Slugging Skin: What to Know About the Dermatologist-Approved TikTok Beauty Trend

Should you’ve ever dabbled in skin care and beauty TikTok, you’ll have most likely come throughout a handful of phrases associated to slugging — from “slugging pores and skin” to “Aquaphor slugging,” “eye slugging,” and plenty of extra.

Slugging Tok was as soon as a mysterious nook of skincare, an much more mysterious phrase, however it’s risen in recognition quickly prior to now few years, with increasingly individuals Googling issues like “the right way to slug your face” day by day.

Whereas the skincare approach has been making the rounds on the app in the previous couple of years, its origins go method again. What’s pores and skin slugging, and what are the advantages of utilizing this system? so We requested some specialists for the small print, and we’re breaking down every little thing from how the tactic differs in line with pores and skin sort, the way it works, the place it got here from, and what the downsides are.

→ What is slugging?
→ Benefits of slugging
→ Vaseline VS. Aquaphor
→ Downsides of slugging
→ Is slugging for everyone?
→ How to do slugging the right way
→ Skin slugging frequency
→ What I learned from trying slugging
→ Best products for skin slugging

What’s slugging and the way does it work?

Merely put, slugging pores and skin is the method of sealing your pores and skin with an occlusive agent, typically petrolatum-based, normally in a single day. If the thought of sleeping with Vaseline in your face does not sound interesting, you may also slug your pores and skin in the course of the day and depart the product on for a number of hours. Although slugging pores and skin has been popularized as a face therapy on TikTok to help with hydration, this little magnificence trick works on different components of the physique as properly – from lips and eye slugging to ankle and elbow slugging.

As a pattern, slugging’s rising recognition may be traced again to the Ok-beauty world earlier than hitting boards like Reddit’s Skincare Addiction and later, after all, TikTok. Although it has been popularized once more not too long ago, it’s a observe most dermatologists have lengthy advisable for rapidly therapeutic dryness and eczema and trapping in your moisture, board-certified dermatologist Dr. Shari Marchbein, M.D., who made a complete Instagram Reels on slugging, tells Teen Vogue. “In fact, dermatologists have been ‘slugging’ for years. We simply did not provide you with a cute identify for it. I do not go to mattress with out it.”

What are the advantages of slugging pores and skin with petrolatum?

As Dr. Marchbein explains, There are three sorts of skincare substances that work collectively on the hydration entrance: humectants, emollients, and occlusives. Humectants carry moisture out of your setting into the pores and skin, emollients immediately moisturize by filling in gaps within the pores and skin, and occlusives create a barrier to maintain hydration from evaporating off of the pores and skin. Petrolatum, the ingredient generally present in ointments like Aquaphor, CeraVe Therapeutic Ointment, Vaseline, and different topical lotions, is occlusive, that means it creates a barrier that seals in hydration. There are other forms of occlusives, too, like lanolin and butters.