DIY Natural Vapor Rub with Kid-Safe Version

This Homemade Vapor Chest Rub is an affordable, easy recipe that's made with all natural ingredients.

It can help relieve discomfort associated with stuffy noses, coughs, and chest congestion, so you and your family can feel better fast and everyone can get a better night's sleep.

Also, I've put together a child-safe version so you can have confidence you're using a product that's gentler for young children when used properly.

Most of us remember the soothing smell of Vicks from when mom brought it out during cold and flu season. The menthol scent basically kind of makes you feel better just smelling it.

What you might not know, however, is that the ingredients in commercial vapor rubs, while not super toxic, are not the best.

Thankfully, this homemade vapor rub recipe works just as well as “the real thing” and it's made with only 100% clean ingredients.

Making your own natural products is great since you can customize them as needed while choosing better options for ingredients than what's used in most over the counter products.

Our DIY Chest Rub Experience

One night, our youngest son's nose was completely stuffed up. It was allergy season, so a bit of sniffling was normal, but a fully-clogged nose was not.

He was pretty miserable.

I reached for my trusted saline nasal spray and encouraged lots of nose blowing, but he still couldn't breathe well.

I quickly experimented, whipped up a batch of this rub and put some on my son's chest.

About ten minutes later, he was asleep.

Is Vicks Vapor Rub Safe?

The truth is, store bought Vapor Rub isn't great, but it's not worthy of a hazmat suit either.

Compared to spraying glyphosate on your weeds (that's been heavily linked to cancer) and using perfume-laden products Vicks Vapor Rub isn't that bad.

For example, one blogger refers to Vicks as “deadly vapor rub”, but really that's just way too harsh.

However, here are some ingredients in Vicks you might want to avoid by making your own homemade vapor rub instead.

Petrolatum – Derived from petroleum, which is known to be often contaminated with PAHs, which have been classified by the European Union as a carcinogen and are also linked to skin irritation and allergies.

Synthetic Essential Oils – Vicks clearly states that the camphor oil in their product is synthetic. While they claim it's just as effective as natural camphor, it's still, in my opinion, best to avoid that and use pure essential oils instead.

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Ingredients

Here's a basic list of the simple ingredients used for this DIY Chest Rub. For the full details and measurements, see the recipe card below.

• carrier oil
• eucalyptus essential oil
• peppermint essential oil
• lavender essential oil
• rosemary essential oil
• tea tree essential oil
• beeswax (optional)

Instructions

Following are the basic instructions for making this chest rub. For more detailed information, see the recipe card below.

Melt the carrier oil, if needed.

Add essential oils and optional beeswax, and stir.

Store in a glass container.

Menthol Crystals and Camphor Oil

While I don't use them in this formula, there are some posts about DIY vapor rubs out there recommending the use of menthol crystals and camphor oil. While you can of course use either of these in your rub, here are a few things to consider.

Menthol crystals are very intense and some people have reported discomfort while using them. If you choose to try them, you would only need to use about 1/8 teaspoon of crystals for this formula. A little bit really goes a long way.

Note that camphor is toxic. Though it's truly only toxic in large amounts, it's still best to use caution, especially with children. You can read more about camphor toxicity here.

How to Use

Of course the typical use for a chest rub is–on your chest! Pretty clever, huh?

It's great to keep in your natural medicine cabinet to help open airways, address and more. However, vapor rub is also known for helping with sore muscles and joint pain, and even more. See this post for more alternative uses for vapor rub.

How to Make a Kid-Safe Chest Rub

Since you're likely going to be using this DIY chest rub on kids, it's crucial to know the following safety information about essential oils use for kids.

The type and concentration of the oils used makes a lot of difference.

Eucalyptus, peppermint, and rosemary are well known for respiratory support, but you have to be very careful using these around young children.

Eucalyptus, rosemary, and peppermint all contain 1,8, cineole, which can sometimes cause problems with the temperature receptors in kids' lungs leading to breathing difficulties. I could get into a lot more details, but here's some basic information.

Rosemary, isn't recommended for kids under 10.

Most forms of eucalyptus (eucalyptus globulus and eucalyptus radiata) aren't considered to be safe for kids, however Eucalyptus Dives is fine, but is harder to find.

Peppermint is also problematic for the above reasons.

Thankfully there are other oils that support respiratory function that can be used for kids, some of which are lavender and lemon. I provided a kid-safe option in the recipe card, but you can make your own knowing the following basic math details.

There are 295 drops in a tablespoon. 3 drops of an essential oil in 1 tablespoon of a carrier oil (replacing the carrier oil) would be a 1% dilution. 6 drops would be a 2% dilution, and so on)

Here are the safe dilution details for different age groups.

Ages 2-5: 1%. Can use up to 3% for short periods of time

Ages 6-9: 2-3%. Can use up to 6% for short periods

Under Age 2: Diffuse only

Best Essential Oils for Vapor Rub

For adults, common options include eucalyptus, peppermint, rosemary, lavender, and tea tree. For kids, I prefer gentler oils like lavender, frankincense, lemon, and tea tree in a very low dilution.

I'd love to hear how this works for you!