General Purpose Skin cream for travellers

Having suffered various skin ailments over a year and a half in India ranging from insect bites to leg-covering infections due to scratching bites I have realised that the best all purpose cream is one that combines 4 properties

1. Anti inflammatory (soothes the skin, reduces itching from bites, sunburn and inflammation around minor wounds)
2. Anti bacterial (prevents infection in minor wounds that casues the skin condition to spread)
3. Anti fungal (prevents/stops fungal growth in the skin)
4. Astringent (dries out sores/wounds and thereby accelerates healing)

A cream with all 4 properties is good for treating bites, minor wounds, infections including those that scratching bites can cause, sun burn and for speeding up skin healing in general. These creams are strong and should be used sparingly. A single application is enough for most problems if caught early. You must see a doctor of course if a condition gets worse and doesn't respond to the creams.

There are creams that have all 4 properties available in India including
Starbact-GM
CGM
Clobasia-GM
Clobeta-CF
Cutivate-GT
Dermocrat Plus
Hyton
Leobet-G
Multiguard ,
Zincoderm-GM (not the other forms of Zincoderm)
Betzee-GM
Fluco MZ
Clobno MZ
CUTIVATE-GT
Lozee GM
(These suffixes such as "GT" and "MZ" are important as they determine what chemicals are included. For example "Betzee-GM" has all 4 ingedients but "Betzee-G" does not)

I am not a doctor but I take my health seriously and have been travelling for many years. Since I started using these creams I have not had any of the skin problems I had in my early days in India.

And I have researched the active ingredients so if you want the technical background read on....

Creams with anti inflammatory + astringent + anti bacterial + antifungal properties have these 4 chemicals sets
1.(anti inflammatory) Steroids like Clobetasol propionate 0.05 %, betamethasone or Triamcinolone acetonide
2.(astringent) Zinc sulphate or Zinc Oxide or silver nitrate, potassium permanganate, Burrow’s solution, tincture of benzoin, and vegetable substances such as tannic and gallic acids.
3.(anti bacterial) Neomycin/Gentomycin/Gentamicin
4.(antifungal) Miconazole, Miconazole Nitrate, Terbinafine hydrochloride, Nystatin or Tolnaftate
The creams I have listed have all 4 and you should make sure that all 4 are present in any other cream you buy or bring with you if you want the 4 way protection. Other creams have only 3 or even 2 of the chemical sets.

You will find creams with some but not all of the 4 properties, and you can mix them usually.
For example, alcohol or after-shave are good astringents so you could use these in combination with a cream that lacks an astringent but has the other 3 properties.