Sensitive Skin was a magazine created and edited by B. Kold and Norman Douglas. Started in 1991, the first four issues were titled "Peau Sensible," which is French for "Sensitive Skin." Subsequent issues were titled in English. In 1994, John Farris, Patricia Winter, and Darius James joined the editorial team. That same year, Mr. E. Oso took over editorial duties for the final issue.

Sensitive Skin magazine included short fiction, screenwriting, poetry, reviews, drawings, essays, and photographs by both established and emerging writers and artists, mainly from New York. The publication also partnered with The Living Theatre

The Living Theatre

The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...

 to host release parties and benefits. Sensitive Skin published downtown New York writers including John Giorno

John Giorno

John Giorno is an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, including Dial-A-Poem. He became prominent as the subject of Andy Warhol's film Sleep...

, Herbert Huncke

Herbert Huncke

Herbert Edwin Huncke was a writer and poet, and active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America...

, Jack Micheline

Jack Micheline

Jack Micheline , born Harold Martin Silver, was an American painter and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. His name is synonymous with street artists, underground writers, and "outlaw" poets...

, Joel Rose

Joel Rose

Joel Rose is an American novelist.Rose has co-authored and edited graphic novels for DC Comics. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, New York Newsday, Marie Claire, Paper, Details, Bomb, Los Angeles Times, and Black Book, among others. He has written for several...

, Lynn Tillman, Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles is an American poet who has also worked in fiction, non-fiction, and theater.She won a 2010 Shelley Memorial Award.-Early life and career:...

, David Rattray, Chris Kraus, David Ulin, Sparrow, Mike Topp, Ron Kolm

Ron Kolm

Ron Kolm is an American poet, editor, activist and bookseller, based in New York City. Kolm came to New York in 1970 and got a job at the Strand bookstore, where he worked with Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith....

, Richard Hell

Richard Hell

Richard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...

, Bob Holman

Bob Holman

Bob Holman is a poet and poetry activist in the United States.- Career :After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, Bob Holman founded, with Sara Miles and Susie Timmons, the NYC Poetry Calendar, a free monthly publication with all the readings and poets "on the same page"...

, Wanda Phipps

Wanda Phipps

Wanda Phipps is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She was born in Washington, D.C. and studied theater and English literature at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, acting at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, CA and poetry at Naropa Institute in Boulder,...

, Maggie Estep

Maggie Estep

Maggie Estep is an American poet and writer. She has published six books and released two spoken word albums: Love is a Dog From Hell and No More Mr. Nice Girl.Estep was born in 1963 in Summit, New Jersey...

 and Taylor Mead

Taylor Mead

Taylor Mead is an American writer, actor, and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films including Tarzan and Jane Regained.....

, among many others.

Online version

After a sixteen year hiatus, Sensitive Skin was relaunched as an online magazine on June 18, 2010, by Bernard Meisler (publisher and managing editor) and Tim Beckett (webmaster and editor). The first issue contained work by Justine Frischmann

Justine Frischmann

Justine Elinor Frischmann is an English singer and guitarist, best known for being the lead singer of the now defunct band Elastica...

, Andrew Huebner

Andrew Huebner

Andrew Huebner is an American author who lives in New York City. He is the author of American by Blood and We Pierce.-References:...

, Jose Padua, Tim Beckett, Steve Horowitz, Bob Bannister and Bart Plantenga. Steve Horowitz joined as music editor for issue two, and Rob Hardin joined as an associate editor for issue three. In subsequent issues, Sensitive Skin has published writing by Craig Clevenger

Craig Clevenger

Craig Clevenger is an American author of contemporary fiction. Born 1964 in Dallas, Texas, he grew up in Southern California where he studied English at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of two novels, The Contortionist's Handbook and Dermaphoria, both released by MacAdam/Cage...

, Emily XYZ, Darius James

Darius James

Darius James is the black American author of That's Blaxploitation: Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude , an unorthodox, semi-autobiographical history of the blaxploitation film genre, and Negrophobia: An Urban Parable, a satiric novel written in screenplay form. His work is influenced by the Voodoo...

, Stewart Home

Stewart Home

Stewart Home is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. He is best known for his novels such as the non-narrative 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess , his re-imagining of the 1960s in Tainted Love , and earlier parodistic pulp fictions Pure Mania, Red...

, Jonathan Shaw

Jonathan Shaw

Jonathan Rowland Shaw is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Chatham and Aylesford from 1997 to 2010...

, Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos is an American writer and ex-dominatrix.She is the author of Whip Smart , a critically acclaimed memoir of her work as a professional dominatrix while she was studying at The New School...

, Max Blagg

Max Blagg

Max Blagg is a British-born poet, writer, and performer from England. Blagg has performed in New York City since 1971. He is currently a Visiting lecturer in poetry at The New School in New York City .-Life:...

, John S. Hall

John S. Hall

John S. Hall is an American poet, author, singer and lawyer perhaps best known for his work with King Missile, an avant-garde band that he co-founded in 1986 and has since led in various disparate incarnations....

, Ron Kolm

Ron Kolm

Ron Kolm is an American poet, editor, activist and bookseller, based in New York City. Kolm came to New York in 1970 and got a job at the Strand bookstore, where he worked with Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith....

, Rob Roberge

Rob Roberge

Rob Roberge is an American writer, guitarist, singer, and tube amplifier researcher and developer.-Life:Rob Roberge was born in Bridgeport Connecticut. He studied writing at Emerson College and Vermont College where he received an MFA in the early 90's...

, Marguerite Van Cook

Marguerite Van Cook

Marguerite Van Cook is an artist, writer, musician/singer and filmmaker. She was born in England and now resides in New York in the Lower East Side/East Village. She attended Portsmouth College of Art and Design, Northumbria University Graphic and Fine Arts programs, BMCC, Columbia University for...

 and Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin

-Life:Born in Barre, VT, she was raised in Middlebury, VT. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Vermont...

, art by Al Kresch, Ted Barron, Shalom Neuman and Hal Hirshorn, video by Kevin Rafferty and music by Ralph Carney

Ralph Carney

Ralph Carney is an American musician. While his primary instruments are various saxophones and clarinets, Carney collects and plays many instruments, often unusual or obscure ones....

, Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...

, Kurt Wolf, Timber and Dan Becker, among many others.

Sensitive Skin Daily, featuring stories, poems, art, music, video, cultural reportage, reviews and event notices by past, present and future contributors to Sensitive Skin, was launched as a separate site in June 2011.

In October 2011, Meisler stepped down as publisher and turned publishing and managing editor duties back to the original founder, B. Kold. At the same time, the magazine became available in print format for both present and back issues.