Two Bodies, One Transition

By Henrieta Haniskova, Former Nurse, Certified Clinical Aromatherapist, and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner

In short: Your skin and your newborn's skin are both changing at the same time. Your hormones drop after birth, and your baby's skin barrier is delicate and still developing, and it keeps maturing through their whole first year. Both of you need extra nourishment and protection right now. First Touch is one butter, made without water, that is safe for skin-to-skin and gentle enough for your baby's skin and yours.

"Is this normal? Should I be worried? I'm honestly afraid to put anything on my baby's skin."

That's almost always the first question, and it's almost always about the baby. The peeling on the hands and feet, the flaking, the patches that came out of nowhere on skin you pictured as perfect, the way everyone talks about baby skin. That picture of flawless baby skin is mostly a story advertising sold us.

I've heard that question hundreds of times. And I've heard the one that comes after it, quieter, weeks later, usually alone in the bathroom:

"I had the glow, and then one day it was gone. I don't recognize my own face."

So there are two skins and two very different fears.

About the baby, it's always some version of is this okay:

"Little snake skin, peeling everywhere." · "Everything I put on my baby's skin seems to make it worse."

About yourself, it's always some version of what happened to me:

"I suddenly have acne like a teenager." · "Everything irritates my skin now. Nothing works anymore."

One fear looks out at the baby. The other looks back at you from the mirror. And it's happening in two bodies at the same time.

What's happening to your skin

During pregnancy your hormones are higher than they'll ever be again. Then you give birth, and within hours they drop. Skin is one of the first places it shows. It gets drier, thinner and quicker to react, and it breaks out in places it never did before. The glow you had in pregnancy was real, and so is this.

This is your skin keeping up with the biggest hormone change your body will ever go through, so of course it shows. It lasts a while, too. Skin stays dry and reactive while hormones settle into their new level, and longer if you're breastfeeding. What helps is steady nourishment, kept up for as long as the change lasts.

What's happening to your baby's skin

For nine months your baby was wrapped in vernix, a waxy coat that protected their skin inside the fluid. Now that coat is gone, and the skin underneath is meeting open air, dry rooms, fabric and water for the very first time. So it sheds. It peels on the hands and feet, flakes, reddens, breaks out in baby acne, roughens into cradle cap, and reacts to almost everything.

This skin is delicate and still developing, and it keeps maturing for the whole first year. The barrier is there at birth, but it needs a great deal of care while it spends the year quietly growing into itself. It's thinner than yours, loses water faster and holds it less steadily. At first its surface is close to neutral, and over the early weeks it builds a slightly acidic layer, the acid mantle, that helps it defend itself. In those same weeks, a whole microbiome moves in and settles for the first time.

That's why the early months are harder on the skin than anyone warns you. The skin is adapting to dry air while it's still building itself. What helps is simple, rich nourishment, with fewer ingredients rather than more, gentle enough to support that adapting without getting in the way.

That's also why less is more at the very beginning. Any vernix still on the skin is doing quiet work, and the new surface is just learning to protect itself. It's the reason many doctors suggest sponge baths and plain water at first, and bathing only a few times a week. Given time and a gentle touch, the skin builds its own protection. Soaps and detergents, which many of us reach for out of love, even mild ones, can wear it down faster than the skin can rebuild.

What connects the two of you

From the outside, these weeks can look like a woman coming apart. From the inside it's closer to a cocoon, and what looks like falling to pieces is reorganizing. You're becoming a mother, and that's something you grow into over months and years, long after the day the baby arrives.

You and your baby are changing at the same time. Their skin is delicate and still developing, and will keep maturing for the whole first year. Yours is reacting to the hormone drop after birth, and will keep finding its balance for as long as your hormones do. Both of you need a little extra support from the outside.

There's an exchange going on, too. In these first weeks your baby's skin is being colonized for the first time, and the life that settles there comes largely from you: your skin, your touch, your milk and your scent. The same closeness that hands them their first microbiome also hands them warmth, steadiness and their first feeling of safety. In these weeks you're closer to one system than to two separate skins.

Two skins, changing together.

It's also a season when almost nothing is made for both of you. Thinner, more reactive skin means products that suited you before can start to sting or make you break out. And the scents and strong active ingredients in a lot of adult skincare are more than a newborn's skin and senses should meet this early. Most of us end up with one set of products for ourselves and another for the baby.

What both of you need

Royal Heir is made for exactly this window, for both of you at once, and it's made as butters, because butters are what this kind of skin can use.

For your baby: rich, saturated fatty acids, the closest thing there is to the vernix they just lost. It's simple, deep nourishment their still-maturing skin can use as it adapts to dry air, with fewer ingredients rather than more, in a butter gentle enough for daily use.

For you: deep nourishment for the months when your skin is at its most reactive and dry, made to carry you through the whole hormonal change, from the first drop to the far side of it.

And for both of you, safety is the whole point, built into the formula from the first batch:

• No endocrine disruptors, and nothing that interferes with hormonal health. Hormones are recalibrating in you and still forming in your baby, so that protection comes first.
• No preservatives, because none are needed. These are whipped butters made without water, so there's nothing in them for anything to grow in, and they hold without a preservative system at all. While your baby's microbiome is establishing itself, that means fewer unnecessary ingredients on the skin.
• Made for being close. Formulated from the first batch for skin-to-skin, for the hands that touch you both, and for a newborn's sensitive skin.

If you want one place to begin, start with First Touch. It's the butter made for the very first weeks: gentle enough to go on your baby's skin and on yours, and safe from birth. It's EWG Verified and made from food-grade ingredients, with only a light cocoa butter scent. So when your baby gets it on their hands and those hands go straight to the mouth, both are safe.

That light cocoa scent is the butter itself, with nothing added to it. It leaves room for the scent your baby is busy learning, which is yours. How your baby comes to know you by scent, and why it settles them, is its own story.

Why I made it this way

This came out of my own 3am. I trained as a nurse, so I knew the standard answers, and I knew what they cost. I knew how quickly people reach for steroid creams, and what that can do. And when I looked at what was on the shelves, I couldn't find one thing I felt was worth spending money on, for my baby or for me.

So I read. Studies and papers, in the dark, while I breastfed. I taught myself to formulate, and I made the first batches for the two of us, for my own baby's skin and mine, never for a margin.

That's why we still never cut a corner. These are the most vulnerable months either of you will go through, and your protection comes before any margin.

It's also why I made this as a ritual and not only a skincare product. Touch is one of the ways your nervous system settles, and scent is one of the ways your body feels safe. So the butters are made to work through both.

The First Year of Motherhood™

This is made for both of you: the butters above, and alongside them a letter every week for a year, naming what's happening in your body and your baby's body before you have to go searching at 2am, from someone who has already walked this terrain.

It's a guided year, shaped around the season you're in.

Join the Early Access Waitlist to hear first when places open.

If a whole year feels like a lot right now, you can begin with the First 40 Days Ritual. It's built for exactly these early weeks, a way to feel what this kind of care does and stay for as long as it serves you.

Begin with the First 40 Days Ritual.

What new mothers most often ask

Is my newborn's peeling skin normal?

Yes. In the first one to three weeks almost every newborn peels, usually on the hands, feet and ankles. For nine months your baby was wrapped in vernix, a waxy coat that protected their skin in the fluid. Now it's gone and the skin is meeting dry air for the first time. The visible peeling usually passes within the first month. The skin keeps maturing across the whole first year, though: it's thinner than yours, loses water faster, and only gradually builds the slightly acidic surface that helps protect it. That's why simple, rich nourishment suits it better than a light, mostly-water lotion. Gentle care is best: let the flakes lift on their own instead of peeling them, and keep the skin soft and nourished.

Why is my skin so dry and breaking out since I gave birth?

During pregnancy your hormones are at the highest levels they will ever reach. After birth they drop fast, and your skin is one of the first places it shows: drier, thinner, more reactive, and breaking out where it never used to. For most women it starts to settle as hormones find their new level. In the meantime, the gentlest, most nourishing care helps most.

Is it normal to feel like I don't recognize myself in the first weeks?

Yes, and it's one of the most common things mothers quietly carry in these weeks. Becoming a mother is something you grow into over months and years, long after the day the baby arrives. In these early weeks your skin, your body and your days all look different, so it can take a while to feel at home in them. That tends to ease as your body settles and the weeks find a rhythm.

Can I use the same skincare on my newborn and on myself?

Most skincare is made for one body at a time, an adult barrier or a newborn one, rarely both. First Touch is made for the weeks when both are changing at once: no added fragrance, no essential oils, safe from birth, and gentle enough to go on your baby's skin and on your own. The other Royal Heir butters, Pink, Blue and Bump, contain essential oils and have their own age guidance, so First Touch is the one for both of you in the first weeks.

Sources

The science here draws on peer-reviewed neonatal dermatology research. A newborn's skin barrier is present at birth but delicate and still developing, and keeps maturing across the first year, with skin thinner than an adult's and water lost more readily [1, 2]. Its surface begins close to neutral and develops its slightly acidic acid mantle over the first two to three months [3]. The skin microbiome establishes rapidly after birth, seeded largely by the mother, and grows in diversity through the first year [4]. Simple formulations with fewer unnecessary ingredients support the skin's natural adaptation in this window [5].

1. Nikolovski J, Stamatas GN, Kollias N, Wiegand BC. Barrier function and water-holding and transport properties of infant stratum corneum are different from adult and continue to develop through the first year of life. Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 2008;128(7):1728–1736.
2. Stamatas GN, Nikolovski J, Mack MC, Kollias N. Infant skin physiology and development during the first years of life: a review of recent findings based on in vivo studies. International Journal of Cosmetic Science. 2011;33(1):17–24.
3. Visscher MO, Adam R, Brink S, Odio M. Newborn infant skin: physiology, development, and care. Clinics in Dermatology. 2015;33(3):271–280.
4. Capone KA, Dowd SE, Stamatas GN, Nikolovski J. Diversity of the human skin microbiome early in life. Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 2011;131(10):2026–2032.
5. Telofski LS, Morello AP, Mack Correa MC, Stamatas GN. The infant skin barrier: can we preserve, protect, and enhance the barrier? Dermatology Research and Practice. 2012;2012:198789.