Jenna Dewan Explains Why She Puts Potato Slices on Chest

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Jenna Dewan Explains Why She Put Potato Slices on Her Chest After ‘Miserable’ Bout of Mastitis (Exclusive)

After struggling with mastitis, Jenna Dewan did the unconventional and placed sliced-up potatoes on her bare chest.

“I did it all, girl. I was like, ‘Anything someone [can] DM me, I’m going to try that,’ because it was so miserable. It was so awful,” Dewan, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, September 19, while discussing her partnership with Neostrata. “I think it worked.”

Dewan, who first revealed her hack in an Instagram post last month, believes that the root veggies coupled with antibiotics cured her mastitis. (As defined by the Mayo Clinic, mastitis is inflammation of breast tissue that most often affects individuals breast-feeding.)

“I think the potatoes worked, but it was kind of in combination with antibiotics, which really worked,” Dewan told Us. “It’s a little bit of that. You got to have the natural and the actual medicine and work together.”

Dewan gave birth to baby No. 3, daughter Rhiannon, in June. She shares Rhiannon and son Callum, 4, with fiancé Steve Kazee. The Rookie actress is also mom of daughter Everly, 11, whom she shares with ex-husband Channing Tatum.

“[This was my] third C-section [and] I was a little bit more bedridden this time around,” Dewan recalled on Thursday. “I am not good with that. I don’t like to rest. I have to teach myself, but we’re outnumbered. There [were] a lot of movies in the bed or ‘Come upstairs and I’ll read you books before bed’ in the bed.”

She added, “We have to sort of navigate that a little bit more and who’s going where and who’s taking which kid. It just turns into a bit of a scheduling [situation]. You’re just constantly looking at the calendar, trying to figure out how to make it all work.”

Just as Dewan and Kazee, 48, had to adapt to their growing family, so have the kids.

Courtesy of Jenna Dewan/Instagram
“[Callum] loves her. He’s so sweet with her and he calls [her] ‘baby sister.’ He really gives her lots of hugs and kisses. I did not expect that,” Dewan revealed. “I thought maybe there’d be a bit of ‘This thing that’s here that takes my attention’ and being a little upset about it, but he’s not. He’s been really sweet.”

Dewan further noted that she and Kazee also “bend over backwards” to make sure their eldest children don’t feel left out.

“Steve and I bend over backwards to make sure that he feels really shined on, and he gets a lot of the attention,” she told Us. “He comes home, we give the baby to someone else to hold her [or] put her in her little carrier for a minute and really give him all the attention. We go out of our way to make sure he feels loved and adored and still gets great attention.”

Dewan is also paying attention to her own skincare, using Neostrata products to manage her postpartum skin issues.

“I found [Neostrata] initially with my melasma issues, which it’s [about] keeping it at bay and trying to keep my skin as camera-ready as possible because when you have melasma, you have to use so much more makeup to cover it,” Dewan explained. “If you put makeup over melasma, it tends to look a little gray underneath. It is a layered process and you don’t feel as good [or] as confident in your skin.”

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Jenna Dewan Neostrata
Specifically, Dewan swears by its vitamin C serum, glycolic face wash and acid pads. She’s also a fan of the brand’s triple-firming neck cream.

“[It’s and] answered prayer because a lot of times you start saying, ‘Oh, I want it to be a little more lifted’ … and I think women as a whole, we all focus on our face so much and we forget that your neck and your chest also show the first visible signs of aging,” Dewan said. “My mom always told me, ‘Jen, whatever you put on your face, bring it down onto your neck and chest because people forget that.’ I’ve been doing that, but I didn’t have something that was going to be multitasking and did it all and was quick and worked.”

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi