For many years, Saskia Slama saw her daily life disrupted by unsightly and painful patches of eczema. Until the day she goes on a trip to the Amazon. Encounter.
Child, adolescent, adult: 4 million people suffer from eczema in France. This inflammatory, non-contagious disease spoils everyday life. Itching, burning, pain… In addition to hurting, it damages sleep, morale, social activities. And there is no definitive treatment yet. For many sufferers, the solution is to apply all kinds of moisturizing creams and balms as well as cortisone to reduce inflammation. But, as effective as it is at the beginning, cortisone causes side effects in the long run and ultimately ends up no longer working. A majority of people with eczema are helpless. On the occasion of World Day dedicated to this disease on June 6, we met Saskia Slama. Suffering from eczema for years, the young woman created her own cosmetics which she markets today. And his plates are gone.
“I feel like I was born with eczema“, Saskia Slama tells us straight away. She was only 3 years old when she discovered what she called a “magic cream”, namely the cortisone-based ointment that her mother, a nutritionist, applied sparingly to the patches that caused her so much pain. “At first, I had it in the hollow of my arms and knees. And then, little by little, it began to travel over my body“, explains the 32-year-old young woman. “In elementary school, my “weird” skin began to be noticed. And that’s when my best friend decided to ignore me. I felt like I had something special that repelled others. I remember one day asking my neighbor in class to lend me a pen. He did it with good grace but, when he saw my hand, he said a little embarrassed: “You can keep it“, confides Saskia who remembers her daily suffering as if it were yesterday.
“Because of the plaques, I felt like I had fire under my skin and I spent my nights scratching. I kept waking up from the itching and feeling so alone. I felt like my body was betraying me and that it was my worst enemy.”. The little girl then implored her mother to put the magic cream on her without knowing at the time the side effects of cortisone. “EShe kept telling me that I shouldn’t use too much and I didn’t understand why. I felt helpless at not being able to relieve me“.
“At 14, I woke up covered in plaques from head to toe”
Unfortunately, the situation does not improve over the years. “During puberty, it spread to my face, scalp, around my mouth and hands. That is to say almost everywhere and in increasingly open areas. A week after my first period at the age of 14, I woke up covered from head to toe in patches. I couldn’t move and had to stay at home for two days. I had to apply cortisone bandages but for the first time it did not have the expected effect (habituation phenomenon). I realized that I was going to have to learn to do without the magic cream, especially since the doctors had advised me to stop using it gradually. It prevented me from exposing myself to the sun and I realized that I had white spots on my patches, and that my skin was getting thinner.“, confides Saskia who is putting in place strategies to live with her illness.
Black clothes to prevent dead skin from showing…
“I developed hypercontrol mechanisms regarding my appearance because I didn’t want anyone to realize that I had a skin problem. I was obsessed with black clothes because, as I had patches on my scalp, I applied a specific product which was responsible for the flakes of dead skin on my shoulders which were visible! My love life was also complicated. When I kissed a boy with the beginnings of a beard, my skin overreacted! I felt like Cinderella: after the kiss, I had to go home quickly before my skin turned red and painful!” In preparatory class, the situation gets even worse. “I had a very poor lifestyle. I was drinking too much coffee, I was too stressed and I wasn’t getting enough sleep. As a result, I had eczema everywhere and even on my neck!“It was during a trip to the Amazon rainforest that something clicked.” I had only slipped two tubes of my cortisone ointment into my suitcase because I felt I had to learn to do without it. One day, I was eaten by mosquitoes and I was unable to calm the itching with traditional products. The person we were staying with then gave me an oil extracted from an Amazonian plant whose name I don’t know and, when I applied it to my skin, it soothed it in seconds! The seed was planted”.
“I wrote down in a notebook the effects of my diet and my mood on my skin”
Back in France, the young woman began to do research to find natural solutions to relieve her skin, but the confinement of March 2020 forced her to react. “The 2nd evening, my skin became inflamed. As usual, I covered myself in cortisone but it no longer had any effect. It was brutal and I really found myself with my back against the wall.“But with great strength of character, she decides to take up the gauntlet and become her own laboratory.”I wrote down in a notebook the effects of my diet and my mood on my skin and I tested essential oils, vegetable oils and anti-inflammatory foods. I also created my own mixtures which I applied to my skin and little by little I discovered that the patches and irritation disappeared“.
She then launched a blog to exchange people suffering from the same problem then, with the help of a questionnaire sent to members of her community, decided to launch her brand of natural products against eczema but also psoriasis. “I went to business school and have always been passionate about cosmetics, but I had to go through a real obstacle course for two years to identify, thanks to naturopaths, the natural components indicated and then approach the laboratories “, confides Saskia who created Pomad in August 2021 and launches its first products almost two years later. Today, the brand offers a routine composed of topical care and food supplements, formulated from natural ingredients and Saskia managed to convince Jean-Michel Karam, one of the show’s investors.Who wants to be my partner?’ to join her in the adventure!
Now, the young entrepreneur is finally at peace with her skin and has not applied cortisone to her skin for 6 years. ” I must have only had 3 plaques because I know how to prevent them from appearing. But I still need to learn to have more confidence in myself and appreciate my “imperfections”. I also need to learn to let go more but, and this is a giant step for me, I stopped wearing makeup. Finally, I agree to no longer hide.”
