I’ve noticed that the tip of my foreskin has a rather dry patch. It also looks cracked and sometimes the skin peels. When I wake up in the morning it isn’t too bad just a bit dry when you touch it but during the day it gets worse. When I get home from work and take my underwear off, the skin kind of reminds me of when you spend too much time in water and it gets “wrinkly”, or when you put lipstick on chapped lips so it’s kind of soft but hard and dry at the same time. Usually the skin gets much lighter too. I’ve tried a few different methods, eg. only using warm water to clean and not soap, few different face creams, Canesten, E45 but nothing seemed to help so far. Been recently checked for STIs and all clear. It isn’t the entire foreskin just a certain patch and not even all around. What is this and how can it be treated?!
Hello, I dealt with a situation very similar to this almost 10 years ago, but my situation is permanent and I have to be careful about what the skin of my penis comes into contact with.
So you started in the right direction when you were only using warm water to clean your penis with. What you need to know is that the skin of the foreskin and head of the penis is very sensitive to anything that is chemical based and what many men develop is an accumulative situation where the foreskin can simply no longer deal with anything chemical based that is applied directly to it, or it otherwise comes into contact with, so for example, something like hair shampoo you would use in the shower still gets onto the skin of your penis.
So as I say, using water to clean your penis is a step in the right direction, however, even if you excluded contact with, quite literally, everything else for 3, 4 or 5 months you may still not see a huge change in your skin. It can take an extended period of months of excluding anything that is potentially harmful until the skin can begin to recover and perhaps after 6 or 7 months the skin will actually start to show benefits of excluding all the harmful things that it can no longer cope with.
The other potential is that you have actually developed a skin condition … I will post one of my guides below, read through it carefully and put as much in place for your penis as possible.
If you have anything you want to check with me simply hit the Reply Button - I do not respond to Messaging / Personal Messages …
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Penile Hygiene Regime to Combat Specific Skin Problems
The best approach is not to use ANY SOAP on the Glans / Head of your penis - wash with water only EVERY time you have urinated, after sexual arousal, and ejaculation. If you are not circumcised, protect the Glans of your penis every time you take a shower by drawing the foreskin as far forward as you can, then wash everywhere else, thoroughly rinse off all the gels / shampoo and suchlike, then expose your glans wash it with the water only using the inside of your hand, then each time you have washed it you must make sure to 100% pat dry immediately afterwards with a clean towel.
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After you have put this in place and you still have the situation going on you need to look at what else your penis is coming into contact with on a fairly regular basis.
The likely suspects are:-
any chemical compounds such as skin cream / lotions, baby oil, oil based lubes, chemicals inside condoms (e.g. easy-on and spermicides) you need to exclude these one by one to discover the culprit, the easiest approach is to exclude everything to start with, then once things are on the mend, introduce each individual item to discover what has caused this in the first place.
if non of these make any difference you need to look to things such as washing powder in which you wash your clothes, and underwear in, in particular. The simple alternative to washing powder is Liquid Soap Flakes, most sizeable supermarkets stock this in their own brand names - and you use this in your washing machine instead of powders or ANY fabric conditioner type additives.
If all this produces no resolution to what you have, or your condition dramatically worsens, seek medical advice from your regular Doctor - but please note, many do not fully understand the differences between the potential skin conditions you may potentially have. Therefore, the better course of action may be to see a Dermatologist, or alternatively, go to a Specialist Sexual Health Service and ask to see the duty Dermatologist if they have one, or ask how you get to see a Dermatologist that specialises in Genital Skin Disorders.