A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
YES. Tiny cuts.
You know when you get a paper cut or similar, (not a scratch, a clean cut) and it stings and is really irritating, but it's not deep enough to bleed much if at all?
Whack some vaseline on it. You block the air from your nerves and get instant relief.
Also use it sometimes to prevent chafing, like before a long bike ride.
That's exactly what it was originally meant for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_jelly
Native Americans discovered the use of petroleum jelly for protecting and healing skin.[4] Sophisticated oil pits had been built as early as 1415β1450 in Western Pennsylvania.[5] In 1859, workers operating the United States's first oil rigs noticed a paraffin-like material forming on rigs in the course of investigating malfunctions. Believing the substance hastened healing, the workers used the jelly on cuts and burns.
Oh wow, I never knew!
I'm pretty sure that most of what Neosporin is is Vaseline... And it makes sense. It's basically Vaseline with a mild antibiotic.
Vaseline is awesome for preventing scars too: when the wound is still open, use Neosporin, but after it closes up a bit and is just healing, switch to Vaseline and just keep it in Vaseline until it's totally gone.
This.
Wounds heal best when they're kept moist and have a barrier.
Mixing Vaseline with cotton and rolling it into small balls makes for surprisingly effective firestarter. Catches fire from almost everything (even flint and steel) and the burns with strong flame for like 2 minutes.
I used these a bunch in some jungle training. Any petroleum based jellies worked great, so we used bacitracin packets as our additive.
Fun fact: dead bamboo will always be dry in the middle between two joints. You can split it up into a couple thin pieces and it makes great kindling.
Live bamboo will create a small pressure bomb.
Another fun fact for if you're in a deciduous forest, beach tree bark will always light, even when wet. It contains a flammable oil.
Yes. And I'll take no further questions on the subject.
I use it around my hairline before I color my hair so as not to stain my skin.
I know a girl who thinks of ghosts. She'll make you breakfast; she'll make you toast. But she don't use butter. And she don't use cheese. She don't use jelly, or any of these.
She uses Vaseline.
Vaseline.
Vaseline.
I use it in my nose after a nosebleed and put it on popsicle sticks to put in houseplants to be a sticky trap for flying pests
When I get a cut on my hands and they are very dry my skin heals over the wound, but the wound still stays there. Callouses just kind of grow over it and it gets painful and shitty. I put a glob of Vaseline on it and cover it with a bandaid or something and I a few days it's back to normal.
That's a lot of the reason why Neosporin or any other antibiotic ointments help you heal faster. There's petrolatum in all those products.
Oh.... You know. Hehehe
Vaseline is just a petrolatum jelly and a lot of creams and moisturisers have this as a component. The problem with Vaseline is that itβs basically pure petrolatum and so blocks the skin completely.
You rarely want to block the skin completely. The uses some other people noted, like stopping bleeding, is one of those uses.
The truth is that I rarely recommend Vaseline because of how limited it is on skin use.
I recommend people look into Aquaphor by Eucerin, which is only about 40% petrolatum and moisturises a bit better. I always travel with a very small container (just a tiny bit) of the stuff. Itβs useful if you have any skin conditions (flaked skin, rashes, etc) that you might want to deal with pronto.
Aveeno (a very good brand for skincare) also make very similar heavy creams.
Long story short, no, Vaseline is pretty bad choice for skincare because it just blocks all air exchange. There are better choices. You often do want petrolatumβ¦just not 100%.
Source: lifelong eczema issues
I play sports and always put it on my heels before switching into cleats. Prevents blisters. Works with new shoes too, while you break them in.
I use medical petroleum jelly on my carbon steel stuffs to prevent them from rust. I think it works better than WD40, and I don't have to protect my hands while applying it.
And sometimes I mix it with bee wax as wood oil. I think it works.
When my siblings and I were young we would occasionally get eczema flair ups on our hands. Whenever this happened my mom would fill a sock with Vaseline and have us wear it on our hands to bed. Kinda funny.
I know what your great great grandma used it for
I use it when casting my patients who have a partial hand amputation. It works great as a separator for casting agents and allows me to easily easily slip a cast off of them. It also helps prevent ripping out too too many hairs during the process.
I use it kind of like WD-40 in a farm setting. It's messy, but not as messy as grease. It's effective to coat things that constantly wear and have started to rust. I also rub it on my leather boots to waterproof it for cheap.
My great aunt used to cook with it. By far the weirdest spaghetti Ive ever eaten. 0/10 do not recommend.
Yeah, I use it to wipe on my nose when I'm sick or my allergies are bad. It helps prevent it from getting all dried out from the tissues! I also rib a little on my hands sometime#, it goes a long way as a moisturizer. In summer I rub some between my toes if they get dried out.
I slather it on my face before bed as a mask. Works great to fight acne imo
This is surprising advice. I would have assumed it would make people break out.
Vaseline is a poor choice of moisturiser because it does not moisturise. It blocks air from entering your pores and I would have assumed this leads to clogged pores and hence acne.
It also forms a protective barrier for your skin, so nothing can contaminate it or grow on it and you don't lose moisture to evaporation.
Also, pores don't actually clog from stuff getting into them. That's a common misconception that mostly comes from advertisements. What actually happens is your skin becomes inflamed (due to contaminants or bacterial growth or diet or hormones) and squeezes the pores shut. Blackheads aren't dirt but are actually oxidized sebum, which is the oil your skin secretes.
EDIT Oh! Speaking of protective barriers, I also put it on my hands and forearms before work because I handle a lot of machine oil and that irritates my skin, causing rashes and itchiness.
It's good for knuckles that crack and bleed in the winter. Lotion isn't really good enough unless you're applying it multiple times a day.
Iβve seen it used on Cinema Camera filters to make funky reflections in the lens.
We were filming a dream sequence and to make the edges of the image soft and blurry, we used an optical flat (a clear filters basically a piece of clear glass that slides in front of the cameraβs lens) and the DP (director of Photography, aka the Cinematographer) smeared some Vaseline over the edges of the flat, painting the blurry edges with his finger. It worked really nicely, unfortunately I canβt find the final video online to show the result.
Lubricating the cork in a saxophone neck or a clarinet tenon. It turned out to be not a good idea at all, since the Vaseline speaks into the cork and dissolves the glue holding the cork to the instrument. But until then it does a great job.
speaks into the cork
Soon, Cork could no longer ignore those dark whispers, those awful voices. Cork knew what needed to be done, and that only they could do it.
Cork let go. Cork was... Free.
And then came an explosion of sound.
I use it on my baby's chin to prevent dribble rash.
Nipple fissures
Dry nipples
Runner's rash
I'm beginning to think I have fragile nipples...
I use it to lubricate machine parts at times. Also good coating for rust protection like the sockets of outdoor bulbs or tools in storage. There's better products for skin protection. Years ago it was commonly used for infant diaper rash, but again there's better products for that now. I don't think I've ever used it on my body, it's made from petroleum so it's really just highly refined axle grease.
I haven't used it since I was a teenager π
Itβs good to put around your eyebrows when youβre tinting them, so you donβt stain the skin or any invisible hair.
Also good for putting on nail polish, for similar reasons.
When i see to much i put it in my eyes
I get super dry skin in winter, especially on my hands where my skin can even start to crack and bleed. Vaseline works wonders.
Lubricating the O ring that sits inside the watch case of vintage divers watches to keep them waterproof.
I use it on the threads of plastic filter housings in my engine room. It's keeps the salt water from seizing them.