Years of wet wraps, and I'd never asked what each layer was for

The Solen Base Journal

The damp one. The dry one. The emollient under both. When I finally read the leaflet properly, the ordinary nights started to look different.

By Haider Jafri, founder · 6 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.

I found the leaflet in the bathroom drawer, under the spare tubes. The one they gave me the first time a wet wrap was prescribed. Soft at the folds from being moved around.

I'd read it once, years ago, standing up, to find out what to buy. I'd never read it the way you read something when you actually want to understand it.

So one night, halfway through wringing out a pair of socks, I stopped, dried my hands, and sat on the edge of the bath and read the whole thing.

What I'd been doing on autopilot

You get very good at this. Emollient first, the real amount. Warm water. Wring the socks, not too wet, not too dry. Damp layer on. Dry layer over it. Bed.

And then, too often, awake at one in the morning, ripping them off because the damp is unbearable. It feels like fire ants.

I'd done it so many times I'd stopped thinking of it as three things. It was just "the wet wrap". One routine, all or nothing.

What the leaflet actually says

Here's what I hadn't taken in. Each layer is there for a reason, and the leaflet explains them one at a time. I'd been treating them as one lump.

And, most importantly, it's a treatment for particular times, decided by the people who look after my skin. Not a routine I was ever meant to copy onto every single night of my life.

The dry layer question

That's what changed things.

Because I hadn't been doing wet wraps only on the nights they were prescribed. On the ordinary nights in between, I'd been doing a sort of shadow version. No damp layer, because I couldn't face it, but a normal cotton sock over the emollient because it felt like I should put something over it.

By morning that sock was stiff. It felt like it had soaked up most of it. Maybe it had. I honestly couldn't tell.

So I asked myself a much simpler question than I'd ever asked before:

On the nights that aren't wet wrap nights, what do I actually need?

And the answer was: my emollient, and one dry layer over it that keeps it on my feet and off my sheets. That's all. Not a damp layer, because nobody prescribed one that night. Not a cotton sock that goes stiff.

If you're not sure which of your nights are which, that's a question for your nurse or dermatologist. For me, it was the most useful question I'd asked in years.

Nothing replaces a prescribed wet wrap

I want to say this clearly, because it's the thing I'd want to hear.

This is not about stopping wet wraps. When I'm told to wet wrap, I wet wrap. The leaflet stays in the drawer and I follow it.

This is about the other nights. The ones that were never meant to look like a wet wrap in the first place.

What I use on those nights now

That's what led me to Solen Base.

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.

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. There's a Day Sock too, closed toe, for the mornings.

What I want

On the ordinary nights, I want to put my emollient on, put one dry layer over it, and go to sleep. No sink. No stiff cotton sock. No shadow wet wrap.

And on the wet wrap nights, I want to do them properly, because I'm not worn out by doing half of one every other night of the week.

If you've been wet wrapping for years and never read the leaflet twice, 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.