Vicks Baby Rub Is Still Oil Based

Just in case anyone was wondering, I'll offer up this tidbit of research that Gabe produced this morning. For those of you who feel the eucalyptus smell of Vicks Vap-o products "soothing" (as my wife does), this won't be news because you probably use the stuff with some regularity. For those who find the smell of Vicks "more offputting that the prospects of drooling snot out my nose and onto my pillow in the middle of the night" (as I do), however, this bit of information might come in useful some day. If, say, you want to know what products you should keep out of easy reach of your two years olds if easy cleanup is a concern.

This story begins, as most of mine seem to, with my back turned for a short while on my son. For over a year now, Gabe has been obsessed with brushing his teeth. Several times a day he will come up to me and say "Brush teeth!" and then proceed to cry if I don't immediately open the gate that allows him access into the bathroom and follow him in there to turn on the water and hand him his toothbrush.

Now, this doesn't mean that Gabe actually brushes his teeth. He doesn't. Once or twice a day I will put on a dab of his training toothpaste and brush his teeth for him. Then I hand him the brush and say, "Now, brush them again, really good." And he'll stick the brush in his mouth and suck off the last of the toothpaste. Then he'll put the toothbrush under the running water, get it wet, then suck the water off. For some reason, this game has not gotten old to him yet. In fact, it seems to be growing in popularity again.

The last two weeks, he will bug me to let him brush his teeth a dozen times or more a day. Now, however, the tooth brushing is hardly even a formality. I'll hand him his brush, he'll dunk it in the water once, suck it off, and then he'll start dinking around in the dripping water. He likes to fill a plastic cup that we use to rinse the kids' hair in the tub and then dump it out in the sink. Or he'll put the little sponge cars and trucks he got for Christmas in the water and play with them some.

Usually, because he throws a fit if I try to steer him out of the bathroom before he's spent a good five minutes playing in the faucet, I leave him be and go about my business for a few minutes then come back and tell him that he's done brushing his teeth. Sometimes there will be small spills on the floor or the bathroom sinktop, but nothing too serious. Again, anything that keeps him entertained for a few minutes is great in my books.

Today, however, he discovered that he could reach some of the things on the bathroom countertop, among them, a small container of Vicks Baby Rub. The Rub has been out for the past three or four weeks because the kids have been trading colds back and forth and Libby believes that the nasty, tingly, foul smelling goop actually helps. Well, it didn't help me today.

Not five minutes after I left the bathroom, I returned to let him know that he was done, and the sink, everything in and around it, and Gabe were smeared with nearly an entire container's worth of Baby Rub. Had I been thinking, I would have taken a picture at that point. Instead, I didn't think about it until I had already begun the cleaning process.

You can only sort of see the smears of jelly on things in this picture, partly because it's clear and doesn't show up very well and partly because I had already used a half dozen paper towels to get as much of the excess off as I could.

And because I have not had much experience with cleaning up petroleum spills, it took me a little trial and error to find something that would work to clean it all up. I started with soap, thinking, dumbly, that soap and water might clean it up. It IS a common household item and one would think that the manufacturers would keep easy clean up in mind. But they don't. Soap and water only served to make the stinky mess damp on the surface. So I worked with the paper towels for a few minutes, but that just ended up smearing most of it around.

Then I remembered my basic commercial fundamentals--"Dawn cuts through tough grease." Yes! Dawn can remove grease from pans and such, so it must work against oily things. And it did. I squirted a healthy dose into the sink and half filled it with warm water to set about cleaning. I started with Gabe's hands, and that was when I remembered the camera. I took the picture above then went back into the office to return the camera. When I came back, this was what was waiting for me:

Yes. That's Gabe eating soap bubbles. And he did it long enough for me to go back into the office, reclaim the camera, and come back to take the picture. He might still be doing it if I hadn't stopped him.

It took a bit of doing, but everything cleaned up rather nicely. Actually, I think the oil based nature of the Rub put a pretty nice shine on the wooden cabinet top and on the faucet (and probably will help to seal the wood for a time). So, if you can stand the smell, you might consider it an option for your surface shining needs.