A few months ago, I stumbled into an article hailing the merits of bentonite clay, especially for skin. After a lot more research, I purchased a bag of bentonite clay powder, along with some rosehip seed oil and shea oil, from an online store.
It's been sitting in my spice cabinet ever since.
However, after a particularly hard two weeks (huzzah for bronchitis and being put on a prednisone taper), my skin was a mess. Since I have a grand total of one day left of prednisone, I decided that now was the time to suck it up and try out bentonite clay.
I chose my right forearm for the experiment, since for some reason my forearms got the brunt of the breakout, and are covered in red irritation. I mixed one part clay powder with 2 parts water (I used 3, actually, since all 2 did was turn the bentonite into a clumpy, half wet half dry unmixable mess). Mixing the clay was no picnic- it's a very thick consistancy, and you can't use a metal utensil because the metal does something to the clay (I'll link some articles if this turns out to be an effective treatment), so I used a big plastic bowl and a whisk made of a nonstick material. When all the whisk did was give the clay mixture somewhere else to stick, I switched to a wooden and silicone spatula, which more or less did the trick.
Then, I applied a layer of clay to my forearm, wrapping my forearm in plastic to keep the clay moist (see pictures below).
Now, I feel a bit like poorly wrapped leftovers, but at least the clay is still moist, and isn't getting everywhere while it does its work.
It's been ten minutes, and I think that, after another five, I'll remove the compress.
So far, the bentonite hasn't caused any irritation that I can feel- the skin under the plastic, however, is starting to feel pretty uncomfortable- if this works, I'll have to find a different way to do things so the rest of the arm isn't just touching the plastic.
Okay, it's 10:33 a.m... at 10:38, I'll remove the clay and see what effects it had, if any.
Here's hoping!
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