(no subject)

Good Saturday morning, internet! Since nobody ever reads my blog on the weekend, I feel no guilt in what I am about to do. I am here to pass along my newest neuroses!

The internet has been abuzz thanks to a recent New Scientist article: Rosacea may be caused by an overabundance of mites living on your face and dying in your pores!*

Now, I've long known that there are mites on my face. Ever since I was a kid and had those kid magazines (from Nickelodeon or Disney, don't remember) that had a "did you know" section and one issue said "did you know you have millions of little spider-like mites living on your eyelashes?" My knowledge has since grown to encompass the existence of various other creatures on other parts of my skin and the wisdom to be pretty zen about it. They're microscopic. Whatever. Carry on, little ectoparasites.

But now! People with rosacea have more mites than usual. Which wouldn't be a problem if not for the mite's life-cycle: they never poop, so when they die, all the feces bursts out of them as they decompose.

They do so in your pores. What rude little house guests.

Ever since I've found out, I've been feeling compulsively itchy. And I have to share the wealth, so long as I keep from scratching my face.

Though one benefit to the surfacing of this news is that all the acne/rosacea sufferers came out of the woodwork, which I always find heartening to know that there's other people like me because after a while you start to think it's only you, and you forget that other people look at you feeling the same way, never knowing that each of us has mastered the art of concealing make-up. But also depressing to hear that most are in the same boat I am: it's incurable. I see recommendations of tea tree oil, because that's the solution for everything. As far as I'm concerned, it's a pleasant-smelling snake oil (I've been given it for chronic itchy scalp issues, and for acne).

Now brb, gotta go suffocate myself in my favorite sulfur mask.

*Be glad I linked you to this article, which is one of the more informative and it isn't prefaced by a picture of ragingly awful rosacea. When I first started on my acne adventure, I thought rosacea was red skin. I have since learned that it's a very ruddy kissing cousin to acne. Not that there's anything wrong with having bad skin-- God knows I can't throw stones-- but seeing it makes me want to claw my face off thanks to being freaked out that it's how people see me. Those little mites are far less terrifying! They're kind of like water bears.