I tweeze off my dry skin and eat it…I know it’s gross & weird but I can’t help it & people should never judge bad habits
A WOMAN has left many in shock as she revealed that she tweezes off her dry skin and eats it.
Taking to social media to open up, the woman explained that she has a “gross habit”, which involves picking and eating her flakes of dry skin.
She revealed that she knows it’s gross and weird, but she can’t help it and often does it subconsciously.
Posting on TikTok under the username @whatallergy, the social media user candidly opened up about her eczema and her skin-eating habit.
She shared her video with the caption ‘Anyone else eat skin flakes? Ok so I’ve blogged about this. Visit my blog to read about this gross habit because it seems I am not alone. Skin picking is a problem.’
In the clip, she said: “Now, this is something really, really gross and weird that I do.
“So I’ve just popped that flake off with the tweezers and I eat them.
“Is that really f***ed up and twisted and weird?”
In the clip, we saw the woman with her tweezers in hand, holding a flake of skin.
She then popped the flake of skin into her mouth.
She later revealed: “I even found myself Googling nutritional benefits of eating skin.
“There are NONE.”
The woman shared her clip just two days ago, but it has quickly amassed 55.8k views.
It has 815 likes, 260 comments and 207 shares.
Social media users were left in shock and some thought it was “disgusting.”
One person said: “That is disgusting. Surely that is not healthy and really bad!”
Another added: “I have never felt so sick in my life.”
A third commented: “Now that is vile.”
Whilst someone else noted: “Na I had to unfollow you after watching this video, absolutely gross.”
Another social media user said: “A little weird but not unnatural at all, maybe should have stayed in drafts tho” to which the woman explained “I think it’s a sign of something else, like OCD or some kind of grooming disorder. Just keeping it real.”
However, many appreciated the woman’s honesty and others revealed that they do this too.
One woman posted: “You’re so real for this” to which the woman responded “I mean it’s gross, I used to hide this habit but this is my truth!”
Someone else simply said: “Guilty” to which the woman responded “I knew I wasn’t alone in this.”
Whilst another admitted: “Omg I do the same thing.”
The woman later posted: “Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”
In another clip, she opened up about her skin eating in more detail.
She noted: “First of all, it is weird.
“I just wanted to go into it in a bit of detail, I’ve had eczema all my life, which obviously creates a lot of skin and flakes and I think I didn’t even know I was doing it at first, it was a habit and I was doing it without even thinking, sometimes in my sleep.
“An ex-partner mentioned it and I didn’t think much of it for years, it’s a habit, I’m not conscious about doing it.
“With skin, there is no nutritional benefit to it.
“I think on some level it’s a grooming thing, the shame of looking down and seeing flakes everywhere.
“Animals do it, cats lick themselves and we don’t think that’s disgusting.
“If you’re interested in this more, there is a term called excoriation, which is what people are doing when they are picking and sometimes eating, sometimes not.”
Excoriation, which is a skin picking disorder, is a mental health condition where you cannot stop picking at your skin.
The woman then added: “It can cause a lot of damage, it is often linked to mental health issues and there can be a lot of shame involved.
“There is some science behind it, I think it’s linked to mental health.
“I think for me, I do it when I’m anxious, angry, sad.
“I obviously don’t want to, but it’s not as easy for me to stop.”