My Dry Skin Rant
I am so frustrated! I just finished vacuuming and dusting, then walked back into the living room only to see my dark couch displaying my dry skin flakes. Like a beacon. I thought (hoped) wearing pants with elastic around the ankle would help fix the problem, but no, it wasn’t to be. If my shirt’s not tucked in, I have those awful flakes falling on my slacks. And don’t even think about shopping for shoes, especially wearing dark socks!
My skincare routine doesn't help
After two applications of lotions and creams, why do I start flaking again so soon? I exfoliate before my shower, I apply cream immediately. Twice! I’ve tried showering twice a day and redoing the two layers of body cream. All that did was increase the profits of the manufacturer!
Drinking water doesn't help
Extremely dry skin, or xerosis, from the Greek word xero for dry, is helped by hydrating from the inside out, according to the dermatologists. Drink more water. Any more and I’d float away! If our skin cell production and replacement take around 28 days, how can I possibly have any skin left at all? At the rate my skin is falling off, I should have none left.
Constant vacuuming
I bought a Roomba (named it Harvey) on a Black Friday sale a couple of years ago. It’s the best present I’ve ever bought myself. I have Harvey cleaning while I take my shower. There always seems to be a mountain of flakes on the floor after changing my clothes. Do any of you also shake out what seems like ten pounds of skin flakes when you change your sheets? It’s like glitter - never-ending.
The struggles of eczema
Wasn’t it Pigpen in the old Peanuts comic strip that always had a cloud of dust following him around everywhere he went? That’s me! Only it’s dry skin flakes, not dirt. If it’s not the itching, scratching, burning pain of eczema, it’s the constant cleaning. The never-ending household chores to try and make it look like I’m not forever shedding my skin. And definitely don’t touch anything important when the fingers have peeled and split. That brings on the constant worry of how to get that bloodstain out.
Dark surfaces don't help hide it
Why, oh why did I buy a deep burgundy coloured couch? With a nap? Things can’t even be brushed off of it – it must be vacuumed or lint rolled, and why, oh why would I buy a place with dark wood floors? I thought originally “Oh this is good, no carpet, therefore fewer dust mites for my allergies,” but I was wrong.
Leaving a trail of dry skin flakes
The skin flakes seem to map out a pathway of every step I take. When walking through a room with no carpeting, no draperies, every little bit of dust rises up and attacks my nasal passages like a black pepper explosion. A long time ago I read a suggestion to spray a very light mist of water in the air when you vacuum or dust. Moist dust doesn’t rise up as much and move, with all its relatives, to a place you’ve already cleaned. It does help a bit.
Can anyone relate? Do you have a solution? Someone must have found something that works. I’m 73 years old and I want to spend my next 30 years enjoying life, not cleaning up my dead skin cells.
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