It's hard for me to resist a skin care product that sounds good enough to eat and whose ingredients are clean, recognizable and pronounceable.
I get all kinds of information sent to me about skin care products. Most of them don't warrant the time it takes to check them out.
Mandarin Chocolate Shea Butter was a pleasant surprise. It contains only 4 ingredients: Certified Organic Shea Butter, Organic Cocoa Butter, Organic Essential Oil of Mandarin, Non-GMO Vitamin E.
If you find it hard to resist, too, here's where to find it Mandarin Chocolate Shea Butter
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Dealing with contact dermatitis
What's that red spot next to my nose - a bite of some kind? Wrong.
Next day there was another red spot under my eyebrow. A few hours later, lots of red spots are popping up around my eyes and they have tiny, itchy blisters in them. Not good.
What on earth?? Oh....I started a new eye cream 2 days ago. This must be a reaction to it. Uh oh, my eyes are swelling and the itch is driving me crazy.
My partner suggests an antihistamine. A local pharmacist agrees,so I leave with a package of Benadryl, looking forward to relief. Wrong again.
Intensity of reaction increases. Eyes are almost swollen shut and I wake up in the middle of the night from the itching..
Dermatologist time...but none near me have an appointment for 2-3 weeks. Next plan: Emergency Room. BIG wrong.
ER doc won't look at the product's ingredients. "I don't use it so I don't know what's in it". Duh. He handed me a generic sheet with instructions for a skin rash including a prescription for a stronger version of Benadryl and cortisone pills. His parting shot as he walked out the door, "Put sunscreen on your face". EGADS
Hide or cover up from the sun, yes. But a sunscreen??? Most of them are loaded with harmful chemicals. Those would wreak havoc on a raw face that's burns when water touches it! Forget this.
What's in my bag of tricks? The Italian side of my family has great skin and my mother and her 6 sisters are very creative about their skin care.
Hmmmm..... Using only water on my face and no moisturizer -is drying out my skin. What would Aunt Martha do?
Organic olive oil to the rescue. Smoothing that on my face after splashing with lukewarm water made a difference very quickly. The reaction continued, but the dry skin no longer added to the problem.
A dermatologist has an cancellation 2 days away. "I'll take it." When she saw me all she said was "ouch". I showed her the ingredient label (she looked at it!) and the ER doctor's prescriptions (another "ouch").
According to her, my instincts to ignore the ER doctor's advice were right. The stronger Benadryl-type medication would not have done anything and the internal cortisone pills would have taken quite a while to have any effect....and the sunscreen was a definite no-no.
She liked the olive oil solution (organic is best because oils hold toxins, so organic oils - butter, too - is much cleaner). For washing, she gave me a sample of a gentle cleanser and then prescribed a cortico-steroid ophthalmic ointment that would help my skin and not harm my eyes if it got in them.
The first reaction to the ointment (at least she warned me) made my face bright red and the grease made it shiny. I glowed in the dark like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. One look at me and my partner was struggling not to laugh. When I caught a glimpse of myself, I laughed too. It was pretty funny.
The reaction cleared slowly but surely. Eyes could opened wider, the redness subsided, but surprisingly the roots of my eyelashes and eyebrow hairs stayed itchy for quite a while.
A second visit to the dermatologist 2 weeks later got me off the corticosteroid cream (not good to stay on a corticosteroid too long as it can thin the skin and cause other problems) and back to the basics I used before trying the new product.
One glitch - my skin is now sensitive to sunlight (photosensitive), so I have to cover up from the sun. Dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat - the papparazzi will never spot me. A clear zinc-oxide sunscreen when I go outside, any time of the year, is also on the list.
Anything to avoid the Rudolph look again. I'm also going to see what else I can find out about my family's awesome skin care methods. Stay tuned.
Next day there was another red spot under my eyebrow. A few hours later, lots of red spots are popping up around my eyes and they have tiny, itchy blisters in them. Not good.
What on earth?? Oh....I started a new eye cream 2 days ago. This must be a reaction to it. Uh oh, my eyes are swelling and the itch is driving me crazy.
My partner suggests an antihistamine. A local pharmacist agrees,so I leave with a package of Benadryl, looking forward to relief. Wrong again.
Intensity of reaction increases. Eyes are almost swollen shut and I wake up in the middle of the night from the itching..
Dermatologist time...but none near me have an appointment for 2-3 weeks. Next plan: Emergency Room. BIG wrong.
ER doc won't look at the product's ingredients. "I don't use it so I don't know what's in it". Duh. He handed me a generic sheet with instructions for a skin rash including a prescription for a stronger version of Benadryl and cortisone pills. His parting shot as he walked out the door, "Put sunscreen on your face". EGADS
Hide or cover up from the sun, yes. But a sunscreen??? Most of them are loaded with harmful chemicals. Those would wreak havoc on a raw face that's burns when water touches it! Forget this.
What's in my bag of tricks? The Italian side of my family has great skin and my mother and her 6 sisters are very creative about their skin care.
Hmmmm..... Using only water on my face and no moisturizer -is drying out my skin. What would Aunt Martha do?
Organic olive oil to the rescue. Smoothing that on my face after splashing with lukewarm water made a difference very quickly. The reaction continued, but the dry skin no longer added to the problem.
A dermatologist has an cancellation 2 days away. "I'll take it." When she saw me all she said was "ouch". I showed her the ingredient label (she looked at it!) and the ER doctor's prescriptions (another "ouch").
According to her, my instincts to ignore the ER doctor's advice were right. The stronger Benadryl-type medication would not have done anything and the internal cortisone pills would have taken quite a while to have any effect....and the sunscreen was a definite no-no.
She liked the olive oil solution (organic is best because oils hold toxins, so organic oils - butter, too - is much cleaner). For washing, she gave me a sample of a gentle cleanser and then prescribed a cortico-steroid ophthalmic ointment that would help my skin and not harm my eyes if it got in them.
The first reaction to the ointment (at least she warned me) made my face bright red and the grease made it shiny. I glowed in the dark like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. One look at me and my partner was struggling not to laugh. When I caught a glimpse of myself, I laughed too. It was pretty funny.
The reaction cleared slowly but surely. Eyes could opened wider, the redness subsided, but surprisingly the roots of my eyelashes and eyebrow hairs stayed itchy for quite a while.
A second visit to the dermatologist 2 weeks later got me off the corticosteroid cream (not good to stay on a corticosteroid too long as it can thin the skin and cause other problems) and back to the basics I used before trying the new product.
One glitch - my skin is now sensitive to sunlight (photosensitive), so I have to cover up from the sun. Dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat - the papparazzi will never spot me. A clear zinc-oxide sunscreen when I go outside, any time of the year, is also on the list.
Anything to avoid the Rudolph look again. I'm also going to see what else I can find out about my family's awesome skin care methods. Stay tuned.
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