417- Personal grooming and self-care routines

grab a cuppa, 2,214 words coming your way!

I've concentrated on mental health topics in most of my entries, and thought to offer a slightly different one, to encompass once more a post on lifestyle.

Today, I want to talk about my personal grooming, these self-care routines that I do, either daily, often, or sometimes.

Disclaimers:

I may discuss brands I tested, but I am in no way endorsing their practices (which I'm not aware of)  and am not being paid to mention them, either. This is purely a personal experience, pros and cons I find in self-care routines and products I use for them.

Similarly, all pics are used only to showcase some of them, and do not aim any monetary goal, and since I don't currently have the tools for proper product photography at home, I use what I find online, and do intend copyright infrigements. 


Our bodies need regular adjustments and tweaking. My own needs and solutions may be either similar or different than your own. 

For instance, I cannot stand the idea of baths, either due to their impact on my mental health (future entry?), coupled with egological reasoning. Instead, I take showers. 

Head :

My current regimen requires a special treatment for my hair, prescribed by the dermatologist, in order to reduce my dermatitis. I use a medicated shampoo, usually after the anti-dandruff one, applied once or twice - but sometimes I use another shamoo instead. In each case, I apply these shampoos either directly on my hair, or on a silicon scalp massager, which helps to break down my dandruff. Have a look at it: 

My medicated shampoo is called ciclopirox olamine, and I also have the cream version to treat my nose, moustache and chin areas for the same reasons : dermatitis isn't limited to the hair on my head. 

Ever since I started using these alongside the massager seen above, and alternating between my 2 shampoos, and taking showers a bit more frequently, the symptoms have greatly diminished. The dermatologist did warn me that dermatitis isn't 'curable' and that the best to reduce it would be achieved by cutting my hair much shorter, which I am not willing to do - as my long hair has been part of my nonbinary affirmation. 

My 2 current shampoos are basic ones from a local supermarket. The first - anti-dandruff-  doesn't really smell like anything, and, alone, isn't really efficient to beat my dandruff, simply because it is caused by my dermatitis - hence my treatment. The second has an almond base, and it smells wonderfully like almond, only when applying, but doesn't last. 

I stopped using my previous shampoo, as something in its formula made my hair quite sticky, requiring additional washing to get it all out. I'm not sure which ingredient/s caused this particular issue.

I have two combs, with more or less spacious teeth, and a brush. I found it in a local hair store but it's also available online. It is a tangling brush, with wide teeth and is ecofriendly as it is (at least announced as such on the paper), biodergadable. I can use it both on wet or dry hair, thus making it my main hair styling tool, on a daily basis or after shower alike. 

Body :

On the other hand, my current soaps do smell, quite nicely ! I found this brand in the mall, during a special offer they were running, for a very limited time. I hope they bring it back when am done with them! 

Here's the figue version, and then my preferred one, blackberry! 

My other option, is for when I'm in a woodsy mood. It's more expensive and comes from the organic store. It really does smell like pinetrees! 

Each of these soaps seem to last forever, especially since I alternate between them. They smell and feel nice, and do their cleaning job.

Face : 

When I remember, I lotion my face - but, let's be real, this isn't a frequent occurence, it's only periodic, though regular. 

I tend to use chapsticks only when my lips crack, or in the cold winter days, or super hot summer ones, as in both cases, my lips dry up faster. 


I've gone through models and types of shavers/razors. I don't recall my earlier ones, either in the hand razors nor the first electric shaver I had. I usually went for Wilkinson Sword's razors - the last one I tried was Quatro Titanium Sensitive, which I found less efficient and more expensive than the previous model I used from them... very odd. 

Occasionally, when I couldn't get the razors I needed, I tried some of the off-brand, cheaper, one-usage kinds from the supermarkets, and they were all far worse : not only less effective than the Wilkinson (even this Quatro T. S, or my previous model, Hydro 3) but had less protection - thus, I cut myself a lot more often with those cheap models, though it also occured quite a lot with the higher quality Wilkinson, in any model. 

The first electric shaver I had was a Braun. As I said, I don't recall the references, as I had it over 10 or even 15 years ago. I do recall that it was a foil one, and that replacing the blades was rather expensive. In those days, I knew close to nothing about using an electric shaver, felt that it was pulling on my hair and costly. The supermarkets and malls I had gotten the replacement blades from had discontinued selling them, and then, I reverted back to hand razors. 

Luckily, I had kept that Braun's travel case, as it now serves me really well in housing this trimmer I bought for about 12€ in the local mall. It's power by 1 AA battery - I use NiMh, low self-discharge - and comes with a these attachements : a mini-shaver foil head, an eye-browse trimmer with 2 precision "steps", and the mai, general trimmer. It also comes with a small pouch and a cleaning brush. 

My main shaving tool now is this electric shaver by a brand I'd never heard of before. It, and its replacement blades, were both on sale (31+11€!). I decided that the risk wasn't too big to try. 

It is the SweetLf SW-S7105, which is a rotary-head shaver.

I alternate shaving and trimming my beard, my side burns, usually after cleaning my skin, either just wish a wash cloth, or sometimes with an exfloliant cream that my wife got me - but not too often. It has an impressive battery which can be charged via USB ; its level is displayed on LED when the shaver is on ; the shaver's compatible both with dry and wet shaving (I do dry) ; and also comes with a small cleaning brush which I use after every single shaving. I'll detail this in a whole other entry. 

Where I had been cutting myself a lot during manual shaving, it hasn't occured yet with this electric one ; its blades seem really well protected against such accidents. I also don't need (though could) the shaving gel and seldom even need the aftershave, as I almost never get skin rashes anymore. On the whole, I must say that I'm very happy with this mode of shaving, though its not as super-finely shaved, thus my skin isn't as smooth as it could be. I may add a cheap but well made foil shaver in the future. 

Other shaving/trimming : 

I trimmed my upper chest area a few times, as the heavy thick hairs were a source of additonal dermatological complications, especially when stressed ; however, even without that particualr cause, the hairs have accumulated sweat, which in turn became irritations. The thas thus been proven to help, though I have to be careful how close I keep the blade and to use slow strokes, against the growth direction - in this case, usually from under. 

Twice, I went farther and trimmed my armpit hairs that I felt needed a freshing up and here, the skin was VERY irritated and felt odd without the hair for a few days, until they started to grow back and out of the stubble phase. I'm not sure my trimmer is totally adapted to this. 

Teeth : 

I'll admit here my lack of dental care. Indeed, I suffer from emetophobia, which means that brushing my teeth has always been a chore and a trigger. Forget about flossing, to my wife's horror (though she understands that I simply cannot, in my current struggles). 

Every single dentist has been mean to me, never understanding my sensitivities - the last one I saw was the most horrible of them all and that was before I even had the diagnosis of emetophobia. Simply put, I developped, in addition to all my other cptsd's, a ptsd from dentists, because of their lack of compassion. I hope that at some point in my CBT4Emeto, I shall come to progress further in this and go back to the dentist, but today is not that day.

Sadly, because of all this, I had developped gingivitis, my teeth became sensitive to cold, and one of them had so much plaque that I think it rotted and broke off... 

As for brushing, for the longest period, I had brushed 1-2 times a day. I found that due to my emet, I had to brush a good 2 hours after a meal and 2 hours beofre bed, which necessitated early dinners, or skipping post-dinner brushing when that amount of time wasn't elapsed, because any shorter duration would automatically trigger me. 

Over time, with CBT, and changing tooth pastes, I managed to reduce these gaps to about 1h15 on either side, which helps greatly in brushing my teeth more frequently. 

I had tried all the organic brands and found none of them worked ; cheap ones from the supermarket and mall were cheap for a reason, they didn't work either, and the ones that did, like the dentamyl 8 in 1 'expert'' must have some aweful composition, because it triggers my emet, big time. 

I currently alternate between Sensodyne's Gentle Whitening, and Vademacuum's Fluor Plantes. It's a bit too early to tell how well this works.  

Nose : 

After I lost the head of one of my cheap nose trimmers, and the other one simply died with no warning, I invested in this Babacom nose trimmer. I find its attachements aren't very interesting, but it does its main job as a nose trimmer. 

Ear : 

For some reason, my ears are on overdrive creating cerumen, which builds up. I have to admit that my ear-care has been lax and not efficient enough to beat this excessive production. We swapped to bamboo based qtips, and I tried using this ear enema whatever it's really called (in french : poire de lavement). It seems that the ways I've been doing it, based on my understanding of the directions given on the box, haven't been ok. I'm in process of relearning, but it might be that my earwax is simply too much for this  method. 

The way I had understood it, I had to press the bottom part, letting warm water in, from the faucet. Then, I was to lightly squeeze back out from the "poire"/ enema, into the ear, turn my head lightly to let the excess fall, which I'd done, but my cerumen never stops. 

After checking a few videos and articles recently, it seems that I was doing it wrong, and that even doing it "right" may not be enough. 

Hands, nails and feet + toenails :

When super stressed, I tend to bite my nails or cut them with my other nails, thus causing many issues. When I remember, however, I use the nail clippers like a civilized person. 
I moisturize my hands very very rarely, and only when I don't need to touch anything, because I feel my hands are sticky with the moisturizers. 

Apart for the soap washing my feet - and the toenail clipping- I don't usually do much of anything else but occasionally will use a pumice stone to clean dry sky on my feet, especially my heel area where I put most of the walking impact. I do that just after a shower, when my skin is still somewhat moist, and get the stone a tad wet as well. I plan to apply the advice given on wikihow, to see if there's any difference. 

If you recall, almost 2 years ago I had surgery to remove DFSP (a rare skin cancer) on calf. I still treat the post-op area, which is a concave scar, albeit less so now than back then. It still aches from 2 main sources : 
Cell regrowth, and nerve endings reconnecting, as the surgeon had gone deep. 

I apply these treatments : 

• Icepacks
• Massage
• Pain killers (paracetamol) 
• and also been applying the cicaplast B5, a soothing reparing balm that was prescribed. I have to ask my dermatologist if I can continue or should stop, and if so, what to use instead. 

That's all for today, but in another entry, I'll explain how my mental health and self-care/ grooming and self-care routines interact, and may add extra entries for specific tools presented in this present post. 

Thank you for having read this over 2.2k long post!