Breast Milk Soap: It Does a Body Good?

With all the news about scary chemicals in soaps and detergents, getting back to natural products is supposed to do a body good.

But Japanese actress Asaka Seto is taking that old "milk: it does a body good" slogan too far.

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She's making soap from her breast milk.

Time for a disclaimer: Yes, breast is best.

FOR YOUR BABY.

For the same reason that women will tell you breastfeeding is the way to go -- because it's specifically made by a mother's body for her specific offspring -- it's a waste to use it in other methods.

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Seto isn't the first to do it; I wrote about a doula and reiki master from Maine who was doing the same thing almost a year ago. The difference here: According to InventorSpot, Seto isn't actually selling the stuff .

But I'm still flummoxed. Is this really better for your health than any other product?

Says InventorSpot, the soap is made from "olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, heat-treated breast milk, and purified water."

Milk has traditionally been added to soaps to nourish skin . And vegetable-based soaps -- using oils like Seto has pulled together rather than animal fat -- have been proven to help with eczema and have less environmental impact.

Breast milk is not approved for sharing unless it's been cleared through a certified milk bank, so selling this stuff isn't necessarily safe -- no matter how "heat-treated" it is. But it seems it could be OK if kept in the family.

Which still begs the question: If you have time to pump and make all this soap, who is feeding the baby?

Written by Jeanne Sager for CafeMom's blog, The Stir.

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