Home remedies for dry skin: Some of them are more than Old Wives’ Tales, as Fuller Brush knows

“So what home remedies for dry skin would you recommend?” Natasha asked Charlie, as she padded out of her bedroom holding a Fuller Brush toothbrush in her hand. “I mean, they’re all nuts, right? Old wives’ tales if you ask me.”

Charlie shrugged.

“There’s a ring of truth to the ones that are still around today,” he insisted.

His roommate stepped towards him and poked him in the chest as she responded:

“They’re all hoopla, my friend!”

“Hoopla?” he responded.

“They’re all marketing gimmicks. The best anti-wrinkle creams – if you ask me, and you didn’t – but the best anti-wrinkle creams on the market are actually sold as hemorrhoid creams.”

“Hemorrhoid creams?” he repeated, wrinkling his own face.

“You gotcha!” Natasha poked him once more for good measure.

“Alright, first of all, what did I tell you about personal space?” Charlie asked her. “You cannot flirt with me and give me the impression that you like me – as you usually do – because it hurts me right here.” He touched his chest.

She took a theatrical step back, and looked down at her tee shirt and legs as if making sure she was not invading his space. Then she pointed to the gap between her eyebrows.

“Look,” she said, and he saw the patch of dry skin. “How do I fix this without using one of your stupid home remedies for dry skin?”

“You and me have known each other since when? Middle school?” Charlie asked her.

She nodded, adding: “And then some.”

“And then some. And have I ever given you bad advice?”

She pouted and shook her head.

“I’ve never steered you wrong, right?”

“No, Charlie. But what are you going to give me to clear up my dry skin?”

“Witch hazel lotion,” he declared. He pulled open the bathroom door and she followed him in. He opened the cabinet above the sink and took out the container of Fuller Brush lotion.

“Witch hazel!” she shrieked, and she then cackled like a witch. “It even sounds like something out of the seventeenth century!”

“A lot of these so-called home remedies, as you call them,” Charlie began. “You take Saint John’s Wort, or Valerian root, or lavender – take your pick, Tash – these are still popular today because they actually work. Now I’m not some dippy hippy, alright? I’m not a member of the yogurt mad bean curd brigade.”

She laughed.

“I work a nine to five job,” he continued. “…where I have to be clean shaven. I have to shave every day, and one of those home remedies for dry skin that you baulk at is this Fuller Brush witch hazel lotion. Just try it, alright?”

She looked at him in the mirror, put his arms around his shoulders and smiled. They looked at each other’s reflections.

“Alright, I’ll give it a go.”

“Tash, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“Huh?” She looked at him in the mirror.

“Personal space?”

She pecked him on the cheek.

“You love it really,” she said.