Vaseline is my best and only friend
The first snow happened on Friday afternoon and has thus launched us into the Midwest season that I call pre-winter. Sure, we’re still in the “fall” season until December 21 but we all know that’s a real fucking lie. We had like exactly four days of autumn before it got cold as hell. And just like the weather, something else changed overnight: my hands.
The skin on my hands is absolute shit. It wasn’t always this way, but ever since I started working full time as an adult about five years ago my hands have just turned into itchy, red masses once the air gets the tiniest bit drier. I’m not saying it’s capitalism that has destroyed my skin, but I am saying that it’s capitalism that destroyed my skin. Every day it feels like my job is just making me uglier and uglier, but that’s beside the point.
I’ve tried a lot of things to help with the hand problem. Prescribed cream, allergy meds, so many lotions, and there is only one thing that really works and that is slathering on so much fucking Vaseline all over my hands that I need to wear gloves so that there isn’t Vaseline residue on everything. I have to do this every night when I go to bed or I will die the next day. Ideally, I would do my Vaseline ritual more than just once a day, but unfortunately I have a life (and by life I mean a job) outside of laying on my bed with my hands out, not doing anything because they are covered in petroleum jelly. And then I wake up and my hands feel kind of soft and less bad, but then I have to do things like wash my hands all the time (thanks, Covid) and wash the dishes of the people I work with, so when I get home after a long day my hands are just as painful and shitty looking as they were before I did my Vaseline treatment. This is just my life every day until the humidity comes back in the month of May.
If you haven’t hopped on the Vaseline train yet, you should. Even if you don’t have the shittiest, most eczema-ridden skin to exist, petroleum jelly should still be in your routine. There are probably at least 3 expensive skincare products you buy that could be replaced with a giant tub of Vaseline that would give you the same results. Putting some on your silly little nose and lips before bed is way better than re-applying chapstick every 20 minutes, you know?
So here I must say thank you to Vaseline and other off-brand petroleum jelly products that have helped me through so much, and will continue to help me for the rest of my life. My horrible skin will not get better, but at least I got some good old goo to help me through this difficult journey. I love you, Vaseline.