Ashy

According to Google Images:: According to Urban Dictionary::   Ashy- "When a negro's skin so dry it looks like they a white folk who been workin' in a coal mine."  - Damn, Sheila skin be ashy.....she need some cocoa butter to moisten up. True statement. But this definition doesn't just apply to my darker-skinned friends. No, no. In the winter months, I am one ashy Sheila. I have always had dry skin. When I was little my hands would get so chapped in the winter they would start to crack and so my parents bought some heavy-duty lotion to solve the problem. This lotion was the devil's invention. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. A trusted brand for more than 90 years, Corn Huskers Lotion was originally created to heal the hands of farmers and apparently, people who husked corn in Iowa! So obviously, my parents got it trying to be helpful and to save my little hands from eminent frost bite/dryness/total deterioration. But let me tell you...I hated it so much. This lotion is not the nice, smooth, lightly scented kind of lotion normal people use. On the contrary! Its thicker and has a gel-like consistency and it smelled like corn - only worse, I cant even describe it - but it stunk, which made my hands stink too. So every night, after brushing my teeth I would go to my dad and he would cover my hands in the lotion and I would sit there and cry. This lotion was extreme. I mean, it burned like my hands were on fire. Every night I would argue that I didn't need the lotion but this was after I spent the evening complaining about how much my skin hurt...So every night I sat there, tears streaming down my face while my hands turned red under a thick-layer of Corn Huskers. And then, to make matters worse, sometimes I had to wear gloves to bed to seal in the moisture. Talk about nerd.   In high school I started developing a red, itchy rash on my wrists and forearms. Having no idea what it was, I started calling it "herpes of the arm"......... yeah....... My mom finally got fed up with me referring to it as "my herpes" and took me to the dermatologist. We found out it wasn't herpes at all! It was just your average case of eczema! Who knew?! I got prescribed this annoying gel to put on nightly, or until symptoms are gone. I did it for a while and then I got really annoyed with having to deal with it. Just like wearing a retainer, or flossing, you try to stick with it but soon you get sick of putting in the extra time and just quit altogether. So that's what I did. And for the most part, I haven't had too many eczema problems since! Despite getting rid of the eczema, I am still one ashy lady. For example: When I remove black leggings after a day of wearing them on non-moisturized skin, they look dusty. Yes. Its true. There is literally a slight dusting that can be shaken off. Disturbing. One time I went midnight sledding in very cold conditions and when I got back home, the skin on my chest was burning so much that I thought I was having an allergic reaction to the cold. I put on my special lotion and it started burning so hard that I thought my boobs were going to fall off. Then I started to cry as flashbacks of Corn Huskers flooded my mind. Sometimes, if I'm not wearing "full-coverage" underwear beneath my jeans (aka sportin' a thong), my booty literally gets chapped. HAWT.  During the winter, I have to choose my tops carefully because if a fabric is too rough, it causes my entire torso to cry out in pain due to over-exfoliation. For Christmas last year, one of my best friends gave me 2 different kinds of hardcore foot cream and a heal scrub because she "knew I needed it". Lets be honest though, I bring this upon myself - If I put in the time it takes to moisturize everyday, I probably wouldn't have a problem. But I don't. Its time consuming and after putting on lotion you cant do basic things like open a door knob thanks to your greasy hands. So I rarely lotion-up. If/when I do its because I have time to kill or I'm trying to impress a special someone. Ya feel me? (please don't though, because it hurts)
Good Luck on Finals!!