Oh Hi, Dry.

That was a very begrudging “Hi” indeed. An extremely dry “Hi” if you will.

Cause you see, I did NOT miss you at ALL, dry skin.You know, I don’t think I will ever run out of things to No Dankes when it comes to wintertime. And fall and early spring, for that matter.

I’m gonna knock it up a notch. I daresay I hate the bitter cold that is descending upon us for the unforeseeable future.

But when it comes to winter, I despise one element most of all. You see, with winter comes fake heat. And fake heat squeezes the shit out of any moisture our skin can muster. Squanders it. Squashes.

Add to this the superfluous amount of germs. flu germs, namely (which have been running exceptionally rampant this winter! Which translates to more hand washing. Incessant hand washing, actually. (For me, at least.)

I dread the time of year when the heat comes on and the flakes come out (skin not snow). Dehydrated epidermis is awful yo. Awful!

Hot showers are no longer soothing, they’re your worst enemy. I can literally feel my skin contracting, tightening, shriveling into itself after a hot shower. So I make some sacrifices and have a far less enjoyable warm shower instead. Under five minutes (as all showers should be).

Radiators and heat vents are no longer beacons of inviting warmth, but lamentable purveyors of the dreaded - eek - cracked, raw skin.
 

And beware of that pipe running through the corner of your apartment - it is most likely HOT and will undoubtedly BURN YOU. Trust me, I speak from experience.

As if it’s not bad enough that every square centimeter of our winter bodies are red and split and flaking and itching and painful, there’s not a single good remedy for it.

Sure, drink more water. Yeah, like that will do anything. That’s like telling a plant to go find some shade in the middle of the Sahara.

Then there’s: Go put some put lotion on. But of course! Let me just sting the shit out of my poor, poor skin even more. And while it’s burning and flaming and apparently being zapped by a thousand little needle heads, let me try to pick up my can of soda.

But oh, wait, there goes my drink everywhere because it slipped through my slick, greased up hands (this happened to me last week...all over the book I was reading - devastation).

With the advent of wintertime, we become a society of geriatrics - what with our Head and Shoulders, our Lubriderm, our moisture sockies and glovies, our nonstop, 24/7 humidifiers, our omnipresent Vaseline.

It’s a battle, I tell you. A fight against the radiator, the institution of showering, against itchy wool sweaters and bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizers (60% minimum!), against the icy, cutting wind outside, and hot-air, thirst-inducing office vents within.

It is a very serious, very expensive, very painful battle.

Painful and expensive indeed! This may be a little TMI but my come winter, my legs get so dry they could moonlight as a dried up lake in Death Valley under a microscope. And dry (for me), means itchy. Obviously the last thing you should do when something itches is scratch it.

That’s what landed me an Rx for Cordran Lotion. Liquid gold - literally. That little 60 mL bottle is $50 - with insurance. Without it, gah...I shudder at the thought.

Cordran is a lifesaver. It has saved me from my rabid, scratching self on many occasions. But as it’s pretty much the price of gold, I restrict its usage to very exception(ally bad) occasions. For everyday I use Lubriderm - 13-15 pumps worth for each leg.

That’s.a.lotta.lotion.

While I’m whiling away winter cause it empties my pockets, Johnson & Johnson is loving every second. Rolling in the dough. Man oh man they must sell a shitload of lotion. Ugh.