Aveeno Restorative Skin Therapy Itch Relief Balm is a descriptive, but not terribly fun, name.
In Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen famously tells Alice “it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place.” Which, in menopause terms, means that after 50 you spend a lot more time moisturizing skin that now feels like it shrunk in the wash. Estrogen loss thins the skin at the same time as you’re losing collagen, losing moisture (thank you, slowed down lipid production) and losing all that juicy, subcutaneous fat.
Throw in the moisture-free, super-dry air of a classic Canadian winter and you have the recipe for the itchy skin that comes from a disrupted skin barrier made worse by scratching. This is dramatically visible on one’s shins - once gleamingly smooth and reflective, they are now rather scaly and dragon-ish.
You can’t just slap on thick cream and hope for the best. You need something that will strengthen your skin barrier and calm the itch, while feeling nice (otherwise you won’t actually use it.)
Right now, Aveeno Restorative Skin Therapy Itch Relief Balm, $9.77, Walmart, is the only thing preventing me from relentlessly clawing away at my itchy, dry shins. If I were in their marketing department, I would change the name to Aveeno Anti-Dragon Shin Balm, complete with a menacing dragon graphic wrapped around the tube.
This balm contains colloidal oatmeal, which not only “possesses antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties” to soothe inflammation, but oats are also a prebiotic, encouraging the proliferation of good, protective bacteria in your skin’s microbiome. Plus, for immediate itch relief, it also has the topical analgesic Pramoxine Hydrochloride, a light anesthetic (NOT a steroid) that effectively soothes your skin so you don’t scratch. Because it’s that wretched scratching that keeps the cycle of disruption going and prevents your skin from healing.
I’m not done with the dragon simile though. I’m going to hunt down a sticker of a dragon to put on my tube. My Covid lockdown-awakened obsession with childhood things continues apace.