Petroleum Jelly Is a Gel of a Healer

Here’s your “you don’t say!” lesson for the day: Back in 1859, a young chemist named Robert Chesebrough visited Edwin Drake’s newly discovered oil field in Titusville, Pennsylvania, hoping to cash in on the action. But instead of a heating-oil contract, he went home with a few jars of petroleum residue that kept clogging up the drilling rods and driving the oil field workers crazy. They had only one good thing to say for the stuff: when rubbed on a wound or burn, it seemed to speed the healing process. Chesebrough extracted and purified the gunk’s essential ingredient: a smooth, clear substance he called “petroleum jelly.” By 1870, he was manufacturing Vaseline®. (In 1955, the company merged with Pond’s to form Chesebrough-Ponds.) And the rest, as they say, is history!

So what can this gem of a jelly do for you? Plenty, starting with using it in a Miraculous Mature-Skin Cream, that will keep your skin soft and smooth:

This ultra-simple formula is perfect for extra-dry skin, especially for those of us who are nearing our—ahem—“golden years.” To make it, mix a 13-ounce jar of petroleum jelly, and 15-ounce bottle of baby lotion (not oil), and a 16-ounce jar of vitamin E cream (not lotion) in a large bowl. If you like, nuke the jelly in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up.) Mix well—the texture of the finished product should be somewhere between that of Cool Whip® and whipped butter. Store it in wide-mouth, lidded containers at room temperature, and use it as you would any other moisturizer. You should start seeing softer, more radiant skin almost immediately.