u/strawberryol3

so for context, I’m 26 now but my KP began when I was about 20 (I had it as a child but it went away until the ). It’s just been on my chest and butt and easily managed with heavy moisturizing.

however recently something really irritated it and it started getting pretty itchy. I scratched it my sleep, even. I thought I needed to exfoliate more so I used that exfoliating body wash with beads in it. I believe I may have introduced bacteria with my scratching and that horrible body wash causing tiny tears in my skin, as I now know it does from googling, bc after that it got a lot worse and spread all over my back and shoulders. It looked almost identical to this.

right now the itching had died down a lot but at least on my butt it looks like it completely turned to folliculitis…the bumps are bigger than my usual KP ones and tender. I plan to try benzoyl peroxide there. I did try h&s shampoo thinking it was fungal and it did not help.

so I had KP on my arms when I was young but it went away. then a couple years ago I started getting small, itchy red bumps on my butt along with the strawberry dot pattern. derm said it was KP. then it spread to my back and chest. I kept it under control with heavy moisturizing post shower at night. exfoliating makes it worse so I can’t do that at all anymore, even exfoliating lotions flare it very quickly.

within the past year it’s now spread to my shoulders, as you can see, and I feel very insecure about it. I have tried acne products just in case that’s what it is, but it makes it much much worse. I tried vanicream antifungal soap and that also made things much worse.

it seems to come in waves, like it’ll clear up pretty quickly and stay clear for a while. then something will set it off and i’ll be so itchy and bumpy (mainly on my back, but rn it’s my left shoulder and a little bit on my right).

the bumps never get bigger than what’s pictured. moisturizer helps the itching somewhat. I do have dry skin, for reference.

sorry it’s hard to see in the pic, the quality isn’t the best. it’s so bumpy in person and really itchy! any insight?

hi all. I have A TON of wavy hair — very high density. idk the coarseness because some strands are thin while others seem medium, and some are wiry and coarse. idk how to describe my scalp either…maybe regular oil level? I have to wash every other day. that may sound frequent since I have thick hair, but if I try to stretch it my scalp gets irritated and it’s just too greasy.

my issue is that I can’t ever get it to be consistently soft and nice and manageable. sometimes it is, like the second pic. other times it’s like the first one where it feels so rough to the touch and frizzy and gross. sometimes clarifying shampoos help, other times they do nothing or make it worse.

leave-in conditioners seem to buildup rlly quickly on my hair and don’t rlly do anything for it (I have tried many) so I avoid it. rn I have the unite detangler spray. I will say that in general my hair is weighed down easily and products build up very quickly and easily, so maybe low porosity as well?

I have tried many shampoos and conditioners: redken all soft, amika normcore, ouai clarifying, suave clarifying, davines momo. the amika shampoo feels best and keeps my scalp the cleanest. suave clarifying gives me the worst results, dry mid length and ends and my scalp seems way more oily way faster than usual. the conditioners all seem to give me mixed results. I did think maybe the lack of sulfates was the issue, but redken all soft shampoo has sulfates (as well as suave, of course) and that made my hair so rough and frizzy.

*I also tried hard water shampoo and that didn’t make any difference, and the area I live in does not have very hard water to begin with.

any advice?

first pic is wet hair, second is dry. the flakes are super small and sticky, definitely don’t just fall off or brush away easily. they’re also only visible when my hair is wet. when dry I can’t see anything, and my hair looks healthy and has good volume when dry.

my scalp gets a bit pink after just hardly running a comb or brush over it once or twice, as you can see in the first pic. it also feels tender all the time, like a mild sunburn.

my routine is that I wash every 3 days (normal scalp, not very oily or dry). I usually use amika normcore shampoo but I sometimes use davines momo shampoo as well. I use ouai clarifying shampoo about once every 1.5-2 weeks, or when it feels all waxy which is sometimes sooner. condition with redken all soft or davines momo conditioner.

the fact that they’re sticky makes me think it’s maybe some sort of oil or product buildup? I just clarified but my hair feels more dry instead of softer like it usually does, and my scalp feels and looks the same. maybe i need to wash every other day instead of every 3 days?