We've gathered our most helpful tips for dry, itchy skin relief to share with you. We hope you find this information useful in your skin journey. 

1. Please always consult your preferred health professional first and foremost. Visit your Health professional, GP or Naturopath to assess your Eczema. They can help eliminate any infection and arrange for allergy testing.

2. Eczema and skin conditions can be a reflection of how well the body is dealing with the environment, and adjusting lifestyle factors can help. This article by Ben Warren from Be Pure talks about inflammation in the body and how it affects eczema-prone skin.

3. Begin applying Frankie Kawakawa Balm to help your Eczema up to 3 times a day. Our natural Kawakawa Balm is designed to soothe itchy inflamed skin and also create a strong barrier against moisture loss and external allergens - this is a crucial step in ensuring your Eczema does not worsen.

NZ Native Kawakawa has been used medicinally for centuries. The Kawakawa shrub (Macropiper excelsum) is a distinctive native New Zealand plant with aromatic heart-shaped leaves. It is one of the most important and widely used plants in Rongoā Māori (traditional Māori herbal medicine), and is still widely used as a topical treatment for dry, itchy irritated skin today - like in our best selling Kawakawa Balm.

The distinctive leaves of Kawakawa (Macropier excelsum) meant it was easily recognised by Māori as a relative of the famous Pacific Kava plant (Piper methysticum) when they arrived in New Zealand; and as you would expect, Kawakawa shares some of the medicinal properties of Kava - although not the mild narcotic effect!

See the Kawakawa based super stars of our dry, itchy skin care range here.

As well as Kawakawa Balm being an effective skin remedy, Kawakawa leaves can be chewed or made into a tea infusion to treat gastrointestinal stomach ailments, high cholesterol bladder problems, to balance blood sugar and blood pressure, and reduce the pain of tooth aches. In rongoā, Kawakawa was also used for bronchitis, rheumatism, bad bruising, burns, stings and insect bites, sunburn and dry, generally irritated skin. 

Dry, itchy skin conditions are often an inflammatory response within the body to some internal or external trigger. This is why finding out what's triggering your dry, itchy skin flares is so important - see the Eczema Triggers information above. However this can take some time and it's crucial to manage your skin condition before it gets out of hand and begins to affect your everyday life.

Once an inflammatory response is triggered, the body reacts by releasing a huge amount of moisture from the skin, which leads to the shredding of the outer skin layers, exposing the inner layers and altering the pH of the skin. This is what causes eczema damaged skin to become itchy, inflamed and raw.

Frankie Apothecary's Kawakawa Balm is an intensive natural moisturiser containing zero water. This means our Kawakawa Balm is strong enough to create a long lasting barrier over the skin, trapping in the moisture that is trying to seep from the skin. This also allows the soothing Kawakawa Balm actives enough time to do their job to support the repair of itchy, inflamed skin.

You may have tried many eczema creams or steroids for eczema and seen little difference. One reason may be because the water content in most eczema creams means they are just not strong enough to create a lasting barrier on the skin - and the synthetic chemicals required to preserve conventional eczema creams may be triggers in themselves.

We recommend applying Frankie Kawakawa Balm 3 times a day to very inflamed skin, and then once a day to help prevent future flare ups of irritation. Always consult your Health Care Professional.

The only exception to this is if you have used a steroid cream in the last 6-10 months. In that case, read how others have gradually swapped to using our natural range.