Still finding new ones after having them frozen? Here’s why, and what’s finally working for women who’ve tried everything.
I started looking into this after an email from a reader. She’s 72, she’s had seborrheic keratoses for eleven years, and she’s had dozens frozen.
“I keep finding new ones,” she wrote. “Every time I reach back there, my fingers find another one. My doctor tells me it’s just the nature of them. Do I have to accept that?”
The answer surprised me, because the problem isn’t the one most of us think we have.
It’s Not a Spot Problem
She’d been having them frozen twice a year, at $100 to $250 a visit. Every appointment cleared the spots she had that day, and by the next one, new ones had already started showing up in other places.
The spots were never the real problem. Something underneath kept making them, and freezing never touched it, so there was always going to be a next one.
Why They Keep Coming Back
I took her email to a dermatology nurse who has spent 20 years in a skin clinic and asked her what was going on.
Your skin is always renewing itself, she told me. New keratin, the protein your outer skin is made of, comes up from underneath, and the old keratin on top flakes away every day without you noticing.
In a seborrheic keratosis, that shedding stops in one spot. The old keratin has nowhere to go, so it piles up and hardens into a crust on top. That crust is the rough, raised part you can see and feel. Underneath it, the keratin keeps building up and pushing the crust back up.
And it rarely stops at one spot. The same build-up starts in other places nearby, which is why new ones keep showing up next to the old ones.
“Think of a callus,” she said. “It’s hardened keratin too. Sand the top off and it grows right back, because nothing touched what’s building it underneath.”
Why One at a Time Can’t Keep Up
Freezing at the dermatologist takes off the crust you can see. But the build-up underneath is still there, so a few weeks later it pushes a new crusty top in the same place. Meanwhile, the ones that were just starting keep growing, so there’s always a next one.
Freeze sprays are the same idea as freezing, just weaker, and they can blister the healthy skin around the spot.
Wart removers have salicylic acid in them, which is one of the right ingredients. But they’re dabbed on one spot and gone long before they can work their way through the crust. Like a callus, the build-up has to be loosened a little at a time, for hours, day after day.
Every one of them works on the crust on top, one spot at a time. None of them touch the build-up underneath, and none of them reach the ones that are just starting. That’s why she kept finding new ones.
What It Actually Takes
If the problem keeps happening, the answer has to keep happening too. It has to work on the build-up underneath, not just the crust, and it has to go on every spot at once, every day.
The nurse said it comes down to three things working together.
Glycolic acid, to loosen the crust on top so your skin can shed it.
Salicylic acid, to get through the crust to the build-up underneath. “That’s the one that matters,” she said. “Because it’s oil-soluble instead of sitting on top of the waxy crust like most things do, it passes through it and breaks down the build-up. Everything most women have tried stays on top. This gets underneath.”
And the part everyone misses: time. A cream or lotion soaks into your skin around the spot within a minute, and the acids with it. But to loosen the build-up, they need to stay on the spot for hours.
So why had nobody told my reader any of this?
“Because the visit is built around freezing,” the nurse said. “You come in, we take off the ones that bother you, and you go home. Both acids have been used on calluses for years, but nobody sends you home with anything for the build-up underneath, or for the ones that haven’t come up yet.”
That’s when it clicked for me. My reader hadn’t failed at anything. She’d been fighting a problem that happens every day with a fix that happens twice a year. What she needed was something she could do herself, at home, every day, on all of them at once.
The Piece That Was Missing
I asked the nurse if anything did all three.
“One does,” she said. “It’s called the Smooth & Even body stick, by Fora.”
It has both acids in a shea butter base, in a stick. Shea doesn’t soak in, so it holds the acids on the spots for hours. And because you glide it over the whole area after your shower, it’s working on every spot there at once, every day, including the ones that are just starting.
What Happened Next
I sent the nurse’s answer back to my reader. Eight weeks later, she wrote to me again.
“I almost didn’t try it. I figured it would end up in the drawer with everything else. For the first two weeks I couldn’t see a thing, but the rough ones along my bra strap had gone smooth under my fingers. By week six, the big one on my shoulder had gone flat.
“But what I noticed most was what I didn’t find. I ran my hand across my back the way I do every night, and for the first time in years, there wasn’t a new one.”
She hasn’t booked a freezing appointment since.
She wasn’t the only one.
What Women Are Saying
More than 64,000 women have ordered it, and 3,700 have left a review.
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The Bottom Line
My reader spent eleven years removing them one at a time, and it was never going to be enough, because it was never a spot problem. What changed things was something that keeps working on the build-up underneath, every day, on all of them at once.
Every month the build-up is left alone, more of them start. The ones that haven’t shown up yet are the ones you can still catch.
It has sold out nine times this year, and each time, it took up to two months to come back. Anyone who missed it spent those two months finding new ones.
Right now it’s in stock, at $24. Give it 60 days, and if it doesn’t work for you, you get every dollar back.
Get It Now Before
It’s Too Late!
Sell Out Risk: High
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