My Family Has Eczema. This Is Our Story.

If you live with eczema, you know the drill. The itch that wakes you up at 2 a.m. The patches that appear right when you have somewhere important to be. The frustration of trying product after product, hoping this one will finally be different. The long sleeves in summer heat — not because you're cold, but because you don't want anyone to see.

I know that drill personally. And so does my family.

This is our story. It's messy, it's real, and it's why Violet Botanical exists.

 

It Started with a Misdiagnosis

Years ago, I noticed something on my wrist and elbow. Red, irritated, and itching in a way I couldn't ignore. I went to my primary care doctor, who took one look and said: ringworm.

Back in my day, ringworm carried a stigma. It was whispered about as a sign of uncleanliness — something you got if you weren't taking care of yourself properly. I was embarrassed, and I was sent home with a prescription for the wrong condition entirely.

The itch didn't stop. It got worse. And here's the honest truth: I scratched. I scratched during the day. I scratched at night — so vigorously that I started trying to stop myself. I wore socks on my hands at night to keep from scratching. That didn't work. So I cut the foot out of a sock and pulled the tube over my arm like a sleeve. That didn't work either.

Between the scratching and the wrong treatment — medication prescribed for ringworm, not eczema — my skin got infected.

Weeks passed before I went back to my doctor. When she looked at my arm, she said: "It looks angry. Why didn't you come in sooner?" She gave me a priority referral to a dermatologist.

In the dermatologist's office, I finally got a real answer: eczema. Not ringworm. Eczema.

I exhaled. Because at least it wasn't the thing people whispered about. At least it had a name.

But then came the prescription: a topical steroid cream. And a pharmacist who carefully explained I'd need to cycle it — use it, stop, use it again — to avoid something called topical steroid withdrawal. I wasn't happy about it. The cycling, the dependency, the potential for the very things I was trying to fix to come back worse if I stopped wrong — it all sat uncomfortably with me.

Then the pharmacist said something almost as an aside that changed everything. He mentioned quietly that he hadn't found relief for his own children's eczema until he explored Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I heard that and thought: if plants could help his family, what could my plants do for mine?

Science note: Topical corticosteroids have been the standard first-line treatment for eczema for over 40 years, confirmed by peer-reviewed research including a 2023 systematic review in Skin Health and Disease. They work — but research also confirms that stopping them after prolonged use can trigger a rebound effect known as topical steroid withdrawal (TSW), characterized by burning, itching, and skin sensitivity. The National Eczema Association published reviews on TSW in both 2015 and 2021, and new NIH research is shedding light on its biological cause. This is why some patients and caregivers seek complementary approaches alongside standard care.

My Husband Was Diagnosed First. Then Our Son.

My husband was diagnosed before me. His eczema presented on his lower legs — and when he came home from the dermatologist, he had a one-pound tub of medium-to-strong potency corticosteroid ointment. The kind of prescription that comes with a list of potential side effects: burning, itching, irritation, dry skin, skin thinning.

Read that again. The side effects of the medication prescribed to relieve itching, redness, swelling, and inflammation included — burning, itching, irritation, and dry skin.

The very things it was supposed to help could potentially make things worse.

That didn't sit well with me at all.

I wasn't willing to accept that as the only option. I started researching. I read about plant-based approaches to eczema relief. I found that certain African botanicals had documented benefits for dry, inflamed, sensitive skin — botanicals rooted in traditions that understood skin long before pharmaceutical companies existed. I was channeling the spirit of my maternal grandmother. Her generation reached for plants before prescriptions, not because they were naive, but because plants were their medicine. I decided to trust that instinct.

Then our son was diagnosed. He was a baby. His eczema appeared on his cheeks — rosy, inflamed patches that I noticed the way only a new mother notices things: immediately, with her whole heart.

I want to be honest about how that felt: I thought I had done something wrong. I was a new mother, terrified and in love in equal measure, and seeing my baby's face inflamed made me feel like I had failed him somehow. When we were out in public, I worried about what people thought — that they'd look at his cheeks and judge me as a mother.

If you've ever felt that way — as a parent of a child with eczema — I need you to hear this: you didn't cause this. Eczema involves a complex interaction of genetics, immune response, and environmental triggers. It is not your fault.

Our pediatrician recommended eliminating dairy — one of the most well-documented food triggers for eczema in children. We did it as a family. No half measures. If our son couldn't have dairy, neither would we. The hardest part for me personally? Cheese. And ice cream. (If you know, you know.) But nut milks were coming into their own, and we never looked back.

My son still gets mild flares during summer heat. But he manages without prescription drugs. That means everything to me.

 

My Skin Was Trying to Tell Me Something for Years

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then: my skin had been trying to tell me something for years. Long before the ringworm misdiagnosis. Long before the infected arm. All the way back to high school.

In high school, I saw a dermatologist about my skin. He looked at me and said: “You have sensitive skin.” His recommendation? Try Dove soap or pHisoDerm.

That was it. No further investigation. No mention of eczema. Just a two-word descriptor and a trip to the drugstore. I spent my allowance money on those products. They didn’t help. I still itched. It felt like a waste of money I didn’t have much of.

So I did what teenagers do when a doctor doesn’t give them real answers: I moved on and lived with it. Reactive skin became my normal. Commercial soaps, harsh products, anything with a long ingredient list of things I couldn’t pronounce — my skin protested all of it. I just thought that was who I was.

The medical system had given me two answers over the course of my life: ringworm, and sensitive skin. Both were wrong. Both sent me away without real help. It wasn’t until I was sitting in that dermatologist’s office as an adult — finally getting the word “eczema” — that everything clicked into place.

 

Then Stress Showed Up on My Skin

Years later, the eczema I'd been carrying without a name finally had one — and it announced itself clearly on my wrist and elbow.

What brought it on was a housing situation that I can only describe as relentlessly stressful. Our landlord made our lives genuinely difficult in ways that ground on us day after day, month after month. There was no relief from it. It was the kind of chronic stress that lives in your body — and for me, it lived on my skin.

Research confirms what I was experiencing firsthand: chronic psychological stress impairs the skin's barrier function and triggers an immune response that causes eczema to flare. It's not "just stress." It's a documented biological cycle — stress weakens the skin barrier, the barrier dysfunction worsens inflammation, the inflammation increases stress, which triggers more flares. A study published in Acta Dermato-Venereologica found that chronic stress, more than acute stress, is particularly damaging because it sustains the inflammatory response over time.

I stood in store checkout lines in 90-degree heat wearing long sleeves. Not because I was cold. Because I didn't want anyone to look at my arm with disgust. I had sundresses in my closet that I didn't wear that summer. I showed up overdressed everywhere and pretended I was fine.

That embarrassment was real. The isolation of hiding it was real. If you have been there, I see you.

We took our landlord to court. We won. We bought a home. We closed that chapter and didn't look back.

And slowly — as the chronic stress lifted, as I finally had a home that felt like safety — my skin started improving.

I have been in remission for eight years. When I feel that familiar stress itch beginning — and I do still feel it sometimes, because stress doesn't disappear from life, it just changes shape — I recognize it now. I calm myself. I interrupt the cycle before it becomes a full flare. It's not magic. It's awareness, built over years of paying attention to my own skin.

 

The Plants That Helped Us

With my husband's diagnosis, my son's diagnosis, and eventually my own, I went deep into research on plant-based approaches to eczema relief.

I found that a number of botanicals — many of them rooted in African traditions — had real, documented benefits for dry, inflamed, and sensitive skin. This wasn't folklore dressed up as science. Peer-reviewed research published in PMC found that plant oils including shea butter, jojoba oil, and high-linoleic sunflower oil showed anti-inflammatory and skin barrier repair effects. The science was catching up to what generations of women before me had already known.

I started blending. Testing. Formulating. I made things at home and my family used them. Things improved.

That work — born out of necessity, research, and a deep refusal to accept that a one-pound tub of corticosteroid ointment was the only answer — became Violet Botanical Skincare.

 

What This Is — and What It Isn't

I want to be clear about something before we go any further.

I am not a dermatologist. I am not making medical claims, and I am not suggesting that what worked for my family will work for yours. Eczema is complex. It presents differently in different people. Triggers vary. What soothes one person's skin may not soothe another's.

What I am is a formulator and a person who has walked this path — as a teenager who spent her allowance money on soap that didn’t help, as a patient who went undiagnosed for years, as a caregiver for a husband and a son, and as a woman who stood in a store checkout line in August in long sleeves because she wasn’t ready for anyone to see her skin.

I’ve done the research. I’ve felt the itch at 2 a.m. I’ve spent my allowance money on a doctor’s recommendation that did nothing. I’ve felt the embarrassment of hiding in long sleeves in the summer heat. I’ve felt the helplessness of watching my baby’s face flare and not knowing why. I’ve felt the relief of finally getting a real answer after years of being dismissed. And I’ve felt what it’s like to finally find something that helps.

If you've been searching for someone who actually understands what you're going through —

then you've found her.

Disclaimer: This post reflects personal experience and is not intended as medical advice. If you have eczema or a skin condition, please consult a qualified dermatologist or healthcare provider. Research sources: Lin TK et al. (2018) Anti-Inflammatory and Skin Barrier Repair Effects of Topical Application of Some Plant Oils — PMC; Harvey et al. (2023) Long-Term Safety of Topical Corticosteroids in Atopic Dermatitis — Skin Health and Disease; Steinhoff M et al. (2012) Psychoneuroimmunology of Psychological Stress and Atopic Dermatitis — Acta Dermato-Venereologica; NIH/Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2025) Topical Steroid Withdrawal research.