Supposedly initially a K-Beauty development, the time period slugging appears to have very first surfaced in the United States in a 2014 put up in a Reddit subgroup. But it didn’t go viral till Charlotte Palermino, a New York City-dependent licensed aesthetician and co-founder of pores and skin treatment firm Dieux, released the strategy to her TikTok and Instagram followers in September 2020, telling them it experienced made her dry pores and skin “juicy.” As of press time, the hashtag #slugging has 235.5 million views on TikTok.
Petroleum jelly, which is also recognized as petrolatum and was 1st bought by Vaseline, is a white or yellowish semisolid material created up of a mixture of intricate hydrocarbons by dewaxing crude oil. In accordance to Joshua Zeichner, a dermatologist and associate professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Healthcare facility in New York Town, it is an occlusive component: “It forms a seal about the stratum corneum (outer layer of skin or skin barrier) to guard the pores and skin from the environment although preventing h2o decline.”
By forming this seal — which keeps grime and micro organism out and humidity in — the petroleum jelly results in the great setting to permit your skin to restore by itself, Zeichner said. And, he and Palermino mentioned, slugging doesn’t require a great deal petroleum jelly. You can use a pea-dimension part for your full deal with, alternatively than what is likely on in the online video underneath (you really don’t want to destroy your linens).
Though slugging is a new name for it, the act of implementing petroleum jelly as a pores and skin protectant is very little new. In the 15th century, users of the Native American Seneca tribe, who dug oil pits in northwestern Pennsylvania, applied petroleum jelly on human and animal pores and skin to protect wounds, encourage healing and hold the pores and skin moist. In the late 19th century, American chemist Robert Chesebrough, viewing oil fields in the identical area of northwestern Pennsylvania, observed oil employees making use of the residue from their oil drills on their wounds. Chesebrough introduced 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 mostly dermatologist, saw slugging staying promoted on Instagram, she was amused. “I laughed since I’ve been accomplishing it my entire existence.” Clay credits her “Black grandmothers who slathered Vaseline on my cousins and me when we acquired out of the bath.”
Now, Clay finds herself recommending petroleum jelly in her dermatology follow “at least 10 moments a day” — for dry pores and skin, wound treatment, surgical aftercare and “especially for my eczema sufferers who have a compromised skin barrier and tend to be on the dry facet.” Indicators of a compromised pores and skin barrier can consist of redness, dryness, peeling, flaking, burning or stinging.
Ranella Hirsch, a dermatologist primarily based in Cambridge, Mass., agrees. “I notify mother and father to coat their kids with Vaseline when they very first get out of the tub to seal in the moisture,” Hirsch explained. “We’ve been making use of that as conventional apply for the reason that the petrolatum seriously capabilities as a best coat, trapping in the dampness and avoiding transepidermal water loss.” Study has shown that in addition to cutting down transepidermal drinking water reduction (TEWL), by 99 percent, petrolatum has anti-microbial houses and accelerates skin therapeutic.
Palermino endorses making use of petroleum jelly in a “humidity sandwich” to lure in the most hydration. “In aesthetician college, one particular of the 1st factors you learn is you hydrate your pores and skin, you moisturize your pores and skin, and then you lure it all in with an occlusive.”
But simply because of petroleum jelly’s occlusive mother nature, Hirsch cautions in opposition to making use of any lively components, these as retinoids, exfoliants or topical vitamin C in advance of slugging, simply because you could damage your pores and skin. “You can acquire an component that is rather delicate, and turn it into something pretty potent by sealing it with petrolatum.”
While petroleum jelly is thought of non-comedogenic (indicating it won’t clog pores) for the reason that its molecular dimension is way too huge to penetrate deep into the skin, Hirsch warned that slugging is not for all people. “Generally talking, I do not are inclined to advise it [slugging] for men and women who are inclined to milia, oily or pimples. I just uncover occlusives are not a excellent relationship for them.” Hirsch endorses patch-testing first for these pores and skin conditions and if you are inclined to allergic reactions.
For severely dry pores and skin, Susan Taylor, a Philadelphia-based skin doctor and founder of the Pores and skin of Color Culture, warns that petroleum jelly, by yourself, will not moisturize the skin. “I have my sufferers place the petroleum jelly in excess of a moisturizer that has humectant and emollient substances.” Taylor also tells patients to utilize petroleum jelly when pores and skin is damp to “trap in the dampness.”
The Food and Drug Administration regulates petrolatum as an in excess of-the-counter drug and deems it a safe and helpful skin protectant when the focus variety is 30 percent to 100 per cent. But the public has a pair of concerns about petroleum jelly. One is get worried about contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are obviously happening chemical compounds discovered in crude oil that have been deemed probable human carcinogens.
The professionals I spoke to explained that whilst unrefined petroleum jelly (which is not permitted in the United States) can be contaminated with PAHs, the petroleum jelly you see on the cabinets of your drugstore has been highly refined. “Petrolatum is fundamentally a squander products from the petroleum marketplace that goes as a result of various rounds of refinement right up until all the impurities have been eliminated,” claimed Victoria Fu, a pores and skin-care science educator, beauty formulation chemist and co-founder of Chemist Confessions, a pores and skin-care line. “Petrolatum has been around for so long and scrutinized by regulators for so prolonged that refined petrolatum has absent by the gamut of tests to guarantee basic safety ahead of it hits the shelves.”
A further concern elevated by critics of slugging is that petroleum jelly, as a byproduct of crude oil, is not a sustainable item. But Anthony R. Kovscek, a Stanford University professor and senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Electricity, said removing profits of petroleum jelly would do minor to reverse weather change. “Changing your driving and commuting behaviors, as nicely as driving the most fuel-efficient automobile you can afford is far much more likely to have an effect on the fossil gas industry than tamping down sales of Vaseline.”
There are numerous alternate options to petroleum jelly, these types of as mineral oils, plant oils and animal waxes. When Hirsch and Zeichner propose Waxelene, they cautioned that solutions other than petroleum jelly are not as occlusive, are more expensive and have dangers of contamination.
“Plants are bio-accumulators so one thing like shea butter needs to be extremely refined just before it hits the sector,” Palermino said. And, she concluded, the refinement system produces a huge carbon footprint.
