What's that smell?? OH NO!

The other night, I was busily working in the kitchen when I think to myself "It smells like Mentholatum, weird." I look down and see my sweet little Chloe standing next to me to show me her "pitty" hair.


She was so proud that she had done her hair so nicely. She had plastered her hair with Mentholatum, which is like vaseline with menthol in it. Oh my! After I made sure she didn't have it in her eyes, I ran downstairs, where she had come from, to see what else was covered with the lovely smelling stuff. The mentholatum was just sitting nicely on the sofa with the lid off next to it. She was a girl on a mission, no messing around. She was awfully quick, Sean had run upstairs just a minute before.


She was so proud when I took her upstairs to show daddy what his little girl did. She said "pitty!" over and over. We were laughing so hard.


I got her in the bath and started washing her hair and I knew we were in trouble, it was so not coming out. I washed it about 5 times, then asked Sean if he had any ideas, he thought of baking soda because it removes grease, that was a no go. I called Nat, because she has 3 boys, perhaps one of them had done it at one time. Dave answered, Natelli was unavailable at the moment, so I asked him. He didn't really know what Mentholatum was so I told him it's like petroleum jelly/Vaseline. He said he didn't think that his kids had ever gotten it in their hair. He asked Nat (who, in her defense, was in the shower). Dave said "One of Teri's kids put petroleum in their hair." Nat quickly replied with "She needs to call Questar Gas!" Dave tells me to call them. I laughed and said "umm.... okay, thanks Dave. Bye." I didn't call Questar, I didn't think they'd be able to help me. I called my sister, she didn't know what takes the stuff out. I called my mom, she didn't answer. Nat called me back, laughing so hard! What she heard was "Teri has petroleum in the air." Also Vaseline sounds like gasoline which he also said. We still didn't think Questar could help, Nat included. She asked if I'd googled it, so after I could see again because I'd been laughing so hard I was crying, I googled it. The first page I looked at said Vaseline is nearly impossible to get out of hair and had 13 suggestions. The first being glycerin soap. I thought that would be the easiest, who would have glycerin soap? One of my neighbors came to mind. I called her, and her daughter came to my rescue, she had some! I tried that, it didn't work. Chloe was so tired, I just had to put her to bed with menthol grease hair. Connor and I kept reading the suggestions and were laughing so hard imagining what Chloe would let us do to her. Some of them being; a beaten egg, peanut butter, melting it with a hair dryer followed by blotting with a paper towel then shampoo, Coke, liquid dish soap, Tide laundry soap followed by a vinegar rinse, whiskey, it said it burns like crazy but it'll do the trick (no thanks, not on my baby), toothpaste, and lastly it said if all else fails use baby oil (more oil? no thank you!). When I got her out of bed in the morning her hair was all matted and greasy. I decided to try the baby oil cause it really couldn't get worse, right? I was getting excited thinking, it felt like it was coming out. Then I shampooed twice. She'd had it with me by this point and was clawing her way out of the tub. After it dried it was super shiny at least, but really oily.



I finally got a hold of my mom, she was laughing so hard she could hardly breath and asked if I took pictures (she didn't want to miss this one), but had no suggestions for me. Sean called from work to see if we got it out. Everyone at work had been googling what to do. Someone said to do olive oil followed by dish soap, I figured that was pretty much like baby oil so I put the sweet little girl back in the tub for a few more tries. I washed her hair with palmolive twice and shampooed twice, and Viola! She had beautiful hair again.


So, note to self: If anyone else smothers their hair in any petroleum based product, baby oil followed by liquid dish soap will do the trick. Sigh. It's all just a fun memory now. I'm glad I didn't have to call Questar for the petroleum!