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Every time I take a shower, I use the body wash, and my legs get really red, it doesn't burn or anything, just gets red. Later at night, my legs get really itchy and I itch them to the point that I leave scratches on myself and almost make them bleed. Is this normal and why does it happen to me? Maybe my skin is sensitive to something in the body wash, but it happened with the previous body wash, too.
The personal hygiene industry has done an excellent job of brainwashing a lot of people into believing that their bodies are filthy and smelly. But if you stop and think about the hygiene routine which they push and many people have adopted, it's nuts.
Once or even twice a day, people use detergent to remove the natural oils from their skin, and then they slather on grease from another bottle to replace those oils. So, if you believe the line pushed by the multinational corporations that sell this crap, the stuff that comes from their factories is supposedly better for our bodies than what our bodies have evolved to produce over millions of years.
The body wash you use probably comes in a pretty bottle (that a thousand years from now will still be intact in a landfill somewhere), it probably smells nice due to synthetic, petroleum-derived perfumes and advertising may have made you think positively about it. But in chemical terms, the active ingredients are basically the same as the detergents you use to wash your clothes and dishes. As for the moisturiser, it also comes in a pretty bottle (that will also virtually never decompose and could only be destroyed by burning it and adding a bit more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere) and contains a cocktail of natural and synthetic chemicals to make it look, feel and smell pleasant. But in functional terms, it is nothing more than some sort of grease.
Lots of people - particularly Americans - have been conditioned by advertising and social pressure to believe that showering at least once a day is vital if they don't want to reek of BO and have flies circling their heads, but that's bullshit. If you work in a dirty job where you get very grimy and sweaty every day, there's some justification for using a weak detergent to clean your body. It also makes sense to clean your armpits, crotch and butt daily, since those areas are warm and damp, and that promotes the growth of the bacteria that create the smell of BO. But routinely using a detergent that contains a brew of synthetic chemicals on the rest of your body once or twice a day is unnecessary and potentially harmful. As you've discovered, you can develop an allergic reaction to whatever chemicals are in the cleanser. Even worse in some ways, the detergents kill and wash away the harmless and beneficial microorganisms which live on our skin and help prevent it from being colonised by harmful bacteria and viruses.
The simplest solution to your problem is for you to stop assaulting your skin with any sort of detergent. Your body is telling you that it doesn't like what you've been doing; if you have any sense you'll listen to it. If you can't get past the indoctrination that you need a shower once or twice a day in order to be clean, then carry on wasting water and energy if you must, but limit your use of detergents to the areas that tend to get smelly. Use nothing more than water on the rest of your body, since that's sufficient to dissolve the salt that's left behind when sweat evaporates. If you've swallowed the exfoliation propaganda and you only ever feel really clean if you've scraped away the upper layer of your epidermis, use some sort of body scrubber or brush.
That's an allergic reaction to the body wash (likely to just one ingredient in it); and if you don't stop using that brand of body wash it will get worse with time.
Try a different brand, and another, etc. You will find one that does not cause a reaction.
Keep track of the ingredients of the body wash brand that you try. You might be able to figure out the ingredient - and then stay away from that in the future.
I wish you well with this,
For me, the more I sweated while asleep in bed the night before, the more my skin itches after taking a bath. I use Dettol soap.
I agree with a Boojum whole heartedly and I salute his detailed response! A more in depth solution, get a tea tree oil body wash, the label will covered with stuff like no parabans, most anything ending ite or beginning with ph
Also get an exfoliating wash cloth
When you have good blood circulation and you're hydrated, your skin will naturally shed and if you scrub out the dead skin really well with that kind of scrubbie and use something as nourishing as tea tree oil, you'll dry off feeling like a car collector waxing their prized automobile
https://youtu.be/XvaRY3ObM9k
They do any thank you. Honestly, my legs itch right now but ill be okay.
If things continue, might be a good idea to see dermatologist...they can hopefully give you something to ease the itch and maybe check for allergies.
I've found certain moisturisers help my itches, but Idk if trial and error of another product is a good idea while you're trying to work out your current situation.