I remember that......forgot all about it!!!

YES!!! We did that, as well. When I was in grade school, we would find one of those cardboard jewelry boxes, cut a hole in the bottom, poke our thumbs through, and surround our thumbs with cotton or guaze. Then, we'd pour iodine, mecurachrome, or methiolate all around the base of our thumbs and scare the bejeepers out of the neighbors by telling them that we'd found someone's thumb! LMAO!!!!!

I was a rotten kid, honestly.

Yeah, hubby's mom AND my own mom did that with themselves and us kids!

Hubby only remembers ONE time where he got burnt bad, and I have NO memories of being burnt bad (as kids).

As adults, though...many times...and we weren't using iodine, then!

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

When I was a teenager we used baby oil without the Iodine in it. It must have been really damaging on our skin. I have olive skin and have never been burnt a day in my life. But my brother however, once used cooking oil to sun bake and got so badly burnt he blistered.

Iodine wasn't big when I was a kid, but mecurachrome was HUGE! I loved that stuff. Everytime I cut myself my mum would paint pretty red pictures around it.

Yes, my mother and aunt did this. My last memory of this was in the 90s so it isn’t a lost concept. I think that intellectual inheritance can be lost over time. Some families are better than others at keeping the intellectual gold tightly weaved into the family. I think that my generation suffered the most. I remember thinking that all physicians were Gods. I trusted anyone wearing a white coat. I remember that I asked questions about all my grandmother's remedies as I was intrigued and wanted to learn as much as I could.

Two summers as a lifeguard, used Baby Oil and Iodine combo everyday, never once can I remember being sunburned, until later in time when I didn't use it. The best part was my summer tan lasted until Christmas or so it seemed.

This is interesting. I've never heard of doing this. How much Iodine did you mix in with the oil? How did you get it to mix, since the Iodine is water-based?

..and 10 years fall off his face every time he does it. He's in his 70's.

He showed me how to do it too-

Take the smaller (~6" high) bottle of plain Johnson's Baby Oil, put just barely enough off-the-shelf Iodine in it to slightly color the oil (The same brown Iodine you might buy in the grocery to put on a cut). I mean, you have to look twice at the Baby Oil even if it is next to an un-iodined bottle. Then shake it up until it blends together.

Then he uses just 3-4 drops on his fingertips, lightly whisks it around and spreads it over his face, including his neck.

My Sisters and I often used Baby Oil to tan with, over all those years in the Florida summer sun, we have Italian/Native American skin, you could call it olive I guess, and it worked great. We always only used either Baby oil or the more natural suntan oils (Like Native Tan) or Cocoa Butter.

We all stayed darkly tanned all our lives, never used that white zinc stuff nor any kind of a sunscreen- We are in our fifties now and not one of us has any sign or experience with any kind of skin cancer.

I have all my life been of the opinion that it is the unnatural over-convoluted chemical preparations that folks use on their skin (All those Petrochemicals) that is what's causing all this skin cancer, not our beautiful Sun.

Hmm, thanks for the great memories :)..

:)