for first aid. And that one way is Beeyoutiful’s new, all-natural First Aid Kit. I’ve got to brag on it.

The Fantastic Four

Beeyoutiful’s kit contains a quadruple hit of heroic helpers: Tea Tree Oil, Miracle Salve, Ow-Ease, and Bee’s Aid. These products are safe to use except for infants and people with allergies to bee products. Even pregnant and nursing mothers should have no problems but double-check with your personal health care provider to be sure it’s all right for you. Each of the great ingredients deserves an overview of its specific benefits.

(1) Tea Tree Oil. This all-purpose essential oil can replace most of your medicines-and most of your household cleaning supplies. Beeyoutiful’s is 100% pure, pharmaceutical grade tea tree oil. It provides generous amounts of terpinen, the active ingredient responsible for the oil’s astounding anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal abilities not usually found in lesser brands.

Use tea tree oil instead of first aid spray and anti-bacterial ointments for cuts, scrapes, infections, irritated hair follicles, blisters, boils, and even acne. It’s safe for use on broken skin and can be applied without diluting. A drop or two is all it takes. You can also combine tea tree oil with Vitamin E oil or aloe vera gel to soothe minor burns and sunburn. And regular application will dissolve both plantar and seed warts safely. (Please don’t use toxic, over-the-counter wart removal medications!)

Skin conditions like eczema, seborrhea, and psoriasis are soothed when tea tree oil is mixed with aloe gel or added to a warm, sea salt bath. Minimize infection, reduce scarring, and speed healing from chicken pox and shingles by adding tea tree oil and a cup of dry oatmeal to a warm bath.

Tea tree oil massaged into the scalp relieves both dry and oily hair problems, plus dandruff. You’ll have no more worries about toxic head lice potions since tea tree oil eradicates lice, too!

Skip the expensive vaginal yeast infection medicine you usually don’t realize you need until late at night. Just soak a tampon in olive oil or another safe lubricant, add a few drops of tea tree oil, and insert. Repeat for a few days. Sitz baths tinged with tea tree oil can also relieve the related itching and pain. Other fungal infections like jock itch, athlete’s foot, ringworm, and nail fungus respond to regular tea tree oil application as well.

Because tea tree oil acts as an expectorant and is beneficial to the respiratory tract, use it instead of cough syrups and cold medicines. Mix with olive oil and spread on your patient’s chest and throat. Make a steam inhalation treatment by adding a few drops of tea tree oil to a bowl of boiling water, or diffuse the oil in a vaporizer or aroma lamp to open ailing air passages and disinfect the sickroom. Soothe an earache and clear up the infection by mixing a drop of TTO with a bit of warm olive oil. Insert this mixture into the ear and plug with a bit of cotton. Add a hot water bottle or heating pad and relief will be quick.

Cold sores, mouth ulcers, and toothaches can all be helped by regular application of tea tree oil. Just don’t swallow the saliva right after application. Disinfect your toothbrush every week with a drop or two, then rinse well. If your family keeps passing around strep throat or a cold, this is very important!

Nature lovers love tea tree oil because it makes a great flea, tick, and mosquito repellant and will disinfect and reduce swelling if you’re bitten or stung. Mixed with baking soda, it makes an inexpensive home remedy for poison ivy, poison oak, and sumac itching.

Replace your toxic household cleaners with a spray bottle of 12 oz. warm water, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of borax, plus a few drops of tea tree oil for a safe, refreshing disinfectant cleaner. Add a drop to your dishwasher’s soap dispenser and to your garbage disposal to freshen them up. Add to your laundry to disinfect while you clean.

(2) Miracle Salve. A powerful blend of nature’s best-coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, beeswax, bee propolis, organic plantain leaf, organic comfrey root, organic calendula flowers, and essential oils of lavender and rosemary-moisturize and soothe while providing anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory aid to skin irritations and injuries. This summer-leaf-colored cream is as healthy as it looks. Spread a dab of Miracle Salve on:

Cuts and abrasions

Stubborn splinters

Insect bites and stings•

Inflamed and swollen injuries or bruises

Painful or itchy hemorrhoids

Diaper rash and tender bottoms•

Dry, chapped skin•

Minor burns•

Yeast-related rashes like eczema and psoriasis•

Cold sores•

Post-staph infection and skin surgery sites (to reduce scarring, • apply daily for 2-3 months)

(3) Ow-Ease. When a bump, bruise, sprain or other “owie” happens, reach for Ow-Ease. A smooth, creamy blend of beeswax and olive and coconut oils is the mellow base for a dream team of herbs and essential oils known for their anti-inflammatory, restorative abilities. The star of this team is wild-crafted arnica, famous for erasing bruises and swelling with record-breaking speed. From a little bump to a sprained ankle to a broken bone, amazing arnica will get to work immediately, stimulating and increasing the action of white blood cells whose job is to digest congested blood. Arnica also reabsorbs trapped fluids from bruised tissues, helping to quickly take down the swelling and pain.

Sore muscles from a New Year’s resolution exercise, joint pain from a weekend of tossing the football too many times, and other sports injuries will all be relieved by quick and regular application of Ow-Ease-convenient to apply thanks to its stick applicator. Just remember not to use Ow-Ease on broken skin because it’s not safe for internal use.

(4) Bee’s Aid. This brand new addition to the Beeyoutiful product line is a multi-use spray which heals and provides pain relief at the same time. Once while waiting to see a dentist for a broken tooth, I used it liberally to soothe pain and prevent infection on the surrounding gums. A proprietary blend of raw honey, propolis, purple loosestrife, and Usnea in pure grain alcohol and water, Bee’s Aid has what it takes to fight infection.

Propolis is the glue bees make to hold together their hives. It’s well known for its germicidal properties. Purple loosestrife, regarded by many as a noxious weed which can overtake wetlands, is highly prized by herbalists for its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties and used especially on ulcers, sores, wounds, and gum issues. Usnea is a lichen you’ve probably seen growing on dead tree branches. This common plant is an immune system tonic, considered more effective than Echinacea against strep and staph infections, especially in the respiratory tract.

The combined power of Bee’s Aid ingredients can greatly alleviate and help heal sore throats, inflamed gums, and mouth sores. A tiny bit applied by your fingertip or a cotton swab will bring help to tight spots in your mouth or to little ones’ mouths suffering from teething.* Or spray Bee’s Aid on cuts, wounds, insect bites, and acne.

I’m grateful Beeyoutiful has prepared me to be prepared. Its effective paramedic team makes me feel good and healthy about how I manage ouches, itches, stings, bruises, and whatever owies come our way. Keep a Beeyoutiful First Aid Kit on hand yourself, and you’ll be ready with first aid that-dare I say it?-is even better than what the (traditional) doctor ordered.

*Important: Bee’s Aid is safe for all ages-except for babies under twelve months old and for those with known allergy to bee products.