Is it because you are lazy? A friend half-jokingly asks when I tell her I’m investigating a TikTok-fueled skin-care trend. But her comment made me wonder why the slow-moving mollusk so often encountered on garden paths after the rain has suddenly become the spirit animal of contemporary skin care. Of course, we’ve all been through a lot: pandemics, natural and climate change-related disasters, wars, and the gradual erosion of democracy. Who doesn’t feel a little “sluggish” lately?
However, this new paradigm involves coating the skin with an occlusive, i.e. waterproof, petroleum jelly-like substance. Use on face as the final step in your evening skincare routine (after cleansing and moisturizing) and continue while you sleep. Proponents of slugging claim that sleeping like a smooth donut has many benefits, including increased hydration, replenishing and protecting the skin barrier, and (for the rare mature follower of the TikTok trend) wrinkle reduction. In other words, it’s meant to mimic or enhance the restorative effects of a good night’s sleep on one’s complexion.
It was a young colleague who introduced the term to dermatologist Rosemarie Ingleton. “I gave her a quizzical look, and then I realized this is what people have been doing for a long time. thing,” she said. Ingleton, who grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, recalls watching her grandmother put petroleum jelly on her face at night. “In her heart, she’s a country woman who does everything she can to protect her skin,” said Ingleton, who after moving to the U.S. heard older black Southern women were doing the same. Especially in the winter, “if you sleep in a heated room and soak up everything that’s in your skin at night, this will prevent transepidermal moisture loss,” she explains.
Heavy hits are not a panacea, however. Ingleton and Ellen Gendler, MD, a dermatologist and associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Center, both warn people with oily skin or acne-prone skin about the potential pore-clogging effects. “It’s not something I tell my patients to do unless they’re at 7,000 feet in Colorado and their face is really chapped and dry,” says Gendler. Hiccups are “almost like treating your face as if it had diaper rash,” she added.
In fact, she speculates that hiccups may have originated in baby nursing. (When I explained the trend, a friend responded, “I did that to my baby!”) A long-held belief suggests that rubbing petroleum jelly on babies’ skin can make them healthier later in life. Less prone to eczema. (In addition to creating a very slippery baby, this strategy was overthrown in a recent long-term clinical trial.) says.
My own baby is closer to college than a crib, but what mother can forget the genuine softness of baby’s skin? So, I hit — or rather, I tried. While Aquaphor and CeraVe Healing Ointments—effective classics for baby and wound care—are hitters on social media, I was looking for a product that might be lighter on the skin. One night, I bravely slathered Futurewise’s total soothing system on my face—hydrating mist, barrier repair moisturizer, and water-locking sealing balm—and went to bed wearing a headband to keep my hair from sticking to thick (Capturing a recent trend, the brand used a gastropod as its mascot.) But I’m a natural side sleeper, and after hours of worrying about staining my pillowcase, I got up and washed it up.
