Can neem oil cause skin reactions?

Can neem oil cause any sort of reaction to eczema skin? I used it on my son but it seems all his past eczema spots have come back again after using the oil. Is this normal, should I carry on applying it?

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Can neem oil cause skin reactions?

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Neem oil and eczema skin
by: Birgit

Hi, I'm afraid that is not enough information for me to be able to really help you. Unfortunately you left no name and email address, so I could not follow up with you to find out more. I'll have to make some guesses and general observations instead.

You say you applied neem oil. Straight neem oil?

Neem oil is a wonderful skin care ingredient with near magical properties. But "ingredient" is the important word. You do not use it straight. Just like you do not apply tea tree oil straight, or any other concentrated oil with medicinal properties.

(See my page Neem oil and eczema, and scroll down to the heading "How To Use Neem Oil As An Eczema Remedy". That point is covered there.)

It is not recommended to use undiluted neem oil on healthy skin, though usually there is no problem with this, only when people have some kind of sensitivity to any of neem's components.

But I certainly would not suggest to put it on hypersensitive eczema skin. I would not at all be surprised if that causes a reaction. If you have indeed been putting straight, undiluted neem oil on your son stop using it.

Now, let's assume you didn't use neem oil, but you used a product containing neem oil. Without knowing what you used nobody can say what caused the reaction.

Many products are advertised as wonder cures because they contain some neem, but once you look at the ingredients there are all sorts of other synthetic nasties in the bottle.
Continued from above
by: Birgit

My niece suffers from eczema real bad. Even a warm bath (warm, not hot,) as recommended for eczema, with no additives at all, makes her whole body react and go bright red. My sister tried everything just to find a moisturising solution that would not cause a massive flare up. Even the most gentle and hypo-allergenic medical products that the dermatologist recommended caused vicious reactions.

And then, finally she found something. And it was a pretty cheap, all purpose cream that had very few ingredients at all. She is now experimenting with adding neem oil and neem leaf extract to that lotion, but we don't know more yet. (My sister lives in Germany so it's winter, and my niece's skin has settled down anyway. Warm weather is what gives her the most trouble.)

I'm telling you this story so you understand that eczema skin is very fickle, and needs to be cared for accordingly. Just smearing on pure oil, or any product that has a bit of neem in it, will rarely give successful results.

Neem is not some wonder cure that will make eczema go away as soon as somebody comes in contact with neem in any form. But neem is probably the best treatment to relief eczema symptoms that we know of today.

Every case is different, and for some it takes a bit of experimenting to find the right product. There are neem products that have been especially developed for eczema skin. They would make a good starting point. (Not knowing which part of the world you live in I can't make recommendations). Adding a bit of neem oil to the bath water has worked wonders for some people (but keep my niece in mind, too). If you do have a preferred product already you can try adding a bit of neem oil or neem leaf extract to that.

I hope you will find a solution for your son for now, and that he will grow out of it soon, like many children do.

General info:

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