Facial Dandruff in Japan

Physically getting from Boston to Minneapolis to Tokyo was fairly uneventful except for what it did to my face. You remember the photos you have seen of drought-affected soils that crack into patterns that resemble a giraffe hide? Well, shrink those crack patterns to a much smaller scale and you will have a good idea of what my skin looked like upon arrival in Tokyo.  

My face wasn't always this way. In Boston my face was normal, that is to say, middle-aged wrinkled and lined. By Minneapolis it looked like I had a really good sunburn from sunning myself on Caribbean beaches or perhaps skiing on the windy slopes of the Alps. Sadly I can't report that I did anything more adventurous or romantic then to sit in seat 6A on Delta Flight 2825. At least it was a window seat.

Feeling like my skin was a little dry, I purchased some Nivea at Logan and applied it faithfully throughout my flight to Minneapolis. It didn’t seem to help, however, as my skin was so dry as to appear sunburned by the time I arrived in the Twin Cities. I was convinced that perhaps I had been exposed to sun radiation while sitting near the front of the plane. I tried to remember what Marty had told me about solar storms and the danger they presented to astronauts; perhaps they were also a threat to innocent passengers at the front of airplanes. My other theory is that the uncomfortably warm temperatures in the airplane were a clue that the crew was trying to cook us and like any good lobster, my bright red color was an indication that I was thoroughly done.

At the baggage claim I looked around at my fellow radiation-bathed passengers expecting to see a sea of red faces that looked like they also had spent too much time on the beach. To my surprise, they all appeared to be have the normal pasty faces of December with not a splotch of red to be seen anywhere. Curious. Perhaps my reading light had lost its filter, and UV light had managed to penetrate only my face? Whatever the cause, the problem appeared to be personal.

While in Minneapolis I breakfasted with Lois, my former college roommate who conveniently was also an occupational health and safety professional. Surely she would know if pilots and other frequent airplane travelers regularly suffered from sunburn or reading light burn. She had never heard of anything like it and had no idea how I could have burned my face in the airplane. I boarded the plane for Tokyo, armed only with my Nivea, and no knowledge of how I could protect myself from further solar radiation burns. I ducked into the bathroom before leaving to further slather Nivea on my legs to make sure that they didn’t dry out too.

On the flight to Tokyo the American flight attendant seemed to take a liking to me as I was only passenger that she addressed as “honey” and, in her more gushy moments, even “darling.” I think this affection was because as one of the last passengers to board the plane, I hung back patiently in the aisle while she and other passengers wrestled to stuff their carry-on into the overhead bins. For this small, and frankly unavoidable act, I seemed to have won her undying devotion. I don't envy flight attendants if that's as good as it gets.

From my loyal flight attendant, I purchased some “Made in America” jelly beans advertised in the Duty Free catalog to bring as gifts to Marty’s Japanese hosts.  While waiting with her for the credit card machine, I decided to take advantage of the lull to ask about the phenomenon of in-flight sunburn, certain that she would know all about it. She had never heard of it in her life. 

I started to re-think my theories of solar and reading light radiation and considered that perhaps I had had an allergic reaction. I pulled out the Nivea to read the ingredients. There on the label, in teeny-weeny letters, it said “Body Wash.” Yes, I had been rubbing soap into my face for the better part of two very long flights to fight dry skin.  I basically gave myself a chemical burn. Eew.

I ran to the closet that they call a bathroom on airplanes and frantically rinsed the many layers of dried soap off of my face. Underneath the soap, the skin story was still just as harrowing. 

Knowing the cause of the problem didn’t actually help the fact that at this point I had a rather thick layer of dry, damaged skin on my face. I needed real skin cream, if for no reason than to be able to soften my brittle crust of a face so that I could move it without pain.

Having already botched buying skin cream in Boston, where I could actually read the labels, I should have guessed that I would have little chance of successfully navigating skin cream in Tokyo.  At this point however, I had forgotten about that little failure and jumped right in to selecting a personal care item at the airport kiosk that I was certain must be skin cream.  I opened it up, rubbed it on and realized that I had bought soap again. Time for Plan B.

I asked the woman at the information desk to write the word for lotion for me in Japanese. She seemed to know exactly what I needed and jotted down the word without hesitation. I brought it confidently to the little kiosk that had personal items feeling certain that I was going to have my first commercial triumph in Tokyo. The women there immediately understood and brought me over to a little box that I purchased with great relief. I opened it up and the little glass bottle appeared to be filled with water or some water-like substance. I rubbed it in and waited for relief. It was not prompt in coming.

While waiting I noticed that the box detailed a four-step process, and I had purchased Step 3. Certainly it could only help to apply Step 4, so I returned to the little kiosk and confidently requested Step 4. When I eagerly opened the Step 4 box I found a little bottle labeled “olive oil.” Close enough.

Encouraged, I applied Steps 3 and 4 before leaving the airport. I added more Step 4 on each of the two trains we took to Marty’s apartment. I optimistically doused myself again before going to bed and hit the bottle as soon as I got up. To my disappointment, my first lesson in Tokyo was that while olive oil makes your skin and finger nails shiny, it did nothing to soften the dead crust that I currently called a face.

The sun was shining my first morning in Japan, and Marty and I cheerfully walked over to Marty’s office, letting the sun melt away any anxiety I had about having ruined my face. I remembered how sunshine was supposed to help one adjust to jet lag and soaked it up for its biorhythmic value. Upon arriving back at Marty’s apartment, I realized that I had made a dreadful error. The sunbeams that would be so useful in helping my body reset its biological clock had just cooked my face, turning the cracked crust of dead skin cells a dirty shade of black. The lines and fissures had deepened and darkened. My skin had aged a century or two within 48 hours. It was horrifying, and I started to wonder if the damage was permanent.

Marty and I tried to find cream again with little success. Faced with walls and shelves filled with various bottles labeled in what for us was some form of hieroglyphics we were powerless. I succeeded only in purchasing sun screen, which was recognizable because the SPF number was in labeled in English. While the sunscreen did nothing to help soften my crust, at least it would prevent further cooking.

The next day, having to go into Tokyo alone while Marty went to work, I was mortified at showing my diseased-looking face on the crowded trains. I was certain that the Japanese would assume that I was a leper of sorts and potentially infectious. Asian culture saved me from that humiliation. Since people with colds and other communicable diseases very commonly wear facemasks in public, I used this cultural phenomenon to my advantage and purchased a facemask. I walked through the myriad of Tokyo trains and subways confident in my social conformity and acceptability. The parched landscape of my face was safely hidden. Think Phantom of the Opera goes to Tokyo.

It wasn’t until the second evening when we were out with Marty’s colleagues that I got some relief. Toshio, Marty’s host, accompanied us to a pharmacy where faced with a mindboggling array of personal care items, Toshio did what any self-respecting scientist would do. He called his wife. She guided us to the right bottle, and I quickly slathered the cream on my face. The relief was immediate as my face began to soften and simple facial expressions no longer caused pain. Things were looking up. But not for long.

Once the crust and the new skin beneath the crust started to soften, my face started to flake off. Small pieces and big pieces floated off. If I rubbed my face, a snowstorm of dead cells fell on my shirt and pants. My face with its alternating patches of dead skin, fresh skin and semi-attached flakes started to look like a fungus had taken over. Things were getting worse.

I’m not proud to admit this, but I started to obsessively rub at my face and watch the little flakes gather on my black pants. Facial dandruff proved addicting as it took all my willpower to not flake my face in public.  Hot showers proved to be a godsend as large quantities of dead skin painlessly rubbed off in the shower. It was much like soaking a label of a glass jar in the sink and rubbing the label off into tin rolls of wet paper, only in my case I was rolling off flesh and instead of a glass jar, it was my face that was being de-labeled.

Within a couple of days of hot showers and faithfully applying the crème, the entire crust had given way to the fresh skin underneath. I was as close to normal as I probably would ever be, albeit with a few extra lines and wrinkles for the experience. I now have a greater appreciation for the punchline so renowned in my family, "No soap, radio."

Dandruff Face, Elephant Neck