Talk:Calamine

Correct Composition?
I don't want to go off half-cocked and change it without cross-verification, but the 1979 review of zinc's biological and pathological role suggests that Calamine is, in fact, zinc carbonate. Additionally, the article for zinc carbonate claims that it comprises Calamine. This is in obvious contrast to the claim that "calamine is a mixture of zinc oxide (ZnO) with about 0.5% iron(III) oxide (Fe2O3)." Pkbowen (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

topical pharmacology?
Anybody know why it's good for poison ivy? Relationship to zinc oxide?

"Calamine is a mixture of zinc oxide (ZnO) with about 0.5% iron(III) oxide (Fe2O3)."

Calamine
I need to know the family, color, shape, who discovered it, scientific formula, where found, what it is used in, value, specific properties, & any other areas of interest about the calamine. 70.171.70.233 21:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)Kayla

Start with http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/zinc.htm -69.87.202.67 16:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Calamine Lotion
Calamine Lotion U.S.P. UPC 0869-2154-10 Active Ingredients: Calamine, Zinc Oxide. Inactive Ingredients: Bentonite Magma, Calcium Hydroxide, Glycerin and Purified Water. Store at 59-86 deg F. Warnings: For external use only. Avoid contact with the eyes... Directions: Apply liberally as often as necessary. Indications: Dries the oozing and weeping of poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. -69.87.202.31 20:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

pink
What gives Calamine Lotion that characteristic pink color?-69.87.203.67 00:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The iron (rust) seems to be included just to give the pinkish color. Why is it there? Who first put iron in? When? Which ingredients, if any, actually have anti-itch characteristics? When was this discovered?-69.87.204.36 12:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Bentonite magma
"...calamine lotion, are suspensions for external use only. Magmas and milks are thick, viscous, aqueous suspensions of insoluble inorganic compounds; the particle size is usually larger than in gels. Bentonite magma, for example, is produced by hydration of bentonite, a colloidal hydrated aluminum silicate, and is used as a suspending agent, as, for example, in calamine lotion. Milk (cream) of..." 

"Calamine Lotion: Experimenting with a New Suspending Agent The use of a new suspending agent is investigated. Calamine lotion, USP contains bentonite magma as a suspending agent. In this study, bentonite magma was partially or completely replaced with a new suspending agent called tahini. Tahini is sesame paste composed of crushed sesame seeds in sesame oil... Overall, the use of tahini in calamine lotion has improved the physical stability of the formula." 

The standard lotion is labelled "shake well", and really does need shaking -- the suspension does not seem to work very well, and seems to separate out again after just a few minutes.-69.87.204.36 12:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

phenol
Anyone know why phenol is included in calamine lotion, and is this commonplace to all of them? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC) (still scratching his midge bites after a holiday in Wales)


 * It's not listed as an ingredient as supplied by OSCO/Shaw's/Equaline. It just seems a random mixture of stuff, some of which is anesthetic and/or drying, some of which is to create a characteristic smell and color. David Spector (talk) 14:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Content moved
I moved the relevant discussion content from Talk:Calamine (mineral). Seems at some point this page was incorrectly redirected there. Vsmith 04:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Needs a disambiguation page to link Calamine (mineral) with Calamine lotion.

At present, searching finds only the latter.

effectiveness
i'm surprised that the fda says calamine lotion has no effect on itching because it works for me - but only for mosquito bites. I recently got bedbugs and was surprised to find it barely worked at all. however, hydrocortisone cream also didnt work so maybe i just have an extreme reaction to bed bugs. i use actually caladryl clear, should this be mentioned or would you say its irrelevant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samiam1611 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't say that. It says it's ineffective on urushiol (poison ivy) Andy Dingley (talk) 08:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough I started reading Wikipedia after using the stuff on poison ivy after I've had about a dozen people tell me to just buy a bottle of it. The stuff grows wild out here, and usually I can watch out for it quite well, but I guess it got me this go around. After using Cortisone and some bullshit pills that the nurse gave me to keep me from scratching by knocking me completely out I thought I'd give it a shot. It's the only thing I've tried so far that stops the itching completely. Unsure what the test entailed, but I think they were high on something else they tested prior to putting calamine lotion through the ropes. Khadgar(talk) 12:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Most things are an anti-pruritic, especially if you mix them with a dash of placebo. If you've a _mild_ attack of plant-induced itchiness, almost anything helps. Just rubbing it, let alone rubbing it with anything cold.
 * The problem we're really running into here is the balance between wikipedia's requirement for reliable sourcing and reality. Sourcing means that we can't have "My old granpappy said...", even if he was right. Equally a single USGov study that found nothing doesn't mean it stops working overnight. Getting the style right is hard, but still important. Even reading it carefully isn't easy - watch out for misleading weasels. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, what we are running in to is a notorious defect with the FDA process. It should be noted firstly that the FDA did not say that calamine was ineffective for these applications -- that would make them liars or idiots, because anyone who has ever tried the stuff knows that it does, in fact, work. No, what the FDA said is that no-one has ever submitted the necessary evidence to them.


 * The reason for that is that FDA approvals have become colossally expensive. So astonishingly, jaw-droppingly, horrifyingly expensive that even multinational corporations balk at the cost, and will not even consider obtaining an FDA approval until after they have strong patent protection in all relevant markets worldwide.


 * That means that materials like calamine, which have been in use for far too long to get patent protection, rarely get FDA approval regardless of whether or not they work. The way to find out if they work is to see if there has been any independent university research on it (often conducted in a developing country with a growing biomedical sector, i.e. India.) -- 203.20.101.203 (talk) 23:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Calamine-a dreamy pop band,famous for writing a soundtrack for sealab 2021, funny animated series. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.136.0.180 (talk) 03:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

(Former) lead content?
Did calamine use to contain lead? 70.169.149.207 (talk) 18:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope. However it's white, heavy and applied to the skin. So is (or at least, was) white lead. There may have been confusion between the two. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Calamine is not, and never has been, white lead, which is a poisonous lead compound. Calamine used to be (and perhaps still is) a less-poisonous zinc compound, combined with other ingredients. David Spector (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Not quite. The name "Calamine" was also applied to nonsulphide Zinc/Lead ores, a mixture of Zinc carbonates (smithsonite, hydrozincite) and Zinc silicates (hemimorphite, willemite and Zn clays), with a variable content of Lead minerals. http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~mboni/pdf/BelgiumOGR.pdf


 * There's "red calamine" and "white calamine", it seems the red has more zinc. According to http://www.mindat.org/show.php?id=8129&ld=1 it is "An early name that covered the zinc minerals smithsonite, hydrozincite and hemimorphite, which often occur in intimate association with each other. Typical alteration product of (Pb-)Zn ores (sphalerite)."


 * One can see that zinc carbonate is a common constituent with the antipruritic lotion; maybe it was used as such (conjecture). White lead was I believe used as cosmetic, but of course dangerous long-term. I imagine a short-term use would not have killed anyone straight away unless it got into food, but exposure may cause unwelcome neurological effects.


 * Calamine was also used as a paint pigment, but is rather unstable (to say, it would react with other pigments and change colour). It as used as a white and (I think but can't be bothered to check) as a red.


 * According to a passing comment in http://www.cosmeticsandskin.com/ded/liquid-powder.php there certainly were cosmetics with lead compounds even into the early 20thC.
 * One is one and one is one (talk) 20:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Image request
We need an image. To avoid copyright issues, some poured onto a white surface, or into a dish would be good. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Quackery
I thought it had been demonstrated to be a 'patent medicine'-style fraud, with no discernible effect whatsoever. Just like most everything else in a modern day pharmacy.

Missing information: Trademarked names--Caladryl--Zeradryl--Benadryl
When I was a kid, the most popular calamine lotion was made by Parke-Davis and called Caladryl (note the wiki redirect), which I assume was their trademark. It came in a clear bottle with a red cap and label with red print. They also made another lotion called Zeradryl (spelling?) which was green in color instead of pink; the packaging was similar to the Caladryl except it was green instead of red. But I never knew what the difference between the two was supposed to be. My parents usually used Caladryl for mosquito bites and poison ivy, but I remember having some Zeradryl in the house. What were the indications for Zeradryl versus Caladryl?

And of course, now we have something called Benadryl; I am struck by the similarity of the last syllable. I tried looking in the Wikipedia for my missing information: the difference between Caladryl and Zeradryl, and is there any relation to today's Benadryl? Imagine my disappointment when I find we group of amateurs don't have a clue (i.e. not enough information for a decently-sourced article). Can anyone help fill this in? JustinTime55 (talk) 19:20, 23 March 2022 (UTC)


 * According to Web MD, Caladryl is composed of Pramoxine as the active ingredient. Benydryl is composed of dyphenhydramine as the active ingredient. The two chemicals are chemically unrelated compounds. 98.178.191.34 (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Poison Vs. Venom, April 2022 revision
With respect to plants like poison ivy, poison oak, etc. these are poisons not venoms. See the following for reasoning: https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/poison-vs-venom https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/venomous-poisonous-snakes-toxins https://www.nps.gov/cabr/blogs/venomous-versus-poisonous-same-thing-right-wrong.htm 98.178.191.34 (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

chamomile??
Really? Why does it say "not to be confused with chamomile"? I don't see any logical reason for anyone to confuse the two, since they are not alike in any way other than being a long word beginning with C. Should we think of other words starting with C that have almost the same number of letters, and list them all so no one gets confused? /s. Sorry but just because some illiterate schlub got the words mixed up one time, doesn't mean we need to dismbiguate Calamine with a completely unrelated word. Am I wrong? Lunar ether (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Who's who
We currently state both made from powdered calamine mineral and Calamine is a combination of zinc oxide and 0.5% ferric oxide (Fe2O3). These two cannot be true at the same time.

Artoria2e5 🌉 15:46, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Based on Calamine (mineral), the term "calamine mineral" itself is highly dubious.
 * Based on ref "Br2012", ferric oxide is optional.