Miami Herald (Sunday)

The beauty hack skin-care experts actually like

- BY JANNA MANDELL Special To The Washington Post

It’s rare for TikTok beauty trends to hold merit with dermatolog­ists and aesthetici­ans. Whether they’re ridiculous (#lubeprimer, #snailfacia­l) or dangerous (#diymolerem­oval, filing teeth), most TikTok “beauty hacks” are quickly debunked by skincare profession­als – with the overwhelmi­ng exception of “slugging.”

Slugging is a catchy term that means slathering your face with petroleum jelly as the last step of your evening skin-care routine. The practice leaves your face as slimy as slug mucus (hence the name).

Supposedly initially a K-Beauty trend, the term slugging appears to have first surfaced in the United States in a 2014 post in a Reddit subgroup. But it didn’t go viral until Charlotte Palermino, a New York City-based licensed aesthetici­an and co-founder of skin care company Dieux, introduced the concept to her TikTok and Instagram followers in September 2020, telling them it had made her dry skin “juicy.” As of press time, the hashtag #slugging has 235.5 million views on TikTok.

Petroleum jelly, which is also known as petrolatum and was first sold by Vaseline, is a white or yellowish semisolid substance made up of a mixture of complex hydrocarbo­ns by dewaxing crude oil. According to Joshua Zeichner, a dermatolog­ist and associate professor of dermatolog­y at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, it is an occlusive ingredient: “It forms a seal over the stratum corneum (outer layer of skin or skin barrier) to protect the skin from the environmen­t while preventing water loss.”

By forming this seal – which keeps dirt and bacteria out and moisture in – the petroleum jelly creates the ideal environmen­t to allow your skin to repair itself, Zeichner said. And, he and Palermino said, slugging doesn’t require much petroleum jelly. You can use a pea-size portion for your entire face (you don’t want to ruin your linens).

Though slugging is a new name for it, the act of applying petroleum jelly as a skin protectant is nothing new. In the 15th century, members of the Native American Seneca tribe, who dug oil pits in northweste­rn Pennsylvan­ia, used petroleum jelly on human and animal skin to protect wounds, stimulate healing and keep the skin moist. In the late 19th century, American chemist Robert Chesebroug­h, visiting oil fields in the same area of northweste­rn Pennsylvan­ia, observed oil workers applying the residue from their oil drills on their wounds. Chesebroug­h brought a sample back to his Brooklyn lab, purified it, tested it on his self-inflicted wounds and in 1870 branded his “miracle jelly” as Vaseline.

When Tiffany Clay, an Atlanta-based dermatolog­ist, saw slugging being promoted on Instagram, she was amused. “I laughed because I’ve been doing it my whole life.” Clay credits her “Black grandmothe­rs who slathered Vaseline on my cousins and me when we got out of the bath.”

Now, Clay finds herself recommendi­ng petroleum jelly in her dermatolog­y practice “at least 10 times a day” – for dry skin, wound care, surgical aftercare and “especially for my eczema patients who have a compromise­d skin barrier and tend to be on the dry side.” Signs of a compromise­d skin barrier can include redness, dryness, peeling, flaking, burning or stinging.

Ranella Hirsch, a dermatolog­ist based in Cambridge, Mass., agrees. “I tell parents to coat their kids with Vaseline when they first get out of the tub to seal in the moisture,” Hirsch said. “We’ve been using that as standard practice because the petrolatum really functions as a top coat, trapping in the moisture and preventing transepide­rmal water loss.”

Research has shown that in addition to reducing transepide­rmal water loss (TEWL), by 99 percent, petrolatan­timicrobia­l properties and accelerate­s skin healing.

Palermino recommends using petroleum jelly in a “moisture sandwich” to trap in the most hydration. “In aesthetici­an school, one of the first things you learn is you hydrate your skin, you moisturize your skin, and then you trap it all in with an occlusive.”

But because of petroleum jelly’s occlusive nature, Hirsch cautions against applying any active ingredient­s, such as retinoids, exfoliants or topical vitamin C before slugging, because you could damage your skin. “You can take an ingredient that is fairly mild, and turn it into something very potent by sealing it with petrolatum.”

Although petroleum jelly is considered non-comedogeni­c (meaning it won’t clog pores) because its molecular size is too large to penetrate deep into the skin, Hirsch warned that slugging is not for everyone. “Generally speaking, I don’t tend to recommend it [slugging] for people who are prone to milia, oily or acne. Hirsch recommends patch-testing first for these skin conditions and if you are prone to allergic reactions.

For severely dry skin, Susan Taylor, a Philadelph­ia-based dermatolog­ist and founder of the Skin of Color Society, warns that petroleum jelly, alone, will not moisturize the skin. “I have my patients put the petroleum jelly over a moisturize­r that has humectant and emollient ingredient­s.” Taylor also tells patients to apply petroleum jelly when skin is damp to “trap in the moisture.”

The Food and Drug Administra­tion regulates petrolatum as an over-thecounter drug and deems it a safe and effective skin protectant when the concentrat­ion range is 30 percent to 100 percent.

But the public has a couple of concerns about petroleum jelly. One is worry about contaminat­ion by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbo­ns (PAHs), which are naturally occurring chemical compounds found in crude oil that have been deemed probable human carcinogen­s.

The experts I spoke to said that while unrefined petroleum jelly (which is not permitted in the United States) can be contaminat­ed with PAHs, the petroleum jelly you see on the shelves of your drugstore has been highly refined.

“Petrolatum is essentiall­y a waste product from the petroleum industry that goes through several rounds of refinement until all the impurities have been removed,” said Victoria Fu, a cosmetic formulatio­n chemist and co-founder of Chemist Confession­s, a skin-care line. “Petrolatum has been around for so long and scrutinize­d by regulators for so long that refined petrolatum has gone through the gamut of testing to ensure safety before it hits the shelves.”

Another concern raised by critics of slugging is that petroleum jelly, as a byproduct of crude oil, is not a sustainabl­e product. But Anthony R. Kovscek, a Stanford University professor and senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, said eliminatin­g sales of petroleum jelly would do little to reverse climate change. “Changing your driving and commuting behaviors, as well as driving the most fuel-efficient car you can afford is far more likely to have an effect on the fossil fuel industry than tamping down sales of Vaseline.”

There are many alternativ­es to petroleum jelly, such as mineral oils, plant oils and animal waxes. While Hirsch and Zeichner recommend Waxelene, they cautioned that products other than petroleum jelly are not as occlusive, are more expensive and have risks of contaminat­ion.

“Plants are bio-accumulato­rs so something like shea butter needs to be highly refined before it hits the market,” Palermino said. And, she concluded, the refinement process creates a large carbon footprint.

 ?? JONATHAN KNOWLES Getty Images ?? Using petroleum jelly to hydrate your skin is popular on TikTok, athough there’s more to it than that.
JONATHAN KNOWLES Getty Images Using petroleum jelly to hydrate your skin is popular on TikTok, athough there’s more to it than that.

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