User's Guide to Treating Seborrheic Dermatitis with Tea Tree Oil

This is terribly written, lots of type-os and misspellings! I can edit and proofread. Please let me, this is very difficult to read!

Hi Arika,
I’ve been meaning to go through each post and fix all the grammatical issues. My main objective was to delivery the information.
If you can help me out, it would be much appreciated.

I had success treating my scalp using t gel or dhs zinc shampoo, but recently I developed eczema around my eyes (not seborrheic dermatitis). After some trial and error, I have concluded that the shampoos are causing the eczema. That cleared up with a few days of no makeup and eczema lotion. However now my scalp is an itchy nightmare!! It’s visible because the worst areas are around the hairline. I was hoping tea tree oil would be my savior, but now I’m worried it will make my eyes raw again since the problem area is so close to my face. Any suggestions?

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for checking in and providing details regarding the DHS. Zinc pyrithione products seem to be fairly effective across the board.

As for the tea tree oils, it’s probably to strong around the eyes. The fumes alone can irritate the eyes and cause issues.

For about a year now I’ve been having good success with Cetaphil Restoraderm products. I’ve briefly outlined this towards the end of this post. Other readers have also reported fairly good results, however some had reported irritation and burning feeling. So, it’s probably a good idea to try to locate some samples of the stuff. If your in Canada you can write Cetaphil directly and they will mail you a sample, otherwise check your local paediatric clinic as they typically carry a wide variety of samples.

Hope that helps and best of luck!

Hi Michael,

Have you ever tried mixing tea tree oil with honey at all?

I’ve used manuka honey as a cleanser or mask for a month and it has done wonders for flaking around my cheeks, but has never really helped my chin. Last night I tried adding tea tree oil to a mask and saw immediate results around my chin. Certain areas were flake free…I haven’t seen that in a long time.

I’m not sure if the tea tree oil would work that fast?..or if the mask is finally penetrating the flakes on my chin. Anyways, thanks for all your work! This site has been a wealth of knowledge for someone who’s just recently dealing with seb derm.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the update.

Unfortunately I have not tried this. Seems interesting, but overall I don’t think I had any success with mixing any of the natural treatment options. Keeping it simple always seemed to have the best results.

Sounds like the tea tree may have killed the bacteria in that area. Likely that’s where your sebum concentration is the most suitable for their survival and growth. Or as you mentioned, maybe the the mask has finally penetrated.

Amazing that you have kept up with the honey for a whole month. Personally, was never able to keep on with the lengthy regimen as something always seemed to come up.

Look forward to any future updates and best of luck.

Just to update, it’s been 7 days that I’ve added 1 drop of 100% tea tree oil to my honey regimen. My chin has never been this flake free and is continuing to improve! No longer do I have this seb derm film (biofilm??) that has plagued me for months on my chin.

Adding the tea tree oil also coincides with me starting to pre-mix my honey with filtered water. Before I was just applying tap water to my face and then applying honey. I’m not quite sure if it’s strictly the tea tree oil or using filtered water that has helped, but it is encouraging!

A bit of background: This will be week 5 that I’ve used manuka honey cleansing day and night, using the honey mask for 1-3 hours every other day (so time consuming). No other topicals.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the update and good to hear about the results! Hope things stick around.
Yeah, it would be hard to say, but sounds like the anti-fungal properties complimented the honey well for you.

Just an update from my end as well. Have actually stopped using Cetaphil and haven’t washed my face with anything but water for the past 1.5 weeks. My skin currently looks even better than while using the Cetaphil. The only think I’ve been using is a simple lotion I made for myself. Waiting for packaging and hoping to send out samples to community members.

All the best and let me when you have further updates. Would be interesting to see if you can replicate the long term results as the study.

I used tea tree long term generally with olive oil as a carrier, and i found very similar results to you. Works great in the short term but in the long term seems to irritate my skin.

I have been using fractionated coconut oil in combination with SLS free shampoo. It has not been effective
I am now dabbing apple cider vinegar onto my scalp, so far without success.
I am shocked by how much hair I am losing and can see myself being as being a bald FEMALE pensioner. Can anyone help?
Dawn

Hi Dawn,

Sorry to hear that. Ketoconozole seems to be the standard treatment approach from doctors, so you may consider giving this a try if nothing else is working.
For me, I’ve been using this shampoo for a while now and it seems to control the scalp most of the time. If I do see a random spot appear (usually around hairline), I use a bit of the Biom8 that I’ve recently created (details here).

Tea tree, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, and most other things didn’t work too well for my scalp.
Strange that the shampoo mentioned above fixed things so well for me.

Hope that helps and best of luck.
PS. You can also join the community, perhaps other members might have some input.

With all the short term solutions you’ve found (tea tree oil, shampoo, etc), have you ever alternated between them? For example, use the tea tree oil until its ineffective then switch to shampoo, then revert back to the oil.

Hi Carrie,

Not specifically, but with all the solutions I had attempted I guess I was inherently alternating between them.
In my journey I had always just wanted to understand what was going on and why the skin condition was there in the first place.

Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best.

I have seborrheic lesions on my scrotum and severely dry skin on my testicles. is it safe to use the tea tree oils in that area of my body?

Hi Robert,

Personally wouldn’t recommend using any essential oils (such as tea tree) in those areas. These oils are quite volatile and may not be the best choice for sensitive skin.
Using more mild anti-fungal such as the oils contained in the Biom8 I created may be more suitable.

Have you ever approached a dermatologist with this issue?

Hope that helps and best of luck mate.

its vs “it’s”. Get an editor because your spelling is terrible.

I finally have my scalp under control! I gave up and saw my doc, who actually listened. I am allergic to SLS in shampoo so he found me one without parabens etc. He gave me Sebco coconut oil compound to use overnight as prescribed, then Capasal shampoo. For the first time in years my scalp isn’t driving me mad !

Hi Dawn,

Happy to hear you managed to find some relief. Thank you for sharing.

i’ve been dealing with this for a while on my scalp, and am also experiencing hair loss and thinning. i also tried tea tree oil shampoo and it worked at first, but then seemed to start acting as an irritant. i’ve tried t/sal, but it doesn’t seem to do much. for a really long time, i thought it was dandruff due to dry skin, so i tried t/gel, and i think i might try it out again.

(i had a limited supply when i first tried it, as i was living in korea at the time and could only find it when i would visit the US once a year. i thought that korea’s horrible air pollution and terrible water - which causes really dramatic thinning hair in the older population, while younger people have thick luscious hair - might have had something to do with it. i recently moved to oregon where the air is much cleaner, but i’m still experiencing the same issues. that was a bummer to figure out.)

i also read about “sebulex” on webmd and found its generic, sebex, on amazon for $5.04 plus free shipping. i’ll try them separately. i’ll be perfectly fine if the first one i try works and i have to give away the other! i have to say that it’s so nice to see others’ comments and know that others feel what i feel. it’s embarrassing, and i’m happy to see other things to try out! thank you!

Hi! I have been reading into a lot of this as I have had severe dermatitis on my face for six months now. Steroids from doctors have not worked and in fact I believe have worsened my situation. After reading all of the comments and your article, perhaps have you considered Dermodex mites as a possible cause? I have just discovered articles on these and a treatment for them is tea tree oil. However most comments on posts about TTO and dermodex have suggested that the skin responds well to the carrier oil/TTO treatment at first, then as the bacteria mites die off it becomes red again however, eventually levels out and the skin calms down. However the cycle of these little critters can go on for months and results take a long time to set it apparently. Perhaps this is similar to the cases here as these mites affect the skin and scalp. I believe you can get culture tests at doctors to see if the mites are present in large numbers. In fact according to these other articles, everyone carries these mites in their skin glands but if an extreme increase in numbers occurs this is when a skin reaction is caused. I am going to give castor oil/TTO a go and see if it helps.