I know exactly what to do. That's why I'm tired.

The Solen Base Journal

Half nine at the bathroom sink, wringing out cotton socks for the third time this week. This is about the nights in between, and the one question that changed how I think about them.

By Haider Jafri, founder · 7 minute read

A dramatised story. The routine, the objects and the quotes come from real posts and reviews we read while making Solen Base, and the people quoted were writing about other products, not ours. The narrator is a composite, not a customer.

Nobody needs to explain it to me any more.

Emollient on. Properly. Not a polite little dab. The real amount. Then a layer over it. Then a layer over that.

I know my emollient by name. I know which ones sting. I can feel a flare coming before anyone else notices. If you've lived with this for long enough, you become a quiet expert in your own skin, whether you wanted to or not.

What nobody warned me about was the admin.

Half nine, the third night this week

Everyone else in the house is winding down. I'm at the bathroom sink, running the tap until it's warm, holding a pair of cotton socks under it.

Wring them out. Not too wet. Not too dry. I've got a feel for it now, which is a strange thing to be good at.

Sit on the edge of the bath. Emollient first, over the dry patches, keeping it off the skin between my toes. Then the damp socks, rolled on slowly so they don't drag. Then a dry pair over the top.

Then bed.

And here's the honest bit. I can't stand damp clothing on my skin. It feels like fire ants.

So I lie there with cold, clammy feet, telling myself it'll settle. Some nights I get used to it. Most nights I can't sleep because of the discomfort, and I end up ripping it off. One in the morning, peeling wet socks off in the dark, dropping a greasy pile on the floor for tomorrow.

When it was bandages, it was worse. I'd last an hour or two before I was crying and had to take them off.

The maddening part is that I know it helps. There's always a noticeable difference if I can manage to sleep with it on.

That if is doing all the work.

Everyone in those threads knows what to do

I went looking one night, the way you do at one in the morning with wet socks on the floor, to see if it was just me.

It wasn't.

"Since I have no life anyway, I am able to sit for hours at a time in wet socks."

"We struggled with 30 min. They helped his eczema and itching tremendously. However he absolutely hated it."

People called it total sensory hell. Someone said the idea of it sounds like a torture method. Reading those, I didn't feel informed. I felt seen. Everyone in those threads knows exactly what to do. We're all just tired of doing it.

The laundry never stops

And the wet layer is only half of it.

Greasy socks. Pyjama cuffs with emollient on them. Bedding washed more often than it should be. A pile of old socks that are only for this, because no nice pair survives it.

Then there are the nights I can't face the full routine. On those, I pull on a normal pair of socks and call it half a job. By morning the cotton is stiff, and it feels like the sock has soaked up most of it. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. I honestly can't tell. But it's stiff.

Add it up. Minutes at the sink. Minutes getting it all on. An hour lying awake. A load of washing. Most nights. Every flare.

I don't need anyone to explain my skin to me. I need my evenings back.

The in between nights

Here's what I finally separated out, and it's the thing I wish I'd done years ago.

There are the nights I've been told to wet wrap by the people who look after my skin. Those are their call. When they say wet wrap, I wet wrap. Nothing replaces that, and this isn't a story about stopping.

Then there are the ordinary nights in between. The maintenance nights. No wet wrap prescribed. Just emollient, and something over it so it stays on my feet and off everything else. The nights I'd been doing half a job in a cotton sock.

I'd been treating those nights like a smaller wet wrap. Same sink, same second pair, or else nothing but a stiff cotton sock. It had never occurred to me they might need something different.

So here's the question I finally asked:

On those in between nights, does the layer over my emollient really have to be another wet piece of fabric? Or a cotton one that goes stiff?

If you're not sure which of your nights are which, that's a question for your nurse or dermatologist. It was the right question for me, and it's what led me to Solen Base.

One dry layer

It's a Night Sleeve. One dry layer. Cotton on the outside. Lined with gel on the inside, which is the side that sits against your emollient. It's open at the toes and covers the heel.

Emollient on. Sleeve on. Bed.

No tap. No wringing. No second pair.

There's a Day Sock too, closed toe, same idea, for the mornings you do your feet before work.

You use your own emollient. There's no fragrance and nothing is soaked into the fabric. It goes in the washing machine at 40 degrees, in a mesh bag.

What made me take it seriously

I went in sceptical, because that's what years of this does to you. You've heard every claim. So here's what they say plainly, and what I needed to hear:

Honestly, that's what did it. A brand that puts the reasons not to use it in front of the reasons to buy it is a brand that has met people like me.

What I want from it

Something small.

A bedtime that's emollient and one dry layer. No damp socks in bed. No wet pile on the floor at one in the morning. One sleeve in the wash instead of two pairs of socks. A few minutes of my evening back.

I'll still do my feet. I just don't want to dread it.

If your evenings have turned into a routine you could do in your sleep but can't sleep through, have a look at how the Night Sleeve works. The safety notes are on the page before you buy, and there's a fourteen night guarantee.