Porter's Lotion

Note - This is a reprint of a blog entry from June 25. I figure most people living in the Tundra are now experiencing some dry skin, cracked hands and feet, etc. So I wanted to resurface this for your benefit.

We all know about Hammer Nutrition and their fine line of products that help triathletes keep their mojo. There is another line of products from Montana that I have used for over a decade that I wanted to share with you as well. The product is Porter's Lotion which is made in Bozeman.

If you shower multiple times during the day because we are, after all, multi-talented athletes specializing in three disciplines you need something to restore moisture to dry skin. Especially during the cold, dark & dry months of winter.

I use Original Porter's Hand and Body Lotion which comes in 8.45 ounce bottle. It is a grease free dry skin tonic that combines the restorative and healing properties of Rosemary, Camphor, Witch Hazel, and Green soap. It combats the elements and helps heal cracked, dry and peeling skin. It has a "cooling" effect on the skin and a distinct scent that disappears upon evaporation. Intelligently packaged in an unbreakable bottle and like all of their products, it is not tested on animals.

At first you will think it is not lotion as it has the basic consistency of water. However I think you will come to love this product as much as I do. If nothing else, get it for your poor feet. This product will repair cracked heels. It moisturizes skin from too much chlorine from swimming pools. I keep it in the shower and just apply after toweling off.

At one time, I would need to contact my brother-in-law who lives in Missoula to venture out and buy a case and ship it to me. That was the only way I could get my hands on the stuff. Jump ahead fifteen years and you can buy direct from Porters or even pick it up from Amazon.

It has an interesting story. The precursor to Porter's Original Lotion began in Montana in 1915 with Dr. C. E. Whitehead who compounded a similar formula with camphor, alcohol, glycerin, ammonia and water to be used for workers at a local cement plant to treat dry skin. He passed his formula on to Heber Porter, a Bozeman pharmacist, who started Porter's Pharmacy in the newly constructed Baxter Hotel in 1931. He began to compound the original formula for Porter's Lotion, as we know it today. Although Heber Porter died in 1955, the same lotion continued to be compounded in a barrel in various local Bozeman pharmacies until 1994, when the Bungalow Drug, the last to make it, was closing its doors.
Fearing an end of the Porter's era, Michael Anderson, a fourth generation Porter's user, and Con and Daphne Gillam of Bozeman purchased the rights and formula to Porter's Lotion, started Gallatin River Products, and took Porter's nationwide and to four continents. So the product stayed alive.

Let me know what you think if you try it. I'm pretty sure you will give it two thumbs up.