First of all, let me say that I do bathe daily. I’m as clean as the next guy. I think.
But I’ve found that on these muggy summer days, when I’m prone to sweating a tad more than usual, my skin seems to excrete some pretty yucky gunk. If I take my fingertip and rub it back and forth across a small patch of skin on my arm, or chest, or shoulder, a small glob of dark-grayish (almost black), Play Dough-like gunk will form. If repeated for a few minutes with different patches of skin, this glob can grow to the size of, say, an uncooked lentil. (Feel free to try this at home, folks. It’s fun for the whole family!)
So my question is: what is this gunk and, especially, why is it so dark in color?
FWIW, I’ve found that if I try to “rub a glob” rather early in the day, not too many hours after I’ve had my morning shower, what I get doesn’t much resemble the above-mentioned blackish lentil. It’ll still be Play Dough-like in consistency, but colorwise it’ll be much paler, more of an off-white. I suppose it’s possible that the dark matter could somehow accumulate on my skin during the day from pollution in the air, but it seems much more likely that it’s being excreted from within.
I did some googling but came up mostly with a bunch of alternative medicine sites (such as here and here ) talking about “detoxification,” or the removal of toxins from your body through the use of everything from hot baths to enemas. (For those who are interested, this site provides a jarring description of “colonic irrigation.” While you’re at it, make sure to read the hilarious “Reader Protest” at the bottom of the page.) Not very convincing at the end of the day.
Anyway, so what is this dark-colored gunk that’s being excreted from my skin?
Yeah, this definitely sounds like water-logged dead skin cells. I get this on the soles of my feet all the time from going barefoot. You can buy a loofah sponge or lava rock to scrape it off.
Dead skin cells + sweat = gooey paste makes sense, but why the blackish color I’m getting? I can understand that you could easily get a blackish gunk from the soles of your feet, since they’re picking up all kinds of grime from the floor/ground, but I’m talking about skin from my upper body.
Also, as I mentioned in the OP, I can still produce a glob of this stuff earlier in the day (not long after having taken a shower), but it won’t be dark in color. If it were dead skin cells, wouldn’t they be the same color regardless of when I made the glob? It seems that something else must be in the mix, no?
I know what you’re talking about, and I always attributed it to city grime and dirt that stuck to my skin, as I walk down the streets and buses and cars emit all manner of funk into the air. I’d imagine that when you “rub a glob” early in the day you haven’t collected all that grime on your skin.
Dead skin cells, sweat, city grime (don’t you know about “ring around the collar”?) and oxidation of skin oils. Oxidation is what causes blackheads to turn dark.
You’re just a little chemistry factory!
Scrubbing with a loofah in your morning shower will help a bit. A second shower would help, too.
You can also wipe your skin with an astringent, very refreshing!
~VOW