Opinion by J1 reporter Emma Williams

A life with dry skin is no way to live. I could not live without lotion. Every time I so much as wash my hands, I need to moisturize.

My avid use of lotion stems from a traumatic experience that occurred in my youth. The story starts at a Kohl’s on a winter night as I was shopping with my mom. My hands, for a reason I do not remember, were incredibly dry. I kept complaining to my mom about them until she looked for lotion in her purse. She didn’t have any. I went the rest of our shopping trip with dry skin that could have been saved if my mom had lotion with her. I suffered until I got home; it felt like centuries. While this experience was not one of the best from my childhood, it did teach me an important lesson: moisturize.

There is no reason why someone should suffer with dry skin when using lotion is so easy. All you have to do is rub it in, a small price to pay for hydrated skin. You don’t have to get a nice kind, just something that works. However, my personal favorite is Johnson’s baby lotion (in the pink bottle).

These days, I always make sure I have lotion to save myself, or others, from the disaster that is dry skin. If I forget to put lotion in my backpack or purse, I track down somebody who can help me out immediately. I never want to relive that night at Kohl’s.