Product Recall: Vaseline

March 24, 2023 Forever 35 Podcast

Kate goes deep into the history of her favorite product Wonder Jelly — which has since become known as Vaseline. Kate tells Doree about the man we’ll call Cheese-bro who “discovered” rod wax could be more than just a byproduct, the history of and controversy around slugging, and how Vaseline is inextricably linked to the oil industry.

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Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer.

Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.

Kate: And you know what? We're not experts.

Doree: We're not, but we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,

Kate: And today we are bringing you another episode of Product Recall. This is a weekly conversation where we dig deeper into the history of an iconic product and its impact here on Forever 35.

Doree: We are taking requests and we love getting your requests.

Kate: We're like Rick Ds

Doree: And the weekly top 40.

Kate: Yeah. But for Prods,

Doree: You can call or text those requests to 781-591-0390, and our email is Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And we also list everything that we talk about on the show on our website, forever35podcast.com. We're on Instagram @Forever35podcast, and you can join the Forever 35 Facebook group at facebook.com/group/forever35podcast. The password there is serums. We have a newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter, and you can shop our favorite products@shopmy.us/forever35.

Kate: Okay. That's a perfect segue because the product that we're talking about today is one of my favorite products. It's been talked about a lot here on Forever 35. And it's funny because when we did our live show and we each presented like our top three products, I didn't even remember to share this one.

Doree: Wow.

Kate: Friends.

Doree: What an oversight.

Kate: It truly was, but I think that tells you how it's such a integral part of my life. Yeah. I don't even think about it. We're talking about Vaseline.

Doree: Wow. Okay.

Kate: I love Vaseline. If you have listened to past episodes of this show, and look, if you haven't heard me say this, I do not hold it against you. We have made a lot of episodes of this podcast.

Doree: Yes.

Kate: So you could have been tuning in for the first time today. You could have missed this discussion. I will. Let me catch you up to speed. For my entire life, I have kept a tiny jar of Vaseline on my bedside table. I use it. I put it on my lips every night, I believe because a character on Doogie Hauser think it was Doogie Hauser. It was either Doogie Hauser or Growing Pains. The best friend character said, you'll have really soft kissable lips if you put Vaseline on your lips. And this made such an impression on me that ever since then I have done this. Wow.

Doree: I didn't know that this was your Vaseline origin story.

Kate: And for the life of me, I didn't put this in my notes, so I'm just speaking off the top of my head. I now can't remember if it was Doogie Houser's best friend or Kirk Cameron's, whose name I forget on Growing Pains. His best friend,

Doree: I don't remember his name either.

Kate: They both had kind of Italian American wise-crackin BFFs. And one of them talked about having Kissable lips from Vaseline.

Doree: The wisecracking Italian American best friend was a real trope of the eighties and nineties. Like Joey on Friends.

Kate: Oh yeah. And also technically Joey on Blossom. Were they Italian? I don't know. But that character basically was like a wisecracking Italian American.

Doree: He wasn't the sidekick, but Tony Danza and who's the boss?

Kate: Oh, yeah. Real eighties giving us,

Doree: I feel like that was the eighties way of being quote - unquote ethnic. Right.

Kate: I was going to say, yeah,

Doree: just get an Italian in there.

Kate: Yeah. There are slightly olive skinned. Oh goodness. Well, we're talking about Vaseline today, which is the brand name for white petroleum jelly. Okay. Petroleum jelly exists, I believe in other brands you could get a generic petroleum jelly, but Vaseline is essentially the Kleenex of petroleum jelly. Right. Like the Xerox, if you will. And we're going to start, we're going to kind of take two roads of the history of Vaseline. I want to also say this, there is so much that can be talked about with petroleum jelly that I am just skimming the surface of the oil Field,

Doree: the surface skim.

Kate: This is such a skim. I honestly left researching this feeling overwhelmed. Because it's just such a, it's been around forever and it's in everything. So I don't even, we could do a whole podcast episode just on petroleum jelly. I mean a whole, excuse me, podcast series.

Doree: Just on Petroleum jelly. Wow. Okay.

Kate: Okay. But let's start in 1837.

Doree: Okay. Take me back there. Okay.

Kate: You're a self-taught chemist named Robert Augustus Chesebrough

Doree: No,

Kate: that's when you're born, you're born in 1837

Doree: cheese, bro.?

Kate: I mean, maybe it was not pronounced that way. Maybe it was like Chese-Brow, but I'm pronouncing it cheese, bro.

Doree: Wow. That's quite a name. Okay. All right. And you live in the uk. Where do you Live?

Kate: You are born in the UK to American parents.

Doree: Oh, interesting.

Kate: But then as an adult, end up back in New York City as a self-taught chemist, born in 1837.

Doree: Born in 1837. Yes. Got it. Okay.

Kate: So by the time he is in his early twenties,

Doree: Yes.

Kate: He is a self-taught chemist and he's making a living clarifying kerosene from the oil of sperm whales.

Doree: Okay, hold on a second. First of all, self-taught chemist.

Kate: It's very 18 hundreds.

Doree: it's Very 18 hundreds. Because I feel like the corollary today is the, I did my own research people, but

Kate: He might be that person. But

Doree: These people actually did invent things.

Kate: Right? You mean these self-taught chemists?

Doree: Yes.

Kate: Well, you're going to find out yes and no.

Doree: Oh, okay.

Kate: We are,

Doree: Wait, can you repeat what he did with whales? What?

Kate: So he was clarifying kerosene from the oil of sperm whales. So this is before oil is a thing. We were hunting down those sperm whales.

Doree: Right, right. Moby Dick.

Kate: Yes. Moby Dick style. And that's where we were getting our kerosene

Doree: And you could just walk into a store and get oil from whales. Where is he obtaining this whale oil from? I'm not expecting you to know the answer. I'm just throwing out these questions. What is old cheese, bro?

Kate: What's he up to?

Doree: What's he up to in his day-to-day life? He goes to the local apothecary and he's like, Hmm, whale oil. Let me see what I can do with that.

Kate: I truly did not dig deep enough to understand the whale oil industry.

Doree: I, I'm not expecting you to.

Kate: No I Know

Doree: But

Kate: I would be, I'm curious. I could hyper fixate on the whaling industry of the 18 hundreds.

Doree: It is. I mean, it is fascinating. Fascinating. I, I'm just curious what inspired this, but please go on.

Kate: I'm guessing just like day-to-day survival, he was probably like, oh, here's a thing. I'm I have a skill I've obtained. But here's what happens. His job essentially becomes obsolete when oil fields are discovered in Pennsylvania.

Doree: Oh, okay.

Kate: Because suddenly we've got this oil boom happening in America and nobody needs cheese, bro. Clarifying that kerosene anymore. So it's 1859. He's 22 years old, and he basically takes his life savings and he is like, I'm going to spend it all on going out to Titusville, Pennsylvania, which is essentially where considered the birthplace of the American oil industry.

Doree: Okay. So I'm getting some real, there will be blood vibes here,

Kate: A movie I haven't seen, but

Doree: Oh,

Kate: sure. Paul Thomas Anderson or The other guy,

Doree: I don't remember, but I have seen it. It is about, yes, it's Paul Thomas Anderson. It is about the oil industry.

Kate: Okay.

Doree: Anyway,

Kate: We'll watch that as fun research.

Doree: It's not a fun movie.

Kate: No, I remember. It's just, I just remember men yelling, it's white men yelling. It's dark. It's dark. So he takes all his money. He's 22, and he's like, I got to go see what the fuck is up at these oil fields that everybody's talking about. And basically, I think, again, I'm projecting, but he was basically like, I got to figure out a new way to make money. Yeah. What's happening there? What can I take from it in order to survive? So he toodaloots on out to the oil fields, and while he's there, he's chats with the drillers who are working on the fields, and he discovers and they're using these big ass machines to drill. So

Doree: So he is a real extrovert.

Kate: I imagine cheese bro is just, yeah, he's chatting. He's a salesman. All of these origin stories. So many of them. Yes. Originate with a chatty white man. Yes.

Doree: I'm really picturing Arthur, the character from Red Dead Redemption, the video game.

Kate: Oh my gosh. This is another specific I don't know, but okay.

Doree: Anyone listening who's played Red Dead redemption knows what I'm talking about. All right.

Kate: Well, for those folks, imagine Arthur. So while he's there, he starts talking to the people who are drilling and he notices,

Doree: Sorry,

Kate: He's on an oil rig next to a driller.

Doree: He just Wanders into an oil Rig.

Kate: I think so much of this history has been

Doree: Yes, yes, yes

Kate: Exaggerated through story. Who knows, right? And

Doree: I'm like, I'm just enjoying this. Oh, I'm just going to sidle up to an oil rig today.

Kate: Yeah. Well, he spent, I mean, imagine what cheese bro's feeling. He's 22. Nobody needs his whale kerosene anymore. And he's just spent all his life savings to go out to these oil fields. He basically is like, fuck it.

Doree: Yeah. He's got nothing to lose.

Kate: He's got nothing to lose and only everything to gain. So he's talking to these drillers and he's noticing that on, they obviously have acquired a lot of cuts and bruises and burns and wounds from their hard work. And he notices they've been putting gloopy ass goo. That is a byproduct from the oil drilling that they are doing that gets kind of stuck in their machines. Wow. They're just grabbing it out of the machines and slapping it onto their wounds. And they're like, oh yeah, it's this stuff we call rod wax. It's worthless. I know that has a sexy, don't put petroleum jelly on your actual rods folks. But they believed it healed their cuts. So this was essentially stuff that was getting thrown away. It wasn't valuable. The oil was what they were after, and this was this gloopy ass byproduct that would clog up in their machine. So they would just take a handful and slap it onto their wounds. And Robert was like, oh, that's interesting. Dollar signs went off. I'm assuming

Doree: If this was A cartoon. We would see

Kate: The dollar signs, the do light bulb moment, dollar signs shooting off everywhere. And they're like, yeah, we don't use this stuff. Take these buckets of rod wax. We don't need it. It's free.

Doree: Oh, I bet they came to regret that.

Kate: Oh my God. So Robert leaves with this stuff heads back to his facility, I'm assuming in New York, his tiny little studio where he distills,

Doree: I was going to say still, I mean, this is a boarding house. Yes, yes. The Maybelline founders making eye makeup on the stove of their boarding house.

Kate: Well, I mean, did you know that early people mixed coal with petroleum jelly to put on their lashes?

Doree: Yes, I did.

Kate: That's like the connection here between these products.

Doree: Yeah, totally.

Kate: So he goes back, and this stuff is also, it's coming from crude oil. It's full of junk. It's not it. It's not what we know today, AKA white petroleum, which has been distilled and refined into this very clear white gloop. But what he does is he spends the next 10 years tweaking the product and refining it and refining it until he gets something similar to what we have today as petroleum jelly. Wow. And he calls it Wonder Jelly. And he believes he has

Doree: Not a bad name,

Kate: By the way, not a bad name. No, not a bad name. And he believes he has this ointment that can cure wounds. He saw it on the oil fields and he experiments on himself, which again seems a little unhinged, but

Doree: I, but also seems so 19th century,

Kate: A hundred percent. Again, nothing to lose.

Doree: Who needs a trial when I've got myself,

Kate: My one body? So as we hear in these stories, no drugstores are interested in buying Wonder Jelly. So Robert goes around selling it to crowds. He's standing on a street corner. He's hawking it. And what he does in front of people is he would either burn his skin with acid or an open flame.

Doree: Oh my God.

Kate: And then put the wonder jelly on, claiming it would heal his injuries.

Doree: oh My God.

Kate: And then he had the proof of past wounds that he had given himself to be like, look, my wonder Jelly works now as we have come to know in time petroleum, it doesn't actually heal, but it's an occlusive, so what it does is it creates a layer of protection. So what these people were doing is they were basically putting on a great bandaid, a wound coverage that hadn't really existed before. So they were able to keep out debris and dirt and other things that might infect a wound.

Doree: So I feel like so many people used to die of infected wounds

Kate: And still do. I mean, that Is a real ass thing.

Doree: I Mean, if you read Outlander when she travels back in time, she's like, Hey, let's all wash her hands.

Kate: She's A nurse.

Doree: Yes. She's a nurse from the 20th century. And they're all like, what?

Kate: That's right.

Doree: oh my God,

Kate: I do love that little side story. Outlander. Well, she does bring some medical knowledge, but she has to be

Doree: By book four. She's like growing penicillin.

Kate: Right, of course. So What it's doing is basically also just trapping moisture, which is what we know Vaseline four for today. And this is what I thought was fascinating. He is basically the original Sephora, because he used to give out free samples, and he apparently was one of the first of these types of salespeople to give out free samples. So he is the first Costco,

Doree: Well, he's also a drug dealer,

Kate: But in a good way,

Doree: Of course. But I'm saying that is what drug dealers do. They give you like, oh

Kate: Yeah, they give you a touch and

Doree: they give you a little touch, and then you're like, Ooh, that's good shit.

Kate: Well, I mean, that is how Costco has reigned me in Anyway, obviously this product takes off. It's huge in demand. He opens his first factory in 1870, and he changes the name to Vaseline. Vaseline comes from the German word for water. Doree, what's that? Do you remember?

Doree: Vassar

Kate: And the Greek word for oil, which is oion,

Doree: Oh,

Kate: By 1874.

Doree: So like olestra.

Kate: Ooh, maybe. Yeah. I guess anything with ol-

Doree: Yeah. Okay.

Kate: By 1874 stores, were selling over 1400 jars of Vaseline a day. And that is how we end up now to where we are with Vaseline, basically in everybody's home. Vaseline is everywhere. So I just want to give you one more fact about cheese, bro, before we move on from there.

Doree: I really Hope that's how his name is Pronounced.

Kate: I do too. And I love, this is a real low fi show. We don't know cheese, bro. He ate a spoonful of Vaseline a day until he died at the age of 96. What that is, how much he believed in this product. I mean, again,

Doree: Ate?

Kate: Ate,

Doree: ugh.

Kate: Again, allegedly, he's a bit of a myth at this point. But yes, allegedly a spoonful of Vaseline a day. On that note, let's take a pause Doree.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: So I want to record scratch. The quote, discovery of petroleum jelly, because cheese bro was not the first person to discover it. And as with so many of these stories that center a white man,

The real credit for discovering petroleum jelly goes to indigenous people. Because people living in this area of Pennsylvania centuries prior to the quote, great American oil boom of the 18 hundreds, which is, it happened in Titusville, Pennsylvania. They were creating oil fields as early as 1410. So it was the Seneca people who lived in this area, and I found a credit on Wikipedia to this book, which I then took out of the library. The book has a name that I do not love, which is called Indian Givers, how Native Americans Transformed the World. Okay. So that is cringe. Yes. But this book, and I only read a couple chapters, but it details so deeply, the ways in which indigenous communities around the globe are not just the discoverers of so many medicinal items, skin and body care. And those are just the chapters I read.

I'm assuming this book covers all of it, but didn't just discover it, but put it into action in extremely advanced ways, which then were trampled and taken over by folks like old cheese, bro. So this area in Pennsylvania was known as Oil Creek because the oil black, crude oil would bubble up from the water and collect on the top of the water. And so the Seneca and other indigenous people, I imagine who lived in the area, I wasn't able to get a ton of information on this, but this is what I gather. They would essentially skim it off the top of the water. But they were also actually creating oil pits that have since been found and studied by archeologists.

Doree: Oh wow. Okay.

Kate: So even though Vaseline is credited to cheese, bro. Yeah. He is not the originator, the Seneca, we're using it to apply to human and animal skin to protect wounds, stimulate healing, and keep the skin moist.

And they also used it to lubricate the moving parts of tools. Whoa. I actually have never really learned much about the rise of oil in America. And so this was really interesting. I thought this was really interesting to me. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure we were clear about the actual origin story.

Doree: Thank you. Kate.

Kate: And I did not do too much research into the rise of petroleum jelly because it's so vast. Yeah. It can be found in so many products beyond just Vaseline. Vaseline is just what's called pure white petroleum, a hundred percent white petroleum. But it's literally in everything and has been used for everything and has had a pivotal role, I believe, in both World Wars. It's, it's such a storied product that it could take hours to kind of go decade by decade in the way in which Vaseline has expanded. So I just want to kind of like toodaloot us forward to 18. Excuse me. I want to tu, I want to toodaloot us forward to 1985 and just share a TV ad and the ways in which Vaseline was being marketed. It's a quickie.

Vaseline Ad: The Wonder Jelly, A super skin smoother, gentle makeup remover, a diaper rash preventer, dry line quinter, Vaseline, vaseline, the Wonder Jelly Guards against the wind, smooths away to sun, takes the bite out of Burns, smooth chafing on the run.

Vaseline petroleum jelly quality you can trust to smooth soothe, soften your skin in so many ways, so many places. No wonder it's called

Vasoline, the Wonder Jelly.

Kate: So they're still using Cheese Bro's original name for it. The Wonder Jelly.

Doree: The Wonder Jelly, yes. Also, I just want to, do you remember, I think it was Sun-in that, and I played a commercial that was like, that had a really bad white people rap from the eighties.

Kate: There was so much of that in the eighties.

Doree: There was so much

Kate: Vaseline. Vaseline, the Wonder Jelly. Yeah. It's catchy. I will say

Doree: it sounds like an aerobics workout.

Kate: It does it. Well, and if you watch the commercial, I mean, the song really says it all. But if you watch the commercial, I mean it really, it's number one, all white people, but two, it's a person slipping into an aerobics shoe and a person in an aerobics headband. I mean, that was the life. So, The point I want to make is that Vaseline is in a ton of, or excuse me, petroleum is, or Petrolatum is in a ton of products. And Vaseline is marketed and used for all sorts of things. I have family members who have used it for skincare. People use it to enhance their eyelashes, diaper rash. I use it on my lips every night, if you can think of it. I think people have probably used Vaseline for it. And one of the things that has kind of come up, I think in our more recent discussions about Vaseline on the podcast and in the skincare world, especially as I think the rise of "green and clean beauty" is not just the safety of Vaseline, but also its connection to fossil fuels. Because it is a byproduct of fossil fuels. It's the byproduct of drilling for oil. So I wanted to touch on this and just give a couple folks opinions about this. Also what is petrolatum? a mix of hydrocarbons. Kate, what are hydrocarbons? I don't fucking know. Okay. And honestly, I don't think I'm ever going to understand. I read a bunch of things on it, but my brain doesn't wrap around what that means. I don't know. Hydrogen.

Doree: Look, I'm no chemist.

Kate: You're no self-taught chemist.

Doree: I'm no self-taught chemist.

Kate: But look, that's what it is. It's hydrocarbons. Google it. And someone way smarter than me will tell you about it. So I found this newsletter called Skindie, which I had never heard of, and they had a really interesting piece on Petrolatum. Okay. And here's their kind of what I felt like was a somewhat cynical but realistic take on it. So I'm just going to kind of quote what they say. So "it's a complex mix of saturated hydrocarbons, D derived from petroleum accrued oil or mixture of oily liquids found in geological formations beneath the Earth's surface, which is obtained by drilling." And then they note, "this is where the question of sustainability and environmental concerns stems from. Did you know that petroleum is refined and converted to thousands of products? Gasoline, fuel, plastics, detergents, and that petrolatum, as well as mineral oil, are one of the national byproducts of the refinement process. So whether you like it or not, it's created by default. And if the cosmetics industry doesn't put a to good use, then it just gets thrown away." So they go on to say, describe Petrolatum as, a cog in the wheel. They're basically saying, Hey, we're drilling, we're already drilling. It's going to get made no matter what. Shouldn't we use it for good? I think you need to go a step further and examine weather, dig into the fossil fuel industry. Now, this is not a fossil fuel podcast. No, we're not going to do that. No. But obviously the environmental impact of this, which petroleum is, whether it's a byproduct or not, it's a part of Right. Totally. I think it needs to be addressed. It definitely needs to be examined. And I think a lot of people are raising good questions about it. So another kind of part of the conversation is folks who have raised the issues of PHAs, PHAs are, and now I'm also quoting a really great article that I found on the zoereport.com. Rachel Zoe's website.

So they really, I'm going to link to this because this is such a great explainer of petrolatum. So PHAs are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a naturally occurring chemical compound found in crude oil, which are considered to be carcinogenic. So that is kind of when people raise red flags about this. And there is a lot of discussion about the safety of petrolatum and Like the FDA and European Union and Canada, everybody has different kind of POVs. But what we use this petroleum petrolatum that we're putting on our faces from Vaseline is so refined.

Doree: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Kate: That dermatologists, I found so many different kind of, is it safe articles? And while they give all the caveats and share the kind of conversation around it, and I'm sure someone is going to weigh in on this, write in and weigh in, and I hear you. But the general argument is that these things fall. The petrolatum that we're getting in Vaseline is so, follows such a strict guideline for refinement that the amount of PHA in it is like

Doree: negligible.?

Kate: Exactly.

Doree: Okay. Okay.

Kate: So look up to you. I don't want to say

Doree: do your own research.

Kate: Yeah. Like cheese, bro. Do your own research. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying I want to say I hear you. If you have expressed concern. Yes. And I also do, especially the environmental impact I do think is the most kind of important thing to note. But I did, before we take another break, I just want to play a quick clip from a video of YouTube star dermatologist. Dr. Dre who many people, do you know her? Dr. Dre? She's an oft quoted derm and she's very viral on all sorts of platforms. And she has a really, she's very pro Vaseline, which I found a lot of dermatologists are.

Doree: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Kate: I just want to share this. She has a 20 minute video on Vaseline and she says it doesn't clog pores. It's noncomedogenic I can never say that word, but here's her. Just take on the safety of it.

Dr. Dre: Why else do we love so, so much? Well, it's been a part of the US pharmacopia since the 1880s. It has such a longstanding history of use and safety in dermatology. And there's a lot of fear mongering amongst the clean beauty marketing against petrolatum that is not substantiated whatsoever. You guys, I, I'm here to reassure

Kate: Yeah she comes in hot

Dr. Dre: Petrolatum, whether it be Vaseline or any other generic brand is so safe. As a matter of fact, it's one of the safest things you can put on your skin and here's why it doesn't get absorbed into the body whatsoever. And also it's what is referred to as non-it. It does, unlike the majority of skincare product ingredients, petroleum jelly or petrolatum does not bind to any proteins in your skin. And that's really good because when ingredients bind to proteins in your skin, then your immune system comes in and says, Hey, what the heck is this changing things up? I don't like it. And it mounts what's called an immune response. And

Kate: Okay, I'm going to pause this there. We'll link to the whole video if you want to really get deep. But I just thought,

Doree: but she's basically like, no.

Kate: Yeah, she again, comes in hot. She's just one person. But I wanted to share her point of view. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back and just talk a little bit about slugging before we wrap up.

So if you are on board with petroleum jelly as a product to put on your body, then you might consider slugging. Now slugging is another practice that has been around forever, but it's like hot because it's being talked about on social media. And I just wanted to share some slugging best practices. So what is slugging? I believe the origin comes from Korean skincare and it's the practice of essentially putting one final layer of an occlusive ointment onto your face to essentially trap all your products in. And I like to think about it as, have you ever seen a house that's getting exterminated for termites? Okay. The tent, they put a big tent over it. So none of the fumes get out. That is how as a a person who needs a visual, that is how I think of slugging.

Doree: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Kate: So people slug with all sorts of things. Petroleum jelly or aquaphor. Yes. Aquaphor is petroleum jelly, but it has other things in it. like lanolin, which some folks are allergic to. So again, find what works best for you. And before we talk a little bit more about it, Doree, let me, just play this one TikTok, because this person is very strong feelings about slugging. Okay,

TIkToker: Listen, bitches on TikTok are lying to you. And since de influencing is now a thing, we need to stop fucking slugging. Unless you live anywhere near the Arctic Circle or anywhere where you could possibly snow, you don't need to be fucking slugging. I've seen videos of bitches who live in the tropics putting so much petroleum jelly on their skin and then going to bed when the humidity is at a hundred percent. I'm like, bitch, that's disgusting. But I don't get me wrong, Vaseline aquaphor. The Sevi healing ointment and the syla bomb are great products, especially if you have a compromised skin barrier. But most of you bitches don't. What you are going to get are clocked pores and nelia, then you're going to try to exfoliate the hell out of your skin, which is definitely going to compromise your skin barrier. And you're going to end up where you start. All you need is a good occlusive moisturizer or a very, very small amount of any of these four products on top of all of your other products.

Kate: Do you not love them?

Doree: Yes.

Kate: So they make a great point, which is for slugging a lot of derms on TikTok, use this Vaseline stick that I had never seen to slug or you use a pea sized amount and if you watch some videos on TikTok, it's people loading their face with heaps of Vaseline.

Doree: Oof. No.

Kate: So if you are going to slug, you wash your face, you do your skincare, you do your moisturizer, pea size amount, that's it.

Doree: Now you went through a slugging phase.

Kate: I like to slug. And again, I love Vaseline. I have it on my face right now. I was like, I'm just going to rub it on my eyelids just for a little shine.

Doree: Just a dab.

Kate: Yeah. I put a tablespoon on one eyelid. Oh, just kidding. I do slugging. And I think it's interesting, like Dr. Dre in her video was, and other derms that I was watching were like, it's not going to clog your pores. But other people are like, it give me milia under my eyes. Like et cetera.

Doree: Oh, interesting

Kate: et cetera. So do without what you will, we are all individuals with different skin. But I do think if you want to protect your skin barrier, really get those products in and not let anything else in. But do it on clean skin. Because if you're Otherwise you're trapping the dirt on your face.

Doree: Yes, yes.

Kate: Remember exterminator tents?

Doree: Yes. Yes, yes.

Kate: And Doree. That is what I could muster on Vaseline.

Doree: Listen, you mustered a lot there.

Kate: I have a lot of links that I will be sharing on our website. If you want to dig deeper, by all means, share with me your thoughts. Again, I want to be clear that I take no stance other than I use Vaseline. I got to say I like it. Okay. Well everyone, and I have a big jug right here in front of Doree. I'm going to put a little bit on my lips right now.

Doree: She's doing it, everyone. She's doing it.

Kate: I love it. Doree, thanks for this journey with me.

Doree: No, thanks for taking me on it. It was a pleasure.

Kate: Thanks everybody.

Doree: Bye.