For those of you who didn't read my skin's original plea for help— it's winter and I'm stuck indoors with a baby. Artificial heat coupled with frequent hand washing has not done my skin any favors, particularly since I am prone to cracked hands, old lady elbows and scaly lizard legs.
Vaseline did me the favor of sending a bottle of Vaseine Intensive Rescue Repairing Moisture Body Lotion, but they also wanted to up the ante with a 'winter skin challenge'.
ME: Can't I just take the lotion and be done with it?
VASELINE: No.
My challenge? BAKING.
I think Vaseline chose BAKING because standing by a hot oven, dipping your hands in dry flour and scrubbing caked-on burnt bits from the bottom of a muffin tin aren't exactly the things that add up to touchably soft hands.
But they might also know that I haven't baked since the 7th grade, when I made a disastrous Mississippi Mud Pie and almost failed Home Ec.
Was baking a challenge? YES.I decided to start slow and committed to making cupcakes from a box. Impossible to mess up, right? Well, that would be assuming an intelligent person would read the back of the box where it says the box makes 24 cupcakes. I assumed the box matched my muffin tin and poured all the batter into twelve.
Forget following instructions, did I mention I don't even like reading them?
The cupcakes came out fine— just a little dense with oversized flat tops. Mazzy didn't notice a difference— she only eats the frosting, anyway.
Then I got motivated by my semi-success, and decided to bake sprinkle cookies from scratch. I looked up a sugar cookie recipe online, sent Mike out to buy my ingredients, made Mazzy wear the apron and got to work.
All was well until I got to the part where I had to knead the dough with my bare hands. Am I the only one who sees this as disgusting? Mazzy was more than happy to dive in and by the time we were done, we both looked like we'd taken a bath in flour. Scraping both of our fingers with a rubber spatula to make sure we were maximizing our dough seemed particularly disgusting.
I might think twice before eating just anybody's baked goods from this point forward.
Once the dough was finished and Mazzy was done licking the flour off the countertop (kids are weird), the fun part started. We took turns making ducks and bears and stars and hearts with assorted cookie cutters and then covered them with sprinkles and candy eyes.
Mazzy was in charge of setting the eyes just right— although I had to explain that the ducks were in profile and required only one eye, a complex concept for a three-year-old.
Then I put them in the oven and prayed.
If you discount the creepy melted eyes, they came out perfect! It's how they taste that matters, right?
After we ate the cookies and cleaned, I used my Vaseline Intensive Rescue lotion. You really do notice a difference in dry skin after just one use. Plus, I'm really into the non-greasy formula since, as I mentioned with the cookie dough, I hate the feeling of stuff on my hands.
I've been the using Vaseline Intensive Rescue since the end of December and it's been very effective, particularly on my legs, which have actually lost their lizard-like distinction.
Of course, they are still unshaven… but I'll save that tidbit for when Gillette contacts me.
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GIVEAWAY
If you’d like to try out Vaseline Intensive Rescue lotion, just name your favorite winter activity in the comment section below.
I’ll randomly choose 5 winners to receive both a 10 oz. sample of Vaseline Intensive Rescue Repairing Moisture Lotion and 7.5 oz. jar of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly so you can enjoy winter without worrying about dry skin too. Winners will be announced on Friday.
