Friday 4 June 2010

Benzoyl peroxide effective treatment for shaving rash - but it bleaches!

In the spirit of rediscovered self-experimentation trail-blazed by Seth Roberts -

http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2010/06/04/a-great-change-is-coming-part-1-of-2/

- I thought I would share one of my own discoveries:

i.e. that benzoyl peroxide (BP) cream (which is marketed as a treatment for acne) can treat shaving rash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzoyl_peroxide

By shaving rash, I mean the unsightly spots which come after shaving, especially on the neck. The spots seem to be due to trauma of the beard hair follicles, and sometimes to in-growing beard hairs.

Anyway, an n=1 on-off crossover self-trial over several weeks established that this kind of rash was treatable, indeed curable, with BP.

Benzoyl peroxide is a peeling agent, so it is not particularly surprising that it works to treat this kind of problem.

HOWEVER, BP is also a bleaching agent (not surprizing for a peroxide!); and after a while I linked its usage to the bleached patches that appeared on towels and shirt collars, ruining them.

So, in the end I could not use it to treat the beard rash.

But it works.