I’ve been having all sorts of problems with my skin! Recently its been worse than usual. I’ve been having allergic reactions to a load of new products and as a consequence my daily skincare routine suffers, and I am unable to wear make up. I got chatting today in Boots while returning my second product of the week that I’d reacted to and had a brainwave! Why don’t I write about my quest for skincare and make up that doesn’t burn and mess my face up, and take you guys on the journey with me!
So heres a bit of background about my allergies and why I react to so many products.
When I was 22, I landed in hospital after a serious allergic reaction to what I suspect was some form of nut! I’d had no previous reactions and no known allergies before this. I had the swollen face, the closing throat and my blood pressure dropped so much my veins had collapsed! Fun! So here begins my allergy journey! Since then I’ve been through tests and have around 60 confirmed allergies to various things, including peanuts and tree nuts. Being allergic to nuts means I have to be careful choosing skincare, toiletries and make up, because a lot of things have some form of nut oil in them, most commonly sweet almond and shea. I've also had to learn latin! Some companies will put the latin name for ingredients then the english name in brackets, but some don’t, so I’ve had to learn the latin names of different nuts! I obviously avoid products with nuts in them as an ingredient, but the last year or so my skin has been getting more and more reactive to safe products. I even had a reaction to an Eau Thermale Avène Hydrance Optimal UV daily moisturiser, and this brand is well known for being super sensitive. I use other products from the range fine, but bam! I had a reaction!
When I react to a product on my face usually I can tell right away, because it will burn and my skin will instantly turn red and my eyes go puffy and itchy, then over the next few days I will develop a patch of allergic dermatitis! Eew! Currently I’m sporting 4 small patches, one by the corner of my eye, one under my eye, above my top lip which I believe is called the philtrum?! And a patch on my neck. But sometimes I wont instantly react to a product, think I’ve finally found something I can use but then after a few days I get a flare up of dermatitis! Its very frustrating! Especially since I've started blogging as I’d love to try different make up and things that I see in other peoples blogs but I just cant take the risk! Having skin like this is really starting to get to me, and I’m staring to become anxious and scared to try new products. Not to mention it gets quite expensive buying a lot of products and then not being able to use them! I’m so lucky that Boots have been really good at understanding why I’ve been returning a lot of products lately, and really helpful in giving me skincare advice and samples to take home and try.
So my new moisturiser I’m trying is…….drum roll!!!! Eau Thermale Avène tolérance Extreme Emulsion for sensitive and hypersensitive skin. It has only 7 ingredients in it and no nuts! Yay! First impressions, it hasn't burnt my skin, nor made it go red! Its quite a light cream and is easy to apply, but I squeezed way too much out of it first time because it has the same what they call sterile packaging as the Xera Calm range which I use on my body and you really have to squeeze that to get the cream out so its my fault for being too forceful with it! I just hope that I don't develop something to it a few days down the line now and it suits my skin type but on first impressions I like it.
Thanks for reading!
Vikky
x
No comments
Post a Comment