Popular Sizes 6-9 months £7.50 9-12 months £7.50 12-18 months £7.50 More sizes available from our shop

The ScratchSleeves story:

Our son Max developed infantile eczema when he was about 4 months old, his face was worst affected and, not surprisingly, he scratched. A lot. We tried conventional scratch mitts, then socks on his hands and sleepsuits with built in scratch mitts, but he managed to escape from them all and even managed to scratch himself through them. As you can't use prescription creams on broken skin we could rarely treat the eczema, so the itching of both the eczema and the healing skin got worse and he scratched even more. It got to the point that we dreaded getting him up and discovering what he'd managed to do to himself this time. Like many parents of eczema sufferers, when his skin was really damaged we stopped taking him out to avoid the judgemental looks from passers-by.

After much discussion and a lot of experimentation we came up with a solution that worked and that we promptly christened ScratchSleeves, as that's exactly what they are. The original versions were made from a rather nasty logo t-shirt and the off-cuts of Jae's wedding dress. Max's scratches healed and we could treat the eczema which has also largely cleared up. The design worked so well that a friend suggested that we gave a pair to a scratchy little girl that she knew of. The feedback we got was so positive that we decided to be brave and set up a company making them. (See Erin's story).

We are Jae and Mark: Mark has been playing with computers ever since he could get his hands on one and Jae has been creating things from fabric for as long as she can remember.

We started this project out of a desire to help other babies like Max. Now ScratchSleeves has turned into a full-time endeavour which keeps the whole family busy, even Max who posts the packets and brings us the labels and packing slips from the printer. Jae still works part-time as an accountant but Mark, who was taking a sabbatical while Max was small, is now working full time on ScratchSleeves, although he does escape and go windsurfing when the weather's good.