My name is Linda Harmon. I've been buying body lotion since I was 22 years old.
I did the math recently. Four bottles a year. Thirty years. Probably $1,200+ of my own money — coating my skin in petroleum every single night.
And every bottle was the same thing in different packaging.
$8 Jergens at CVS.
$15 Aveeno at Target.
$30 Eucerin the dermatologist recommended.
All mineral oil. Every single one.
Three decades of damage.
And my skin kept getting worse. Not the same. WORSE.
Here's the part that broke me: I spent another $2,000+ on face creams. Retinol. Vitamin C. Peptides. My face looked okay for 57.
But my body told on me.
The crepey texture on my forearms looked 65. The saggy skin on my upper arms looked 70. The cellulite on my thighs got worse every summer.
My face said 57. My body said 70.
I thought I was just "aging unevenly."
I was wrong.
I wasn't aging. The lotion was aging me.
Every night I applied it, I was sealing damage in and blocking repair. The products I bought to stay young were making me older, faster.
I stopped wearing sleeveless. Even in August.
I stopped wearing shorts. The cellulite made me sick to look at.
I got dressed fast so I wouldn't have to see the damage in the mirror.
My daughter posted a family photo. I saw my arms and asked her to crop me out. She looked hurt. "Mom, you look fine."
Fine. Not beautiful. Fine.
I'd become the woman who covers up. Who avoids cameras. Who doesn't recognize the reflection looking back.
My husband finally said: "Whatever you're doing isn't working. Something has to change."
Then at my friend Diane's 60th birthday party, I was complaining about my skin. Turns out her niece had just finished her dermatology residency — Dr. David Simmons. Twenty-something years younger than me but already seeing hundreds of patients a week.
He asked to see what I was using.
I pulled up my Amazon history. Showed him my last three purchases.
He shook his head. "Linda, you haven't been aging. You've been poisoning your skin for 30 years."