Salina Lotion – resurrected from the past?

March 28, 2021

Ain’t the internet wonderful?

I complained about the apparent demise of Salina Drug Lotion from Salina Drug, a company that no longer exists in Salina, Utah.

Reader J. W. Higginbotham — a stellar researcher of things internet — responded with an obscure page from a company in Utah that said it has the lotion available. Pure Cell Organics in Salt Lake City has the stuff.

Salina Lotion, from Pure Cell Organics, in Salt Lake City

Salina Skin Lotion, from Pure Cell Organics, in Salt Lake City. Hoping it’s not a mirage.

The page invites raised hopes:

Ready for something new? 

Try this 70+ year-old recipe developed by a local pharmacist in Salina, Utah.   

Salina Lotion is a glycerin, bay rum and rosemary essential oil based liquid lotion that promotes the healing of dry, cracked and itchy skin, especially on feet and hands.  It softens skin, cuticles and calluses and is great for sunburn relief. 

Local family owned and operated.  

After checking to be sure it isn’t a scam, or badly outdated, and an email exchange with the woman who owns the company, we should have a bottle on the way.

It’s almost as good as DNA tests finding lost, wealthy or entertaining relatives.

2 Comments | Health care, History, Travel, Utah | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Salina Drug’s hand lotion — gone for good?

March 11, 2021

Hand lotion from Salina Drug, in Salina, Utah — long ago.

Utah friends, or anyone who can help: Do you know where to find this great hand lotion?

We nursed this bottle as long as we could. It ran out in January. Where do we get more?

We have not been able to get more in Salina, Utah.

The story: I heard stories about Salina Drug’s great hand lotion on the trail, hiking around Southern Utah. I was always in Salina late at night, or early in the morning, when the drug store was closed — Kathryn and I finally picked up a bottle on a red rock vacation, in 1983

A few drops are all you need. There was eucalyptus, I think, and camphor. A touch of glycerine. Witch hazel? Fantastic stuff. Miracle cure. We rationed the stuff through law school, awaiting a chance to get more.

Finals, a job change or two, a baby, another job change and move to Texas, bar exam, another baby — we didn’t get back to Salina until one Sunday in 1991 or 1992. We got late on a Sunday. Salina Drug was closed.

Was it closed for good? I don’t know. I tried a couple times to phone. No success.

New jobs, kids in school. Our rationing system consisted of putting it in the back of the medicine cabinet and forgetting about it, until you get hands so chapped in desperation you remembered that old hand lotion. Just a few drops. It’s particularly good for hands chapped from climbing red rocks, or bouldering.

It was a formula probably close to a century old in 1983. They brewed and bottled the stuff right there in the pharmacy. Amber bottle, locally-printed stick-on label, a piece of real cork with a slit to dispense, under the cap. But at some point in between 1985 and 2000, Salina Drug slipped away (like Bobbie McGee near Salinas, not to be confused with Salina).

When the drugstore died, did anybody save the recipe? Is anyone selling the stuff now?

More:

5 Comments | History, medicine, Travel, Utah | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell