Sorry for the long lapse between posts, but I've been quite the busy bee over here. What, between playing the new Grand Theft Auto extension pack, writing reviews over on MakeupAlley, and staring off into space for hours on end, it's a wonder I even have time to catch up on my beauty rest. In all seriousness though, if sleep makes you beautiful, I should be Helen of Troy at this point.The past month has brought me something of a beauty revelation. In the past, I've always been pretty particular about which products I've used on my face, but far more lax about the quality of products I use in the shower. Why use a high-end shower gel when it's literally money going down the drain? However, I've also been cursed with sensitive skin, and my occasional eczema has led to me dropping trou for a cortisone shot in a dermatologist's office more than once. And as the glamorous life of an unemployed person does not allow for such luxuries as emergency medical insurance, I've been forced to take some pretty DIY measures. Call me frivolous, but a quality body cleanser and moisturizer take less out of the monthly budget than a COBRA payment.
Over the years, doctors have given me some pretty random advice about how to keep my skin problems at bay: slather on Vaseline, lie out in the sun, avoid spicy food, scrub with Ivory soap, spin around twenty times while clapping your hands, and whatever else. I've tried it all. Up until a few weeks ago, it never occurred to me that my eczema might be a physical reaction to anything but stress.
But then came the revelation. One day my partner and I were arguing about baby diapers, as we non-parents who never intend to become parents are obviously wont to do. His mother used disposables, while I insisted that the superior way of dealing with diapers was to use cloth and have them whisked away in a magical van like my mother did. He asked why my mother would do that, and there was the 800 pound gorilla: "Because disposable diapers gave me a rash."
I have spent 33 years on this earth. I can tell you the exact year that movies I've never watched were released, and can deduce the year television shows were filmed based upon which color of nail polish the actresses are wearing, but it took me that stupidly long to figure out what was sending me crying to the doctor every couple of years. About 30% of a disposable diaper is made up of petroleum, and petroleum or mineral oil are found in the vast majority of drugstore shampoos, cleansers, conditioners, moisturizers, and other cosmetics. Most people, of course, have no physical reaction to petroleum products- I'm just unlucky that way.
Still, I decided to work with my theory and stick to using only petroleum-free products on my body. (Boscia's Jujube line has been incredible.) Well, what do you know? Any dry skin or redness I had disappeared within days, and knock on wood, it has not come back.
It's pretty hard to conduct an online search about petroleum allergies without encountering a hornet's nest full of hippies and other assorted weirdos who advocate using baking soda instead of toothpaste and going "au naturel" on the deodorant route. Now, I won't subject anyone to that, and I don't hold the cosmetics industry responsible for my lifetime of unmitigated torture and agony. I reserve that resentment for the host of medically trained professionals who ignored my allergy charts in favor of telling me to bathe in oil (that is), black gold, Texas tea. This is what I'd like to say to them.
