March 9, 2026
Sensitive Skin and Newborns: Podcast Episode #332
Sensitive skin and newborns often go hand in hand, leaving parents overwhelmed, exhausted, and unsure of what products are truly safe and effective. In this episode, we sit down with Andrea Faulkner Williams, co-founder of Tubby Todd Bath Co., to talk about navigating dryness, eczema, and reactive skin in babies.
We dive into why newborn skin is so delicate, common triggers for irritation, how to simplify your baby’s skincare routine, and what parents should look for when choosing products. Andrea also opens up about balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship while raising four little ones in San Diego.
If you are navigating cradle cap, baby acne, eczema, or just want to better understand how to care for your newborn’s sensitive skin, this episode offers reassurance, practical guidance, and hope for smoother days ahead.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Andrea Williams all about newborn skin conditions. She is the head mama and co-founder of Tubby Todd Bath Company, which she launched with her husband, Brian Todd, as a solution to her own family’s sensitive skin in 2014.
For years, her family struggled with dryness and eczema, and smooth skin always seemed impossibly out of reach. It was frustrating spending money on one product after another that wasn’t helpful, clean, or safe for their little ones. Out of those discouragements came a drive and passion to create clean bath and skincare staples, and they spent years developing products and testing them in their own home.
Since then, Tubby Todd has grown into an entire line of skincare basics. I have sampled them, and they’re amazing! Andrea is fueled by Latin pop music and a love for connecting with others. She lives in San Diego with her husband and four little ones.
Welcome, Andrea!
Hi! Thank you so much for having me, Kristin!
Of course! I am so passionate about this topic, and your ability to solve issues within your own family – I feel like moms always get things done, and we find a need, and if we can’t shop for it ourselves, then we just create whatever is needed in the moment. I know that’s certainly what I did with my doula agency.
Yes, definitely. It is the best way to get things done, right? Look for a place and a need within your own home.
In the bio, you had talked about some of your own struggles with dryness, eczema, and newborn skin. So what did you do in your research to focus on clean products and help other families, including your own?
My husband Brian had worked in manufacturing. We had our first baby in 2011, and we noticed that we were using clean ingredients in our cleaning products and my skincare, and we were trying to introduce clean ingredients into my makeup routine. We noticed that all of the clean ingredient baby products at the time were not great user experiences. They didn’t lather, or they didn’t smell great, and they felt like they were extremely watered down. And what we realized later as we manufactured the products is that companies were thinking that parents weren’t willing to pay a premium price for the best ingredients for their little ones, which sounds crazy now. Companies were manufacturing products with end price in mind and not with the ingredients in mind.
With our manufacturing experience, we started to create a formula that we wanted to use for our little one. Something that we could feel really confident in. During this two-year formulation process, we had our second child, Walker Todd. And he had terrible skin. He had dry, itchy eczema. He was kind of prone to baby acne and cradle cap – all of the things that we dealt with a little bit with our first, but he had all of it. And it was much more severe. We actually had landed on a formula, a hair and body wash formula, that we loved prior to Walker’s birth, but after he was born, we scrapped it and started all over again. We partnered with some formulators who had previously worked with other baby skincare companies and said to them, hey, regardless of the cost, just put everything in that you would want to use on your children. And this specific formulator was a mom, and she was thrilled. It was like her life’s work, right? And she was like, I’ve been waiting for someone to say that to me. And when we landed on a formula for hair and body wash – it was our first product – we found something that was really hydrating. It didn’t just cleanse; it was also hydrating. Lathered, smelled great, and it also took care of our little one’s eczema. Just that hydration started in the bath and changed everything for him. So then we were laying moistures and creams on top of it. His skin was starting at a base level of hydration and wasn’t already irritated from the wash.
That’s where we started, and it was really exciting to see when we started to send this product to other families how much of a change it made in their skincare routine with their little ones and how excited these families were about sharing this product, just because premium children’s skincare – that market did not exist 12 years ago, and it really was something that I feel like we created and that parents were really looking for. They were looking for a skincare routine or solution like they have for themselves, for their little ones.
My kids are teenagers now, like early in the teen years, and there was nothing on the market. I struggled with some of the similar issues. I live in Michigan, so winter is such a drying time when you’re running heat. And my kids would struggle with dryness on their hands, especially. And my daughter had some issues with cradle cap. And I couldn’t find anything – and I’m very sensitive to smells. What I was finding at the health stores that would be considered nontoxic and safe skincare was not anything that I loved and could use without concern because of the strong smell from a lot of the products back then.
Yeah, it definitely was just a market that had been ignored. We were lucky to arrive at the market at a time and way more aware of everything we’re putting on our bodies and what we’re putting in our homes and on our families.
Exactly. You’re a category disruptor! I love it!
I mean, yeah. I wish that I could say that 15 years ago, we had the idea to be a category disruptor, that we even knew what that term was, but that was – all we did was set out to make the best products for our family and then share them with other families. It has been something that is really beautiful, and we now have a community of millions of families that don’t just use a product for their babies but also for themselves, and they are the best people. They love their kids. They’re sacrificing to try to do the best for them, and they’re sharing these products with other people. It has been so fulfilling watching these families raise their children.
It’s like they’re ambassadors for your brand with word of mouth.
They are, yes!
And certainly, moms are always asking each other about product recommendations. As a baby registry consultant, that is something that a lot of my clients are concerned about. They want nontoxic products. They want clean, safe products. And they’re concerned even with their own pregnancy and what they’re putting on their skin and how that will affect baby. And certainly when baby is born, they are even more concerned about anything from diapers to soaps to other products that they’re using on baby’s skin. So I love that you again saw the need.
So you have bath products and lotions. Tell us more about everything that Tubby Todd has to offer.
If you’re just getting started at Tubby Todd, the place I would refer you to is our Regulars bundle. It’s a three-step process that I recommend for any age. It is a wash, a lotion, and then our all-over ointment. The wash is the wash that we formulated years ago, and our entire family uses it. I use it to shave. My husband uses it to shave. We use it as our handwash, our body wash. It really is a hydrating wash that is great for any type of sensitive skin. It’s offered in fragrances or fragrance-free. And then the second step of the Regulars bundle is our everyday lotion. So that’s a base layer of moisture, and we recommend using that fresh out of the bath or the shower. It’s great for sensitive skin for the tiniest newborn but also, again, we use it for our whole family. And this base layer of moisture is really going to lock in all of the hydration from the bath and then also give you a great place to start for the day, whether you’re bathing your little one at night or you yourself are using it in the morning when you get out of the shower.
And then the third step is our all-over ointment. Our all-over ointment is what we are famous for on the internet because of the wildly successful before and afters. We have over 20,000 five star reviews on that product alone. And all of our ointment is sold every minute of the day. Like, a few million jars were sold last year. It is an incredible product. Think of it as a petroleum-free salve that sits on top of skin to block out irritants. But also, what it’s doing differently than many salves or ointments on the market is that it’s also healing the eczema or dryness while it’s blocking out irritants. It has an incredible deck of ingredients. It has the National Eczema Association seal. And it really is kind of your go-to solution for anything from cradle cap to eczema spots to a sunburn. I use it myself on my cuticles. My elbows are always dry. The balls of my feet. Anywhere that needs to be spot treated. I know a lot of women use it as a nightly face mask for hydration. So really depending on your needs, it’s kind of like your go-to. But it works best when used in conjunction with the other first two steps of the wash and the lotion, sealing all that goodness in.
In addition to that, we have a great cradle cap solution. We have two diapering solutions, either a diaper paste or a diaper spray. We have an SPF line with mineral sunscreens that are great for the whole family from a spray to a face sunscreen. We have a mineral Sundercover, is what we call it, and it’s really milky and rubs in and doesn’t leave a white cast. It’s beautiful for under makeup. So really a full family line. And we’re just getting started, Kristin. We’re having fun!
Well, that’s what it’s all about, having fun and listening to your clients and seeing where else you can expand. So what are your tips for our clients who may be wondering if it’s something that is product-focused that is causing irritation for their children, or if it’s potentially a food allergy, say dairy, and needing to potentially cut out dairy? It’s a common question that I get from doula clients.
Yeah, I sound like a broken record here, so I’m going to say the first thing I would recommend is swapping out your wash. I can’t tell you how many babies have been irritated by their wash. Hair and body wash is the first place. It’s kind of like we’re putting that on our kids and not ever thinking that it could be the thing that’s causing the problem. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that with your skincare, where it’s your face wash, really, and if you stop using that, everything changes. So that would be the first thing I recommend. Swap out your staples for the Regulars bundle – the wash, lotion, all-over ointment.
We have something called a Worry Free Guarantee. So with our Worry Free Guarantee, if you buy on the Tubby Todd website, if this is not a fit for your family, we will refund you. You don’t need to send the product back. This all stemmed from the fact that we had tried dozens of washes and lotions and creams and spent hundreds of dollars on products for our children at a time when we did not have hundreds of dollars to spend on baby skincare. So when we started Tubby Todd, we always knew from the beginning that our refund policy would be generous with the hopes that we were never trying to provide a solution for someone and in the end actually imposing any financial strain on them. So knowing that you can try Tubby Todd with a refund, I hope that you guys will come on and try on. And then from there – I’m not going to give any additional medical advice about allergies because I’m not a pediatrician or a dermatologist. I’m going to say something that actually a reading tutor told me yesterday. So I have four kids, and my youngest is in first grade. And it’s been – when you have four kids, when you get to the fourth one, you’re like, I’ve got this. There’s nothing that I haven’t experienced. You start to think that way, and then you are immediately proved wrong within minutes. Every time I start to think I know anything about parenting, literally that same day, I will have an experience that reminds me that all of these cute little souls we have in our homes are individuals, and they are having their own unique experience, and we are just here to learn from them.
My youngest has had a hard time in first grade. He had a fantastic kindergarten year, and so we’ve kind of done some testing and then enlisted the help of this reading tutor. And it was so beautiful, because she told me everything she did, and we made an appointment for him to be assessed and to work together. And then she told me, “Okay. I want you stop now and take a breath and think, I did this. I did the research. I got him the help he needed, and I’m going to figure this out.” And it was such a sweet thing to tell me as a mom, because I really have been so stressed about this little boy, and also such a great reminder that if your little one is struggling with any skin sensitivity or allergy, you are doing a great job. First off, you’re acknowledging that it exists. You’re looking for help. You’re trying to find solutions. You will find a solution. Most of the time, we find a solution. And regardless of how long it takes, your little one will see that you are caring for them and that you are putting in the work to try to help them, and that’s really what the most important thing is. So I would just give that piece of advice to a parent, and then I’d refer you to your doctor, after you try all those things.
That makes complete sense – thank you so much! Any other tips for our listeners who are struggling with newborn skin conditions?
I think hydration is key. So if you have a little one who is consistently dry or irritated, it takes possibly more than once a day of hydrating. So when they wake up in the morning, and you have a routine of bathing them at night, possibly starting with the lotion and then the all-over ointment or maybe our baby massage oil. Introducing hydration at multiple times throughout the day is probably what you’re going to need to do in order to get their skin back to a really great place, whether that’s diaper rash or cradle cap.
A note on cradle cap – it is terrifying! Isn’t cradle cap the worst, when you look and you’re like, this baby’s scalp?! And a lot of times it’s in their eyebrows. And I can’t tell you, even after starting Tubby Todd and creating a cradle cap solution, every time one of my kids would get baby acne or cradle cap, I would just be mortified to go somewhere and think that somebody might be thinking I wasn’t paying attention to my baby and that’s how this happened. Well, it happens to almost every single baby, so you are doing nothing wrong. We have a great cradle cap solution. It’s seborrheic dermatitis gel, a cradle cap gel. The cradle cap solution kit that we have has a gel, our hair and body wash, our all-over ointment, and then it comes with a silicone brush, a really gentle silicone brush. So the steps are, you use the gel, wash baby’s hair, then wash it out with our hair and body wash, and then take the all-over ointment, after you’ve used the brush to kind of massage the scalp and get all the flakes up, and then actually put the all-over ointment directly on baby’s scalp. It’s a little bit sticky because it is an ointment. You’re going to put that in their hair. I like to do that at night and put baby to bed, and then in the morning, you’re going to brush out their hair. There’s going to be some residue. Brush it with the silicone brush. Wash it, and then you might need to do that again. Consistency is key for a night or two. But you are going to see miraculous things. Again, you can do that in their eyebrows. All of our products are gentle and safe for tiny faces, but obviously, just like you wouldn’t put soap in your eye, make sure you cover their eyes with a washcloth while you’re washing their face or eyebrows. Consistency is key. It might take a few days. You might see overnight that it clears up.
The same with baby acne. Baby acne is different, just like it is for every adult, and if there’s some solutions for some babies, and some for others. It is a moment of time. It will get better. And it feels like forever, especially when you’re worried about them and maybe worried what people will think of you, but you are doing a great job. So that’s another thing I will say.
As far as registry goes, here are the two things I would recommend that you put on your registry: they’re at two different price points. One is $107, and the other is $157. I’m going to tell you the difference in the two. The first is our Newborn Gift Set. This is everything that baby is going to need in the first year for their skin. It has our Regulars bundle, that three-step process I talked about. It has a baby massage oil that is so yummy. It’s USDA Organic, lavender rosehip fragrance. Best way to connect with your little one. With my babies, I was always like – you know, I worked, and I was always wondering – I’m doing all the things, but did I spend time with them today? At the end of the day, I’d always be like, did we connect? That was always a fear of mine. One thing I love about baby skincare, especially the younger they are – you can’t not connect with them while you’re doing skincare. You are hands on. You are looking at them. They’re looking at you. You’re teaching them how to care for themselves, and they are feeling your touch and your love. It is the most gorgeous moment of connection, and it establishes beautiful rituals with your little ones. That is my favorite thing about skincare – of all ages, I would say, but especially with your newborn and throughout their toddler years when they really need you for any sort of bathing or skincare.
So this has the Regulars, the cradle cap solution, and then it has a diaper paste, a zinc oxide diaper paste that is amazing.
Then if you’re looking for a higher price point, I would also recommend the Ultimate Mama and Baby Gift Set. The difference between the two gift sets is that this also includes products for the mom. It has a belly oil – so this is going to be some prenatal products, as well. It has a hand cream, a belly oil, and then a vegan nipple salve. This is one of the very few vegan nipple salves on the market that is lanolin-free, and it is a lovely product that works. I have used it. It is a great solution for any nursing moms, but any prenatal mom, too, as things are changing before baby comes. It’s great to have these mom products as you’re growing and things are getting ready to deliver. Lots is going on. Nobody knows that more than you!
So those would be my two recommendations for your registry and putting those on there. We have those available on all registry sites.
And not just for registries and baby showers, but I’m a big fan of bringing a gift for the mother after delivery. That self-care and pampering is so needed when, after delivery, it’s all about the baby. So I tell friends of mine and clients and I talk on podcasts about the need to give a little bit of care and pampering and attention to the mother, who’s just gone through a transformative life experience, whether it’s baby one or baby four.
100%. I was at the gym the other day, Kristin, and I was looking around at everyone there. And I’m not saying this to brag, because it was the greatest gift I’ve ever been given to be able to be pregnant, carry, and deliver my children. That was a gift, and I consider myself so fortunate. But I was looking at everyone, and I was thinking of specifically the men: you haven’t had to gain 60 pounds and lose it four times, like I have. And my baby is six, so it has been a long time since my body has transitioned postpartum, but it still feels like things are coming back together in a way. We’re still trying to repair some of the delivery things that happened during my first delivery, I feel like, 15 years ago. I feel like that was such a gift to have that experience, but also, there is an additional cost on your body, and that requires additional care. And that comes in pampering yourself. That comes in being thoughtful. And that comes in giving yourself so much grace, which is an annoying word sometimes. Like, what does that even mean? But it means just recognizing that your body has been through a lot in order to bring these little ones here to earth.
Exactly. I love it. So how can our listeners connect with you? I know you’re all over social. You’ve got an amazing website. So direct us to all of your favorite places.
Yes! Okay, so we are fun on social. We’re always doing giveaways. Quarterly, we give away a free product on a live broadcast that I do called Sudsapalooza, and you can learn about that through our emails or our SMS, our text messages. So sign up for those. Anyone who’s knew to Tubby Todd can join our Club Tub, which is our rewards program. We try to make it very generous where you get bubbles, reward points for shopping with us, and then you can take money off of your purchases. We have a great subscription program that is a discount on all of your purchases. So tubbytodd.com is the place. We have that Worry Free Guarantee where you can be refunded. It’s a great place to purchase.
We are available at Target and Amazon, but tubbytodd.com is where we can ensure you get that premium experience.
Myself – I am Andrea Faulkner Williams. That is my handle on Instagram, so if you’re interested in learning more about the behind the scenes of Tubby Todd and the growth that we’ve been having in the last few years, which has been very fun and really exciting to see what it means to be a category disruptor, as you called us – it has been fun, and I share the journey on Instagram.
Well, I have loved our conversation, Andrea, and we will have to talk again, because you are so passionate, and I love everything you’ve done with Tubby Todd and I can’t wait to see the directions your take your business in the future.
Thank you so much! And I want to offer your followers 15% off their first order, so if they use the code ASKTHEDOULAS on tubbytodd.com at checkout, it will take 15% off their first order. I just want to say to your listeners, you are doing an incredible job. I think the fact that people are even getting this type of education from a podcast is just such a sign that these families are looking to take care of their little ones and that they are incredible families, incredible caretakers, and that their babies are so lucky to have them. So you should just feel so proud of yourself, whomever it is listening today.
I agree! Taking the time to educate when everything is so busy and frantic is so important. Thank you again, Andrea!
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