I Had a Raw, Burning Rash in My Skin Folds for Two Years. The Cream Was Feeding It.
“My skin isn't slimy in the folds anymore. The dryness and fresh feeling on my skin is delightful!!”
That's a stranger's review. I read it at eleven at night with a tube of prescription cream in my other hand. I'd been putting something on this rash every day for two years. Not one of those things had ever made me feel dry. That was the word that stopped me. Dry.
It started the summer I turned fifty-five
It was a warm patch under my left breast. About the size of a quarter. I thought I'd been sweating and hadn't dried off properly after my shower.
So I did what anybody would do. I put cream on it.
It felt better for about an hour. Then it came back, and it was a little bigger.
Every single thing I tried made it worse
By August it ran the whole way under both breasts. By the next summer it was under my belly too.
I couldn't explain this part to anybody. It got worse on the days I treated it most. If I put cream on twice, by evening the skin was wetter and it stung more. If I forgot for a day it sometimes looked better.
I thought I was going crazy. I thought maybe I was allergic to something. I never once thought the cream itself was the problem.
I was treating a wet problem with wet products
A skin fold is a warm, closed, damp space. Skin against skin, no air. That's the whole reason the rash lives there. Yeast needs moisture to grow, and a fold traps it.
Now look at what's in the drawer. Cream is wet. Ointment is wet and it seals the wet in. Diaper paste sits on top like frosting and holds it there. Even the antifungal cream from the pharmacy goes on wet.
The yeast doesn't read the label. It doesn't care that the box says antifungal. It only cares whether the fold is wet. So every time I treated it, I killed a little on the surface. Then I handed the fold right back to it, wet.
I wasn't failing to treat it. I was feeding it twice a day.
The prescription worked for three days
My doctor gave me a cream. She looked at it for maybe thirty seconds and wrote it out.
It worked. For three days it really worked. The redness went down and the burning stopped and I thought that was the end of it.
Then it came back in the same place, and after that the cream never worked that well again. I refilled it twice before I gave up. That's when I started buying things off the shelf instead.
Powder. Diaper cream. Two different antifungals. Cornstarch, because somebody online swore by it. Petroleum jelly, which I now know was the worst thing I could have used.
Every one of them helped for a day or two. Not one of them changed anything. And all of them, except the powder, went on wet.
Then I found something that dries
Healora isn't a cream that happens to be antifungal. It's built the other way around. It spreads like a cream, so you can work it into the fold. Then it dries to a powder finish and stays there.
That's the part that mattered to me. Not another wet layer. Something that goes in wet enough to cover the skin and then gets out of the way and leaves the fold dry.
The first time I used it
I put a thin layer under my left breast after my shower. Then I stood there waiting for the sticky feeling.
It didn't come. About a minute later I touched it and my fingers came away clean. The skin felt like skin, not like something with a coat of grease on it.
The burning eased that first night. But honestly the thing I remember is being dry. I hadn't been dry there in two years.
What the next three weeks looked like
The burning eased within a few hours. Not gone, but quiet enough that I fell asleep without shifting around.
The angry red went down to pink and the skin stopped weeping. This was the day I stopped folding paper towels into my bra.
Almost clear. This is where I'd normally stop using something, and this is exactly where the rash used to come back.
Clear, and staying clear. I keep using it once a day. The fold is still a fold. It's still warm in there. The difference is now it's dry.
Why it works when the creams didn't
It does three jobs at the same time instead of one. That's the whole difference.
1Undecylenic acid 10%
An antifungal that kills the yeast at the root, not just the part you can see on the surface.
2Zinc oxide 15%
A breathable shield between skin and skin, so the two sides stop rubbing each other raw.
3Witch hazel
Pulls the moisture out of the fold in seconds and brings the skin back to a pH where yeast struggles.
4Silica & tapioca starch
The drying matrix. This is what turns a cream into a powder finish, so it never cakes and never turns to paste.
Other women describe the same moment
It dries the area up
“It started working right away. It literally dries the area up and takes the burn right out. I use it very sparingly twice a day (in the morning and at bedtime). It is a great product.”
Edie JurgensonDry all day
“One application of Healora a day has kept my skin folds dry all day. I don't wake up in the middle of the night from intense itching in my skin folds. This alone gives Healora five stars from me!”
AnnNot greasy
“I can use it as needed and always feel fresh! It's not greasy no smell.”
Stephanie LentzWhat the two years cost me
I added it up once. I don't recommend that. At drugstore prices, a year of the usual routine looks like this:
- Antifungal cream (about $10 a tube) $10
- Medicated powder (about $10 a bottle) $10
- Barrier cream (about $11 a tube) $11
- One round of all three, replaced every 6 weeks — a year of that about $270
About $270 a year, and I still had the rash. Three tubes of Healora are $49.95 with free shipping.
I'm not going to pretend that's the reason I switched. I switched because it worked. But I did think about all those tubes in the drawer.
One honest warning
If your skin is broken and weeping right now, start with a thin layer. It shouldn't sting, but thin is the right way to start on raw skin.
And don't stop when it clears. That's the mistake I made for two years with everything else. The fold doesn't change. It's still warm and closed. Once a day keeps it dry.
- Goes on like a cream, dries to a powder finish
- Undecylenic acid 10% + zinc oxide 15%
- No steroids, no added fragrance, no talc
- 365-day money-back guarantee
My sister asked me what I was using
“My skin isn't slimy in the folds anymore. The dryness and fresh feeling on my skin is delightful!!”
If every cream you own made it worse, you're not doing it wrong
You've been putting wet on wet. That's all it is. It isn't your body and it isn't your weight. It's certainly not your hygiene. A fold is a fold, and it's always going to be warm and damp in there.
The fix isn't a stronger cream. It's one that dries.
Check Availability »365-day money-back guaranteeP.S. P.S. The 50% comes off automatically in your cart. There's no code to enter. If it doesn't work, you have a full year to ask for your money back. You don't even have to send the tube back.
Comments
Dalene
My skin isn't slimy in the folds anymore. The dryness and fresh feeling on my skin is delightful!! Thank you
Jerri Angelares
At first I didn't like it. Then I read the instructions on how to apply and now love it. It works exactly how they say. I especially love how it dries the moisture.
Kerri B
This is an amazing product no more putting talc powder under my belly. Can't wait until summer comes now because I can do my walking knowing no more rash.
Marla Porter
It's really doing a wonderful job of keeping it from hurting. My skin under belly roll keeps dry and I'm comfortable, but I do keep it on even if skin has no rash. That way is the best of all.