July 23, 2026 • 26 mins
How does living with eczema affect what you wear, how you socialize, and the way you see yourself? Journalist and eczema advocate Cynthea Corfah joins host Dylan Marron to share her experience with chronic eczema. She discusses the complicated line between genuine care and unwanted advice, the lack of eczema representation in Black skin, and the everyday work of preparing to be seen. She also explains how finding other Black women with similar experiences inspired her to create Black Girls With Eczema – and what it means to keep living, connecting, and “healing out loud” when healing isn’t linear.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a
cute outfit.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And this girl comes up to me, just sits next
to me, telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin.
I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling
so just like distraught and.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Like robbed of my time.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights
were coming on and the party was over, it felt
like I had a sticker on my forehead that said
she has X month.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute,
forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the
present with joy. But when you live with a visible
skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it
needs to be. Hello, everyone, welcome or welcome back to
(00:51):
the second season of Skin Quarries. This is a show
about skin, but it's really a show about people because
skin health doesn't exist in a vat. It's personal, sure,
but it's also out in the world with us. Our
skin is the first thing people notice when we enter
a room, and it can invite concern and judgment and
assumptions and yes, sometimes even silence. I'm your host, Dylan Maren.
(01:17):
I am a writer and producer, and a lot of
my work, including my other podcast, Conversations with People Who
Hate Me, has been about what happens when people think
they understand you before they know you, when they see
one part of you and mistake it for the whole story.
So this season on Skin Querries, we are exploring the
story's skin can carry. We're talking about the visible parts
(01:39):
that we try so hard to hide, the questions people ask,
and the ways that all of those things can shape
our confidence, identity, community, and care. Today we're talking about
what happens when you're skin and is visible, but your
(02:01):
full experience may not be. My guest today is Cynthia Korfa.
She's a freelance journalist, EXEMA advocate, and the community builder
behind Black Girls with Exema. Cynthia, Hi, it's really nice
to meet you.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Nice to meet you too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Cynthia has always lived with exemma, but over time it
became something that affected much more than her skin. It
changed how she got ready, it changed how she moved
through social spaces and how she understood the need for community.
So her story is, yes, obviously about EXEMA, but.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It's also about recognition.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's about feeling isolated in your experiences and trying to
find people who understand what you're going through without having
to explain every single piece of it. And let's be real,
we've all been there. It's also about the magic that
can come from building the kind of space you once
needed for yourself and what changes when you finally feel
(03:00):
Before we really get into it, let's go back to
the start when exema first entered Cynthia's life.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I think I entered my life with exzema.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was born with it, and my mom tells me
stories of having to put socks on my hands to
prevent me from scratching because there would be like blood
on the sheets of my crib. I'm an army brat
as well, so I've moved quite a bit, and every
time I was moving, I was moving to a different
climate and that impacted my skin differently. So I was
(03:36):
born in DC and then went to Colorado Springs, and
Colorado's known for dry air, mountain water. You know that
very honestly, probably the best scenario for my skin at
that time. It was like, you know, typical rashes in
the common areas such as your arms, maybe my neck,
behind my knees and then we got stationed back to
(03:58):
Maryland and cherry blossoms, allergens, things like that were happening
and so making my skin itch. Then we got station
to Louisiana, which is the swamps and superhuman, super hot
and just not supportive of my skin at all. And
I recently got a new allergy test done, and every
(04:19):
time the doctors open up my chart, they're just like wow.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Like you are a bubble girl.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Like you really should just like live in a bubble
because I'm allergic to every single tree that we have
here in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So it's really challenging.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I live and love New Orleans right now, Unfortunately
it's just not the best for my skin.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
We contain multitudes. We can love a city and understand
it might not be the best for our skin. I
love you as Bubble Girl because I feel like that's
now a movie we should spin off from the Jake
Jillenhall Bubble Boy into Cynthia's Bubble Girl. Yes, we're pitching
that right after this call. I love it, Okay, So
(05:01):
talk to me about being in your twenties in college
in Louisiana and about that moment when exzema became such
a big deal you couldn't miss it in your life.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So essentially I went to LSU.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So everyone else is like frolicking and living their life
in college. Meanwhile I'm like scratching showing up to class
with you.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Know, itchy eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And it felt like this thing that was like slowly
creeping up for me. I think it was around my
twenty fourth birthday. It was my golden birthday. I went
to Puerto Rico. I'm a big birthday girl, so.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I'm insane, man, I join you in the birthday girl experience,
so I support it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, So I went to Puerto Rico and I was like,
I want to wear a bathing suit.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I'm trying to live my best life.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And the whole time, you know, I was just so
self conscious about my exma at the same time. That
year was a year I just to stop using topical steroids,
and the rashes were growing, like it was getting bigger,
it was becoming just it was just taking over my
whole body. And I was starting to learn more about
(06:13):
TSW topical steroid WATRAL because of people on Instagram who
are sharing about their story, and so I was like, Okay,
maybe I could heal naturally, I'll be fine, maybe in
a couple months, maybe a year or so. I could
just suffer for a short amount of time. But that
short amount of time did not end up short at all.
I mean, it was truly a nightmare. I couldn't go
(06:35):
to sleep without weeping through my clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I would wake up just like my face like crust
it over.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Sometimes my eyelids crusted shut, like literally having to separate
my shirt from my body because it had stuck to it.
You know, while I was sleeping, I lost the ability
to grow hair. So like my eyebrows stopped growing. I noticed,
like even some of my body hair stop growing. I
could not recognize myself in the mirror. I could not
(07:03):
recognize myself in photos. It was like whack a mole.
It was like what am I going to experience next?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So you're kind of trapped, right, You're like, you're between
the steroid, which does help but could potentially have consequences,
and then you try to go the natural route and
that doesn't really help either. Talk to me about the
day to day living with exema. Between I was going
to say, between these two options, between these two lack
(07:32):
of options.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, I mean I was doing everything, like I'm wrapping
myself in gauze to try to soak up some of
that weeping, trying every natural thing I could, but it
was starting to feel like obsessive, and it felt like
I couldn't even like think or do anything. I went
from being this person who loves I love taking photos.
(07:55):
I'm also a journalist and a social media influencer, and
so being this and being seen were all parts of
my platform and my identity, and so to not be
able to feel like comfortable to do that was extremely hard.
Like it just felt like I was the shell of
a person and it felt like I just wanted to hide.
(08:16):
Like being touched, you know, was something that was very hard.
Like I even now like I'm like when people like
touch my hand, I kind of like flinch a little bit,
you know, because I'm just like, oh, I don't want
them to feel.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
My skin and the texture and everything.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I was really only able to hang out with people
who felt safe, and so it's like I could either
sit here, be depressed and my baggy clothes and my
weepy skin, and you know, sit and suffer and silence
and no one will ever know, and I'll just roll
over and die, you know, for lack of better words.
But I'm a natural optimist. I gravitate towards joy. I
(08:53):
just could not stay bogged down for much longer. Basically,
that like cloud of depression, I kind of like burst
through it and was like, through this, I'm going to
like do something about this. I just refused to let
my condition keep me from living and thriving. And so
that's what led me to just bursting out of my
bubble and healing out loud instead of suffering in silence.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Okay, I love that healing out loud. That is okay,
maybe we have a title. Thank you for sharing? How
it affected like self image? How is it affecting your
social life?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
So the first story that comes to mind is when
I first started dating my now fiance. We went to
this party, you know again New Orleans has amazing DJ.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's an amazing night live scene. And I tied.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
This little cute, little silk scarf as a top and
had like my back out and some little silver pants,
and I.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Was just feeling myself. I thought it looked so cute.
I pieced together a cute outfit and we're dancing.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We're having a good time, and I think we honestly,
we had barely just got there.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I think we were late, and so we.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Had just stepped outside and this girl comes up to me,
just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl,
I see your skin.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I know what you're suffering with.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And proceeds to talk to me for like a half
an hour, about maybe to an hour.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I don't even know it was so long.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I just remember like feeling like I got stuck in
a time warp and she's just telling me what I
should be doing, you know what's wrong with my skin.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And I just remember feeling so distraught and like robbed
of my time, and like, I kid you not, when
she finally, like when I finally freed myself of that conversation,
the lights were coming on and the party was over.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That is criminal. A crime was committed, A crime was committed.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It really was like I felt so like what I
tell you, I was so angry because yes, she really
stole my joy. I genuinely came there with the mind
of dancing, feeling good, looking good, not being bothered by
anything or my condition I was like, for once I
could just put this condition on a shelf and not
(11:11):
think about it.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And it felt like I had.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
A sticker on my forehead that said she has EXMA,
she is going through TSW talk to her.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, that's it's so interesting too, because it's always helpful
to learn the line between care and boundary crossing, because
not to build empathy for this woman, but I can
imagine that she actually didn't think she was causing you harm.
I think she probably thought that she was like helping. Yeah,
(11:41):
how do you define that boundary for the people who
care and want to help and might be a little
misguided in how to provide that care and help.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It is really really sticky, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I am in the EXMA community now, this is a
big part of my life life, and so when I
see people out with EXMA out and about, I'm like, oh, look,
I get excited and I want to be like, you know,
especially like if it's a black woman with.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Like you know, and I just want to like connect
with them.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And then I have to stop myself and I think
about how I felt when people have come to me
and you're just having a good day and you're thinking,
no one sees no one knows and and then you
then they clock you, you know, and it's just like
so embarrassing. I would say, the one thing if you
are trying to approach someone and show them care about
their condition, the one thing that's going to give you
(12:34):
credibility is if you have the condition.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Like so I'm like, you know, like it's like, first
of all.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I have read about exzema, and therefore I am empowered
to tell you about it.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not that it's a really thin line, honestly, but I
would just say approach it with care and only if
you really have something to offer genuinely, because I can't
tell you how many times I receive a DM of
someone who claims to have the cure to my exema.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And that's hard, and that's hard.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
So, okay, I want to set up a hypothetical for you.
Let's set the scene. You have an invitation to a party.
It is tonight. You want to go to this party.
It's going to be a mix of friends, acquaintances, total strangers,
strangers you're excited to meet. What is your prep to
go to this party? What are you doing at home
(13:28):
before you go?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So, for me to feel ready and like my skin
is like sealed clean, moisturized. I'm going to take a bath.
I'm a big bath girly. I know, as exema girlies,
we're not supposed to take hot baths, but I'm working
on it so we can allow ourselves all sorts of
things in this life.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Life is short. You deserve hot paths.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Thank you coming into You're welcome. That's all I'm here
to do. I've got a log off now, I just
wanted to give you permission.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Okay, So post.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Bath, post bath, immediate moisturizing, and then I'll put on
like an ointment on top to like really seal it in. Yeah,
we're doing like a sensitive skin makeup routine.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And then the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I would say is picking the outfit, because we all
struggle with picking that out Yeah, come on, then you
have exma, full body ezma trying to pick an outfit
that's a whole another beast. And so really my outfits
are dependent on my skin condition. Like at that day,
I'm five ten about long legs and unfortunately these long
(14:39):
legs are covered in eczema, and so usually I'm going
to aim for pants or just something that's going.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
To cover up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But is it just the cut that you're thinking about
or is it also fabric and airiness?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
And thousand percent definitely it's about the fabric.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I love fashion and I love clothes.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Unfortunately though nowadays they're making everything out of polyester and
those can be very irritating and have less breathability, so
I do try to think about that as well. Like
the other day was my skin was just in shambles
and I was like cotton only. So I'm definitely always
looking for first coverage and then breathability and then itchiness
(15:23):
as well. Like sometimes a certain fabric one day it'll
be fine and then the next it'll like just make
me so irritated.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So it really depends day by day.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So thank you so much for sharing the physical prep.
What are you doing to emotionally prepare to go to
this party?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Lots of podcasts, Lots of lots of podcasts.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I love that. Yes, I listen to.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I mean really, just as many things as I can
consume that are gonna like fuel my cup and like
assure me like I'm good as is, I can show
up just as I am, and my life it's going
to shine through regardless and even some little mantra music
like I just.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Go super wellness, super woo woo.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'm just trying to like armor myself to go out
to fight the world.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I get it and I support it. Okay, So that
is that is the before the party. Now I want
to tell you about this party. You had a great time.
There was no woman that cornered you. You had the
time of your life. And even still, what is the aftercare?
What do you do when you get home?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Strip it all off, take it off, like there's nothing
better than like, yeah, oh, masking, so yeah, immediately coming home,
putting his bonnet on, covering up all this hair, Okay,
washing this makeup off, putting on like a deep you know,
moisturizer or something a little bit more thick and penetrating,
(16:51):
because just in case, I like stripped my face of
a bunch of moisturizer after the makeup and the cleansing.
So just like I look like a glazed donut typically
when I get home, iconic.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, who doesn't want to look like a glazed donut?
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I love it so and then yes, the most comfortable
clothes I can find, you know, nothing cute, baggy old
T shirts, cotton, cotton pajamas.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I would argue that's cute.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I would argue, cotton cozy is a cute look. And
I say that hoping that when I am rotting on
my couch, I am turning.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
A cute look. So, yes, you're right, You're right, Yeah, Okay.
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
It is clear that you and everyone dealing with egzema
is dealing with a lot. There's like a lot of
social considerations, a lot of emotional considerations, a lot of
mass that you need to be doing to know how
to even exist in the world. But there is another
layer that you are dealing with specifically, which is the
(17:58):
fact that you are dealing with this as a black woman.
And one of the many things that make this different
for you is that documentation of skin conditions. It's often
typically documented in lighter skin tones. So would you mind
sharing with me a little about how exema affects you
(18:18):
specifically as a black woman.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Definitely, it is so complex.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
There's just so many little nuanced things that I feel
like differentiate a black woman's experience with EXMA versus another person.
For instance, the hyper pigmentation, so the skin color change.
So like whereas EXMA, on a white person might appear
(18:45):
red and pink, and you know, everyone could visibly tell, oh,
that's exsma. Oh they're having a rash or something like that,
whereas on me it might appear like I just have
like a darker skin tone. People who don't know me,
they might just think, oh, she's got you know, darker
skin or whatever. It might be, not knowing that this
is my skin and it's inflame state and that this
(19:06):
is hyper pigmentation.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It also as far as.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Like the social aspect, like I feel like culturally, you know,
black people, black women, we want to be moisturized. We
are We've got this melanated, gorgeous skin. We historically have
kept our skin moisturized with butters, oils and all these things,
and you know, we're expected to shine and glisten in
the sun.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And when you have exima.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I mean, let's be real, you know, like and when
you have exima, that's just not always the case. And
so I personally have felt a lot of shame and
like just like yeah, like it's as if it's taken
my beauty away to an extent, because like I'm naturally drier.
I can put moisturizer on one second and literally five
(19:53):
minutes later, my skin just literally like sucks it up
and it looks as if I didn't even moisturize at all.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
There's a lot you're dealing with at the same time.
Because of this, you created Black Girls with eczema. Talk
to me about what inspired it, talk to me about
creating it, and talk to me about the community you're
building through it.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So when I was twenty four, I was going through
TSW early stages of it, and I had started this
page called pretty Itchy was the Instagram handle at the time. Incredible, incredible,
And so while I was talking about and while I'm looking,
I'm looking for other women who look like me, and
(20:35):
it just I just wasn't seeing many. And so that
I think was what planted the early seed in my mind,
like hmm, there's a void here. And so I ended
up going to my first EXMA expo that National ExM
Association host every year, and I think I went in
like twenty twenty two, and I was just like just
(20:57):
shook by the amount of black women who had EXMA
and who looked like me, like as far as their
skin texture, like down to the same region. The first thing, like,
after we had done some discussion topic, I went up
to a handful of black girls in the room and
I was like, Hey, I know this is weird, but
can I take a photo of our hands? Because I
just have never seen people's hands who look like mine,
(21:19):
you know. And I was just like so excited about
it because again, like representation, like it really matters, like
on such a deeper level, because it feels so isolating,
you know, living with this condition, and so to see
it in real life for the first time just broke
something open in me. So I kept going to XMA expo,
(21:40):
and I think the second one I went to, I
wanted to host a black girls support group, and that
first Sister Circle was like poppin', Like it was full.
They were just we could not end that conversation, and
like we were just talking, talking, talking, We talked about
the struggles of getting our nails done, just all of
those nuance experienced pieces of being a black woman with EXMA.
(22:03):
And so this last EXMA Expo that I went to
in Arizona in twenty twenty five, I did the Sister
Circle again and it was full to where they had
to like add seats, and people were like standing up
and like.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
It was just a packed room.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
So I was like, so, I'm thinking about starting this
thing called Black Girls with EXMA. Like, I think we
should have a digital community and then we can have
in person events as well. What do you guys think?
And they were like immediately yes. When they said that,
I went ahead posted a reel on the Instagram and
it just took off from there and now you know,
I think it's about like nine hundred or something followers,
(22:42):
but we have monthly support calls. People from Senegal, India, UK, like,
people from all over the world are joining us, and
I just never expected that it would grow like this,
just seeing the way that we just were thriving talking
like I mean, I keep them an hour for a reason,
because we don't limit them to an hour we might
(23:04):
be talking.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
It's like twenty five hours.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yes, exactly, exactly. We still all have lives to live.
So that revealed to me that it was so necessary
to meet in person, because really, community is so healing.
October is EXMA Awareness Month, So I decided I'm going
to host a retreat in October.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Black women Deserve a Retreat.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Black Women with exzema deserve a retreat, and we deserve
to live and experience luxury and joy and sisterhood and
nourishment as well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So that's exactly what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I anticipate lots of tears, lots of hugs. I
want to do a little cute photo shoot with all
the exzema girlies and just again show that representation like
we are beautiful too. We get to experience things like
this too, and we don't have to stop living just
because we have exema.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I think it's so cool you've made this community.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So my final question here is where is your exema today?
And how do you define healing? How do you define
healing right now?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
In this moment heavy question, my exema is it's just
so unpredictable right now.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
To be honest, it is. I am nowhere near healed.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Like I thought I EXO would be a thing of
the past, but it is not. And so right now
I'm still very much inflamed, i am still very much itchy,
I am experiencing hyper pigmentation. I've got chronic hand exuma
that I talk about often. I'm at a place where
I am just like trying kind of at all.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Still, I am trying.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Traditional Chinese medicine, so I'm in that journey. I started
doing therapy because I do think there's a you know,
a mental health component to this, and I definitely believe
like my chronics contributes to my exema. It's a trial
and error and I never claim to have it all
figured out, So I am just healing in real time
(25:09):
and sharing my journey leaning on my community. I mean,
the Black Girls with EXZMA community supports me and pours
into me just as much as I pour into them,
like they're always sharing resources with me at the support calls.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So it's a journey. It's a journey. Yeah, well that
is so cool.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Cynthia. Thank you so much for taking the time to
talk to me today, and I really appreciated getting to
know you.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yes, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Thank you so much for being with us for Cynthia's story.
There is still so much more to come this season,
but until then, may we all moisturize generously and embrace
our most incredible glazed doughnut selves. Skin Quarries is a
production of Ruby's Studio from iHeartMedia. Our producer is reem
El mcgraby, Project lead is Maria Saint Auban and sound
(26:01):
designer is Sam Sega. I'm Dylan Marin and we will
see you next time.
I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a
cute outfit.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And this girl comes up to me, just sits next
to me, telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin.
I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling
so just like distraught and.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Like robbed of my time.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights
were coming on and the party was over, it felt
like I had a sticker on my forehead that said
she has X month.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute,
forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the
present with joy. But when you live with a visible
skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it
needs to be. Hello, everyone, welcome or welcome back to
(00:51):
the second season of Skin Quarries. This is a show
about skin, but it's really a show about people because
skin health doesn't exist in a vat. It's personal, sure,
but it's also out in the world with us. Our
skin is the first thing people notice when we enter
a room, and it can invite concern and judgment and
assumptions and yes, sometimes even silence. I'm your host, Dylan Maren.
(01:17):
I am a writer and producer, and a lot of
my work, including my other podcast, Conversations with People Who
Hate Me, has been about what happens when people think
they understand you before they know you, when they see
one part of you and mistake it for the whole story.
So this season on Skin Querries, we are exploring the
story's skin can carry. We're talking about the visible parts
(01:39):
that we try so hard to hide, the questions people ask,
and the ways that all of those things can shape
our confidence, identity, community, and care. Today we're talking about
what happens when you're skin and is visible, but your
(02:01):
full experience may not be. My guest today is Cynthia Korfa.
She's a freelance journalist, EXEMA advocate, and the community builder
behind Black Girls with Exema. Cynthia, Hi, it's really nice
to meet you.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Nice to meet you too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Cynthia has always lived with exemma, but over time it
became something that affected much more than her skin. It
changed how she got ready, it changed how she moved
through social spaces and how she understood the need for community.
So her story is, yes, obviously about EXEMA, but.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It's also about recognition.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's about feeling isolated in your experiences and trying to
find people who understand what you're going through without having
to explain every single piece of it. And let's be real,
we've all been there. It's also about the magic that
can come from building the kind of space you once
needed for yourself and what changes when you finally feel
(03:00):
Before we really get into it, let's go back to
the start when exema first entered Cynthia's life.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I think I entered my life with exzema.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was born with it, and my mom tells me
stories of having to put socks on my hands to
prevent me from scratching because there would be like blood
on the sheets of my crib. I'm an army brat
as well, so I've moved quite a bit, and every
time I was moving, I was moving to a different
climate and that impacted my skin differently. So I was
(03:36):
born in DC and then went to Colorado Springs, and
Colorado's known for dry air, mountain water. You know that
very honestly, probably the best scenario for my skin at
that time. It was like, you know, typical rashes in
the common areas such as your arms, maybe my neck,
behind my knees and then we got stationed back to
(03:58):
Maryland and cherry blossoms, allergens, things like that were happening
and so making my skin itch. Then we got station
to Louisiana, which is the swamps and superhuman, super hot
and just not supportive of my skin at all. And
I recently got a new allergy test done, and every
(04:19):
time the doctors open up my chart, they're just like wow.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Like you are a bubble girl.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Like you really should just like live in a bubble
because I'm allergic to every single tree that we have
here in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So it's really challenging.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I live and love New Orleans right now, Unfortunately
it's just not the best for my skin.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
We contain multitudes. We can love a city and understand
it might not be the best for our skin. I
love you as Bubble Girl because I feel like that's
now a movie we should spin off from the Jake
Jillenhall Bubble Boy into Cynthia's Bubble Girl. Yes, we're pitching
that right after this call. I love it, Okay, So
(05:01):
talk to me about being in your twenties in college
in Louisiana and about that moment when exzema became such
a big deal you couldn't miss it in your life.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So essentially I went to LSU.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So everyone else is like frolicking and living their life
in college. Meanwhile I'm like scratching showing up to class
with you.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Know, itchy eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And it felt like this thing that was like slowly
creeping up for me. I think it was around my
twenty fourth birthday. It was my golden birthday. I went
to Puerto Rico. I'm a big birthday girl, so.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I'm insane, man, I join you in the birthday girl experience,
so I support it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, So I went to Puerto Rico and I was like,
I want to wear a bathing suit.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I'm trying to live my best life.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And the whole time, you know, I was just so
self conscious about my exma at the same time. That
year was a year I just to stop using topical steroids,
and the rashes were growing, like it was getting bigger,
it was becoming just it was just taking over my
whole body. And I was starting to learn more about
(06:13):
TSW topical steroid WATRAL because of people on Instagram who
are sharing about their story, and so I was like, Okay,
maybe I could heal naturally, I'll be fine, maybe in
a couple months, maybe a year or so. I could
just suffer for a short amount of time. But that
short amount of time did not end up short at all.
I mean, it was truly a nightmare. I couldn't go
(06:35):
to sleep without weeping through my clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I would wake up just like my face like crust
it over.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Sometimes my eyelids crusted shut, like literally having to separate
my shirt from my body because it had stuck to it.
You know, while I was sleeping, I lost the ability
to grow hair. So like my eyebrows stopped growing. I noticed,
like even some of my body hair stop growing. I
could not recognize myself in the mirror. I could not
(07:03):
recognize myself in photos. It was like whack a mole.
It was like what am I going to experience next?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So you're kind of trapped, right, You're like, you're between
the steroid, which does help but could potentially have consequences,
and then you try to go the natural route and
that doesn't really help either. Talk to me about the
day to day living with exema. Between I was going
to say, between these two options, between these two lack
(07:32):
of options.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, I mean I was doing everything, like I'm wrapping
myself in gauze to try to soak up some of
that weeping, trying every natural thing I could, but it
was starting to feel like obsessive, and it felt like
I couldn't even like think or do anything. I went
from being this person who loves I love taking photos.
(07:55):
I'm also a journalist and a social media influencer, and
so being this and being seen were all parts of
my platform and my identity, and so to not be
able to feel like comfortable to do that was extremely hard.
Like it just felt like I was the shell of
a person and it felt like I just wanted to hide.
(08:16):
Like being touched, you know, was something that was very hard.
Like I even now like I'm like when people like
touch my hand, I kind of like flinch a little bit,
you know, because I'm just like, oh, I don't want
them to feel.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
My skin and the texture and everything.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I was really only able to hang out with people
who felt safe, and so it's like I could either
sit here, be depressed and my baggy clothes and my
weepy skin, and you know, sit and suffer and silence
and no one will ever know, and I'll just roll
over and die, you know, for lack of better words.
But I'm a natural optimist. I gravitate towards joy. I
(08:53):
just could not stay bogged down for much longer. Basically,
that like cloud of depression, I kind of like burst
through it and was like, through this, I'm going to
like do something about this. I just refused to let
my condition keep me from living and thriving. And so
that's what led me to just bursting out of my
bubble and healing out loud instead of suffering in silence.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Okay, I love that healing out loud. That is okay,
maybe we have a title. Thank you for sharing? How
it affected like self image? How is it affecting your
social life?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
So the first story that comes to mind is when
I first started dating my now fiance. We went to
this party, you know again New Orleans has amazing DJ.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's an amazing night live scene. And I tied.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
This little cute, little silk scarf as a top and
had like my back out and some little silver pants,
and I.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Was just feeling myself. I thought it looked so cute.
I pieced together a cute outfit and we're dancing.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We're having a good time, and I think we honestly,
we had barely just got there.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I think we were late, and so we.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Had just stepped outside and this girl comes up to me,
just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl,
I see your skin.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I know what you're suffering with.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And proceeds to talk to me for like a half
an hour, about maybe to an hour.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I don't even know it was so long.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I just remember like feeling like I got stuck in
a time warp and she's just telling me what I
should be doing, you know what's wrong with my skin.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And I just remember feeling so distraught and like robbed
of my time, and like, I kid you not, when
she finally, like when I finally freed myself of that conversation,
the lights were coming on and the party was over.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That is criminal. A crime was committed, A crime was committed.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It really was like I felt so like what I
tell you, I was so angry because yes, she really
stole my joy. I genuinely came there with the mind
of dancing, feeling good, looking good, not being bothered by
anything or my condition I was like, for once I
could just put this condition on a shelf and not
(11:11):
think about it.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And it felt like I had.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
A sticker on my forehead that said she has EXMA,
she is going through TSW talk to her.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, that's it's so interesting too, because it's always helpful
to learn the line between care and boundary crossing, because
not to build empathy for this woman, but I can
imagine that she actually didn't think she was causing you harm.
I think she probably thought that she was like helping. Yeah,
(11:41):
how do you define that boundary for the people who
care and want to help and might be a little
misguided in how to provide that care and help.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It is really really sticky, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I am in the EXMA community now, this is a
big part of my life life, and so when I
see people out with EXMA out and about, I'm like, oh, look,
I get excited and I want to be like, you know,
especially like if it's a black woman with.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Like you know, and I just want to like connect
with them.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And then I have to stop myself and I think
about how I felt when people have come to me
and you're just having a good day and you're thinking,
no one sees no one knows and and then you
then they clock you, you know, and it's just like
so embarrassing. I would say, the one thing if you
are trying to approach someone and show them care about
their condition, the one thing that's going to give you
(12:34):
credibility is if you have the condition.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Like so I'm like, you know, like it's like, first
of all.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I have read about exzema, and therefore I am empowered
to tell you about it.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not that it's a really thin line, honestly, but I
would just say approach it with care and only if
you really have something to offer genuinely, because I can't
tell you how many times I receive a DM of
someone who claims to have the cure to my exema.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And that's hard, and that's hard.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
So, okay, I want to set up a hypothetical for you.
Let's set the scene. You have an invitation to a party.
It is tonight. You want to go to this party.
It's going to be a mix of friends, acquaintances, total strangers,
strangers you're excited to meet. What is your prep to
go to this party? What are you doing at home
(13:28):
before you go?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So, for me to feel ready and like my skin
is like sealed clean, moisturized. I'm going to take a bath.
I'm a big bath girly. I know, as exema girlies,
we're not supposed to take hot baths, but I'm working
on it so we can allow ourselves all sorts of
things in this life.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Life is short. You deserve hot paths.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Thank you coming into You're welcome. That's all I'm here
to do. I've got a log off now, I just
wanted to give you permission.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Okay, So post.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Bath, post bath, immediate moisturizing, and then I'll put on
like an ointment on top to like really seal it in. Yeah,
we're doing like a sensitive skin makeup routine.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And then the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I would say is picking the outfit, because we all
struggle with picking that out Yeah, come on, then you
have exma, full body ezma trying to pick an outfit
that's a whole another beast. And so really my outfits
are dependent on my skin condition. Like at that day,
I'm five ten about long legs and unfortunately these long
(14:39):
legs are covered in eczema, and so usually I'm going
to aim for pants or just something that's going.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
To cover up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But is it just the cut that you're thinking about
or is it also fabric and airiness?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
And thousand percent definitely it's about the fabric.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I love fashion and I love clothes.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Unfortunately though nowadays they're making everything out of polyester and
those can be very irritating and have less breathability, so
I do try to think about that as well. Like
the other day was my skin was just in shambles
and I was like cotton only. So I'm definitely always
looking for first coverage and then breathability and then itchiness
(15:23):
as well. Like sometimes a certain fabric one day it'll
be fine and then the next it'll like just make
me so irritated.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So it really depends day by day.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So thank you so much for sharing the physical prep.
What are you doing to emotionally prepare to go to
this party?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Lots of podcasts, Lots of lots of podcasts.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I love that. Yes, I listen to.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I mean really, just as many things as I can
consume that are gonna like fuel my cup and like
assure me like I'm good as is, I can show
up just as I am, and my life it's going
to shine through regardless and even some little mantra music
like I just.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Go super wellness, super woo woo.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'm just trying to like armor myself to go out
to fight the world.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I get it and I support it. Okay, So that
is that is the before the party. Now I want
to tell you about this party. You had a great time.
There was no woman that cornered you. You had the
time of your life. And even still, what is the aftercare?
What do you do when you get home?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Strip it all off, take it off, like there's nothing
better than like, yeah, oh, masking, so yeah, immediately coming home,
putting his bonnet on, covering up all this hair, Okay,
washing this makeup off, putting on like a deep you know,
moisturizer or something a little bit more thick and penetrating,
(16:51):
because just in case, I like stripped my face of
a bunch of moisturizer after the makeup and the cleansing.
So just like I look like a glazed donut typically
when I get home, iconic.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, who doesn't want to look like a glazed donut?
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I love it so and then yes, the most comfortable
clothes I can find, you know, nothing cute, baggy old
T shirts, cotton, cotton pajamas.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I would argue that's cute.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I would argue, cotton cozy is a cute look. And
I say that hoping that when I am rotting on
my couch, I am turning.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
A cute look. So, yes, you're right, You're right, Yeah, Okay.
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
It is clear that you and everyone dealing with egzema
is dealing with a lot. There's like a lot of
social considerations, a lot of emotional considerations, a lot of
mass that you need to be doing to know how
to even exist in the world. But there is another
layer that you are dealing with specifically, which is the
(17:58):
fact that you are dealing with this as a black woman.
And one of the many things that make this different
for you is that documentation of skin conditions. It's often
typically documented in lighter skin tones. So would you mind
sharing with me a little about how exema affects you
(18:18):
specifically as a black woman.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Definitely, it is so complex.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
There's just so many little nuanced things that I feel
like differentiate a black woman's experience with EXMA versus another person.
For instance, the hyper pigmentation, so the skin color change.
So like whereas EXMA, on a white person might appear
(18:45):
red and pink, and you know, everyone could visibly tell, oh,
that's exsma. Oh they're having a rash or something like that,
whereas on me it might appear like I just have
like a darker skin tone. People who don't know me,
they might just think, oh, she's got you know, darker
skin or whatever. It might be, not knowing that this
is my skin and it's inflame state and that this
(19:06):
is hyper pigmentation.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It also as far as.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Like the social aspect, like I feel like culturally, you know,
black people, black women, we want to be moisturized. We
are We've got this melanated, gorgeous skin. We historically have
kept our skin moisturized with butters, oils and all these things,
and you know, we're expected to shine and glisten in
the sun.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And when you have exima.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I mean, let's be real, you know, like and when
you have exima, that's just not always the case. And
so I personally have felt a lot of shame and
like just like yeah, like it's as if it's taken
my beauty away to an extent, because like I'm naturally drier.
I can put moisturizer on one second and literally five
(19:53):
minutes later, my skin just literally like sucks it up
and it looks as if I didn't even moisturize at all.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
There's a lot you're dealing with at the same time.
Because of this, you created Black Girls with eczema. Talk
to me about what inspired it, talk to me about
creating it, and talk to me about the community you're
building through it.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So when I was twenty four, I was going through
TSW early stages of it, and I had started this
page called pretty Itchy was the Instagram handle at the time. Incredible, incredible,
And so while I was talking about and while I'm looking,
I'm looking for other women who look like me, and
(20:35):
it just I just wasn't seeing many. And so that
I think was what planted the early seed in my mind,
like hmm, there's a void here. And so I ended
up going to my first EXMA expo that National ExM
Association host every year, and I think I went in
like twenty twenty two, and I was just like just
(20:57):
shook by the amount of black women who had EXMA
and who looked like me, like as far as their
skin texture, like down to the same region. The first thing, like,
after we had done some discussion topic, I went up
to a handful of black girls in the room and
I was like, Hey, I know this is weird, but
can I take a photo of our hands? Because I
just have never seen people's hands who look like mine,
(21:19):
you know. And I was just like so excited about
it because again, like representation, like it really matters, like
on such a deeper level, because it feels so isolating,
you know, living with this condition, and so to see
it in real life for the first time just broke
something open in me. So I kept going to XMA expo,
(21:40):
and I think the second one I went to, I
wanted to host a black girls support group, and that
first Sister Circle was like poppin', Like it was full.
They were just we could not end that conversation, and
like we were just talking, talking, talking, We talked about
the struggles of getting our nails done, just all of
those nuance experienced pieces of being a black woman with EXMA.
(22:03):
And so this last EXMA Expo that I went to
in Arizona in twenty twenty five, I did the Sister
Circle again and it was full to where they had
to like add seats, and people were like standing up
and like.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
It was just a packed room.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
So I was like, so, I'm thinking about starting this
thing called Black Girls with EXMA. Like, I think we
should have a digital community and then we can have
in person events as well. What do you guys think?
And they were like immediately yes. When they said that,
I went ahead posted a reel on the Instagram and
it just took off from there and now you know,
I think it's about like nine hundred or something followers,
(22:42):
but we have monthly support calls. People from Senegal, India, UK, like,
people from all over the world are joining us, and
I just never expected that it would grow like this,
just seeing the way that we just were thriving talking
like I mean, I keep them an hour for a reason,
because we don't limit them to an hour we might
(23:04):
be talking.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
It's like twenty five hours.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yes, exactly, exactly. We still all have lives to live.
So that revealed to me that it was so necessary
to meet in person, because really, community is so healing.
October is EXMA Awareness Month, So I decided I'm going
to host a retreat in October.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Black women Deserve a Retreat.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Black Women with exzema deserve a retreat, and we deserve
to live and experience luxury and joy and sisterhood and
nourishment as well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So that's exactly what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I anticipate lots of tears, lots of hugs. I
want to do a little cute photo shoot with all
the exzema girlies and just again show that representation like
we are beautiful too. We get to experience things like
this too, and we don't have to stop living just
because we have exema.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I think it's so cool you've made this community.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So my final question here is where is your exema today?
And how do you define healing? How do you define
healing right now?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
In this moment heavy question, my exema is it's just
so unpredictable right now.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
To be honest, it is. I am nowhere near healed.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Like I thought I EXO would be a thing of
the past, but it is not. And so right now
I'm still very much inflamed, i am still very much itchy,
I am experiencing hyper pigmentation. I've got chronic hand exuma
that I talk about often. I'm at a place where
I am just like trying kind of at all.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Still, I am trying.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Traditional Chinese medicine, so I'm in that journey. I started
doing therapy because I do think there's a you know,
a mental health component to this, and I definitely believe
like my chronics contributes to my exema. It's a trial
and error and I never claim to have it all
figured out, So I am just healing in real time
(25:09):
and sharing my journey leaning on my community. I mean,
the Black Girls with EXZMA community supports me and pours
into me just as much as I pour into them,
like they're always sharing resources with me at the support calls.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So it's a journey. It's a journey. Yeah, well that
is so cool.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Cynthia. Thank you so much for taking the time to
talk to me today, and I really appreciated getting to
know you.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yes, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Thank you so much for being with us for Cynthia's story.
There is still so much more to come this season,
but until then, may we all moisturize generously and embrace
our most incredible glazed doughnut selves. Skin Quarries is a
production of Ruby's Studio from iHeartMedia. Our producer is reem
El mcgraby, Project lead is Maria Saint Auban and sound
(26:01):
designer is Sam Sega. I'm Dylan Marin and we will
see you next time.
Host
Dylan Marron
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