Health & Wellness Blog

Who doesn’t look forward to pleasant spring days after winter’s chill? You might not if you’re allergic to the tree pollen that peppers your part of the country each spring. Summer months can be tough to enjoy if grass pollen triggers your seasonal allergies. And what about fall? One word: ragweed.

Millions of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies (seasonal allergic rhinitis) and deserve relief. So we’ve rounded up facts to shed light on what’s happening inside your body when the sneezing starts and what you can do to ease symptoms. Your comfort matters.

What are seasonal allergy symptoms?

Seasonal allergy symptoms can resemble common cold symptoms and include:

• Sneezing, coughing
• Runny nose, congestion
• Mucus, postnasal drip
• Itchy eyes, nose, mouth, throat
• Tiredness

(Seasonal and perennial allergic rhinitis differ but are often lumped together as hay fever. Perennial allergies are activated year-round by common indoor substances like dust mites and pet dander.)

What causes seasonal allergy symptoms?

When you come into contact with allergens — tree or grass pollens, for example — some people’s immune system may react by cranking out chemical antibodies to defend against the allergen. This reaction results in the symptoms you feel. How threatened your immune system feels determines the severity of your symptoms.

What are the best ways to get relief from seasonal allergy symptoms?

Avoid your allergens

You’re probably familiar with which season’s allergens trouble you most. A simple tactic to spare yourself discomfort is to avoid what triggers you as much as possible.

When you’re indoors, keep windows closed to keep allergens out. After time outdoors, wash up and change your clothes to separate yourself from any allergens clinging to you.

Go online and bookmark a trustworthy site with daily pollen counts for your area. Get familiar with your tolerance level. Be judicious about when you garden or hike. Your goal is to minimize your exposure, not to stay indoors all season.

Ask about over-the-counter and prescription allergy medications

Over-the-counter medications work well for some individuals, while others require prescription medications to cope with seasonal allergy symptoms. A healthcare provider can recommend treatments to help relieve your symptoms.

Humidifiers, vaporizers, and sinus inhalers can help alleviate symptoms.

An indoor environment may increase an allergy sufferer’s discomfort. Air conditioning and heating your house can produce air that dries out nasal passages. Humidity, on the other hand, can provide a soothing effect.

Temporarily increasing your home humidity level to 40-60% will help alleviate nasal congestion by keeping nasal passages hydrated. Vicks humidifiers, vaporizers, and sinus inhalers help relieve allergy symptoms and make the air more comfortable to breathe (which can also lead to more restful, restorative sleep).

A Vicks humidifier or vaporizer used in tandem with Vicks VapoSteam acts as a cough suppressant, while Vicks VapoPads in menthol and lavender scents can add even more comfort and relaxation.

A Vicks Sinus Inhaler is a great way for an individual to target their allergy symptoms. A sinus inhaler is a personal humidifier that directs soothing steam to your nose and throat. The steam’s moisture helps break up congestion, quickly bringing relief that you can feel.

There’s a reason to enjoy every season.

Now you have the inside scoop about what’s happening inside your body during allergy season. And you know ways to soothe yourself and the people you care about. Enjoy the best of what each season offers and do it comfortably!

Whether you’re fighting a cold, feeling stressed out, or simply looking for ways to make your living space more comfortable, consider how soothing certain scents can be. Fancy spas know this —they’re in the soothing business.

If you dropped by a spa right now, what are the first things you’d notice? Probably the scented candles. Fragrant bath salts. Aromatic oils. Scents are spas’ not-so-secret soothing weapons. But which scents soothe most people? Surely one size–or scent–can’t fit all, right?

Let’s talk about three scents with long histories of being beloved for their effectiveness and favored for their pleasantness. Can you guess all three scents?

What’s cooler than menthol?

Menthol has been a medicinal staple since antiquity when humans first derived it from plants. Menthol is what gives peppermint its enjoyable, cooling zing. That sensation makes menthol a popular ingredient for shaving creams, sunburn ointments, and other products intended to soothe and comfort.

When you or your child suffer from a cold, you want powerful relief to get you back to feeling like yourself. Think of the benefits of breathing soothing, comforting menthol vapors.

Try a Vicks humidifier, vaporizer, or sinus inhaler with a slot/door to accommodate Vicks VapoPads Plus Intense Cold Blasting Menthol. These particular VapoPads feature a familiar blend of menthol, eucalyptus, and essential oils that produce the Vicks scent you’ve known and loved for years.

(Don’t have a cold? Putting Vicks Soothing Menthol Vapors VapoPads in your humidifier is a great first step towards creating a tranquil oasis in your home.)

Everyone loves lavender.

Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans recognized lavender’s calming scent and other favorable properties. Originally found only around the Mediterranean, vast fields of the (mostly) purple flowers now decorate lands from Provence to the Pacific Northwest and charm visitors with their pleasing scent.

Over the centuries, lavender has been a key component of perfumes, medicines, and teas. Vicks Calming Menthol and Lavender VapoPads combine lavender’s calming effects with the comfort that breathing menthol vapors bring. Pop a VapoPad into a compatible Vicks humidifier, vaporizer, sinus inhaler, or plug-in to introduce calming lavender vapors into your home.

Eucalyptus: for sleepy time or any time.

Eucalyptus comes from a flowering tree native to Australia that belongs to the same family as cloves and allspice. It was used as an antiseptic in Aboriginal medicines before being integrated into other cultures’ medical traditions.

Eucalyptus’ aroma reminds some of rosemary as well as the scents described above, menthol and lavender. So it makes sense that Vicks Soothing Sleepy Time Comfort VapoPads supply a soothing combination of eucalyptus, lavender, and rosemary in the form of vapors, straight from your humidifier. Treat yourself to this blend to provide a pleasant scent as the backdrop for your peaceful night’s sleep.

Scents for all sensibilities.

It’s rare for even a small group of people to agree wholeheartedly about, well, anything. But menthol, lavender, and eucalyptus have withstood the test of time. Through centuries and across cultures and civilizations, these three scents have not only survived–they’ve thrived.

Did you guess all three correctly? Fortunately, there’s no need to guess when you’re shopping at your local drugstore. Menthol, lavender, and eucalyptus-scented products are easy to find because they’re capable of providing soothing comfort when we need it most.

Common cold got you coughing? Minor aches and pains courtesy of the flu? Quick-acting, long-lasting relief from your symptoms is available from Vicks VapoRub, Vicks VapoSteam, and Vicks VapoPads. But which should you reach for first?

Your answer lies in the symptoms you want to relieve and how you want to benefit from the soothing, medicated vapors each product offers. Pause here to consider your symptoms–throat and bronchial irritation, or muscle and joint discomfort, for example–then read on to learn how each product works to get you back to feeling like yourself.

Let Vicks VapoRub suppress your cough and relieve minor aches and pains.

Vicks VapoRub Topical Cough Suppressant has had a place in American homes for several generations now. As effective as ever, Vicks VapoRub produces powerful, long-lasting medicated vapors that enter the nose and mouth and start working in minutes to ease breathing and promote restful and restorative sleep.

For temporary relief from common cold-related coughs: Apply a thick layer of Vicks VapoRub to the throat and chest. Cover it with a warm, dry cloth if desired. Keep clothing and other coverings around the throat and chest loose to allow vapors to reach the nose and mouth easily. You can feel safe using Vicks VapoRub up to three times daily or as directed by a doctor.

For minor aches and pains in muscles and joints: Apply Vicks VapoRub to the affected area no more than three to four times daily.

How it works: Camphor (a cough suppressant and topical analgesic), eucalyptus oil (a cough suppressant), and menthol (a cough suppressant and topical analgesic) are active ingredients in Vicks VapoRub. Note that Vicks VapoRub should only be used on children ages two years and over.

Vicks VapoRub Topical Cough Suppressant is also available with Lavender Scent and with Lemon Scent.

Let Vicks VapoSteam moisten your breathing passages and relieve your cold-related cough.

For temporary relief from common cold-related coughs: Pour Vicks VapoSteam into the medicine cup of a Vicks Vaporizer or other hot/warm steam humidifier. Vicks VapoSteam increases the action of steam to moisten dry, irritated breathing passages associated with colds.

How it works: Vicks VapoSteam contains an alcohol-based formula that produces powerful, medicated steam. It’s not for internal use, and should be used for steam inhalation only, up to three times daily or as directed by a doctor. Vicks VapoSteam is not for use by children under two years old.

Let Vicks VapoPads soothe your discomfort and enhance your humidification experience.

For nasal and congestion relief, or to create a calming, peaceful oasis in your home: Use Vicks VapoPads with Vicks Humidifiers, Vicks Vaporizers, and Vicks Sinus Inhaler with a VapoPad slot/door.

How it works: Each pad delivers up to eight hours of soothing vapors and fast-acting relief. For infants under ten pounds, don’t use more than two pads in a twenty-four hour period. For children ten to twenty-two pounds, don’t use more than six pads in a twenty-four hour period.

Choose from: Vicks VapoPads Plus Intense Cold Blasting Menthol; Vicks Soothing Menthol Vapors VapoPads; Vicks Soothing Sleepy Time Comfort VapoPads with eucalyptus, rosemary and lavender vapors for added comfort, and Vicks Calming Menthol and Lavender Vapopads.

Options are good when you’re feeling bad.

A young North Carolina pharmacist named Lunsford created Croup & Pneumonia Salve in 1894 to soothe his young son’s severe cough. Over 125 years later, American households continue to trust the product we now know as Vicks VapoRub. When you need to feel better, Vicks VapoRub, Vicks VapoSteam, and Vicks VapoPads are your trusted choices.

Your kid has a cold. A real one, not an "I-don’t-think-I-should-go-to-school-today-cough-cough" cold. Poor kid. You’ll do just about anything to help them feel better.

So you launch into full parent mode and do what your mom did for you when you needed TLC. To “feed a cold,” you serve up a warm bowl of chicken soup — the original hack for soothing loved ones with colds. What else would mom do? A kiss on the forehead? Check. Is that it? Oh yeah, she’d deploy her secret weapon: the humidifier.

What do humidifiers do?

Humidifiers turn the water you put into them into warm steam or cool mist.

• Warm steam from a Vicks warm mist humidifier provides restorative moisture that allows better breathing. Adding liquid inhalants like Vicks VapoSteam can offer next-level temporary relief from cough and congestion.
• Cool mist will help maintain a room’s overall room temperature.

For a child suffering from a cold, warm steam will ease any dry air discomfort and allow for more comfortable sleep.

What do I need to know when shopping for a humidifier?

To find the humidifier that best suits your needs, you need to know the following:

• How large is your child’s room? There are many varieties of humidifier models that suit small (up to 250 square feet), medium (up to 400 square feet), and large (up to 600 square feet) rooms.
• Do you anticipate running the humidifier all night? If so, consider a humidifier with a large water tank capacity and a run time long enough that you and your child can sleep comfortably through the night worry-free.
• Do you want a filtered or filter-free humidifier? Filtered (evaporative) humidifiers use a filter to remove minerals from the water and quietly deliver invisible moisture into the air. Filter-free (ultrasonic) models are ultra-quiet and deliver visible mist but should be used with demineralization cartridges to help prevent white dust. Compare each type’s advantages.

Get a modern humidifier

Forget the aging humidifier in the attic. When was that last cleaned? Today’s humidifiers create a comforting environment for your sick child in several ways.

For example, the Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier:

● Provides warm mist to help temporarily relieve cough and cold symptoms.
● Comes with a medicine cup for use with Vicks VapoSteam.
● Accepts up to two Vicks VapoPads.
● Offers dual mist settings for maximum comfort with auto-shutoff.

These videos provide a solid introduction to the Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier and how straightforward it is to clean.

Keep your child comfortable while on the road to recovery

The sooner your kid feels better, the sooner you’ll feel better. You can’t trade places with them, but you can do for them what your mom did for you. Spread the word among fellow parents. Humidifiers are a cold-soothing hack that shouldn’t be overlooked.

When one or more of your kids catch whatever bug is going around this week, you need to act quickly.

• You want your kids to feel better as soon as possible.
• You want to keep other members of your household from catching the bug.
• And you need a breather to take care of other responsibilities–including your own health.

Keep this in mind: Humidifiers help create a more comfortable environment for sick kids and are as close as your corner — or online — drugstore.

A humidifier is a smart addition to a sick kid’s room.

Kids get sick — a lot. While your kid is bouncing back, you want them to be comfortable. A cold can cause congestion and coughing. A humidifier will fill your child’s room with essential moisture to soothe troubled breathing and help make restorative sleep possible. A humidifier may help break up congestion and aids in the relief of some cough and cold symptoms.

The versatile Vicks Dual Comfort Cool + Warm Mist Humidifier provides two mist temperatures that can provide temporary relief by adding necessary moisture to the air. This means that your family can rely on this humidifier during cold season, when pollen season kicks in, or when the air is simply dry.

Humidifiers are easy to buy and easy to set up.

Vicks offers a wide range of humidifiers to suit your household’s needs. But shopping for one isn’t intimidating. You won’t need to hurriedly locate a store specializing in costly, complex medical devices the next time your kids get sick. You can easily find Vicks humidifiers at your local drugstore, your favorite superstore, and online.

To select a humidifier for your kid’s room, note the room’s square footage. Then choose a humidifier with the features you want for a space of that size — features like a large water tank capacity and long run-time capability for overnight use. For a child suffering from a cold, check out warm mist humidifiers.

Once you get home, setting up and maintaining a humidifier is straightforward. If you have a warm mist humidifier, consider using yours with VapoSteam to create steam that helps to relieve coughs from colds.

Humidifiers are good for parents, too.

Good news: Your kid is getting back on their feet. Breathe a sigh of relief, then consider this: Did you know that a humidifier can contribute to your overall wellness? You know, feeling and looking good. Your own humidifier can promote more restful sleep and help keep dry skin hydrated.

While taking care of your kids, take care of yourself too. Make a humidifier part of your self-care routine.

Relief is within your reach.

Think back to your childhood: Humidifiers have been part of our lives for a long time. As kids, they created comfortable environments when we weren’t feeling our best. Now, we can share the same soothing experience with our children.