Leading on from my Estee Lauder Double Wear debacle, I found myself on a hunt to discover what could be the cause of my extreme skin irritation.
Shockingly, it only took a few clicks on the Internet to realise that I've probably been applying the exact kind of chemicals my skin doesn't want!
First, I started looking at the ingredients within the Estee Lauder line as these were the most recent additions to my beauty regime with seemingly the most skin reactions relative to the time I'd been using them.
I was reading reviews of the Double Wear foundation online, when I saw that some users were reporting sensitivity to an ingredient called cyclopentasiloxane. Interestingly, this was an ingredient that was taken out of Pantene Shampoos a few years ago.
That made me think on the products I knew I'd had immediate reactions to, of which Pantene shampoo was a major one for me when I used it a few years ago, I had a burning rash all over my scalp and down my back where the suds would wash down.
More recently, there was Mac Prep and Prime Skin Refined Zone, which completely broke me out and left me with a sore sun burn look. Not only did this product contain cyclopentasiloxane, but vinyl dimethicone too.
When I thought about it, vinyl dimethicone didn't sound like the type of thing I'd want to be putting on my face. It's a type of silicone, so I had a read about silicones in beauty products.
Cyclopentasiloxane is a molecule too big to be absorbed by the skin and so may clog pores. It is often featured in beauty products like primers and foundations as it gives a smooth appearance. It is often used with dimethicone to help spread the greasy and heavy structure. This has no benefit to the skin and gives the illusion of good skin.
I went through all of my beauty products and wrote down if they contained cyclopentasiloxane, dimethicone or other common silicones and let me say, the list was substantial! Pretty much every product I was using contained these types of chemical.
One myth I uncovered too was the use of terms like hypoallergenic and non comodegenic: any product can use these terms as there is no legal requirement for proof of sensitivity testing. This was particularly shocking for the Estee Lauder products I was using, as they are touted as the ultimate makeup for a greasy and acneic skin type.
So my daily skincare and makeup routine was full of chemicals I really didn't need. Ironically, my use of daily high SPF could have also added more irritation to the mix as I could have been using too many products with active ingredients like sunscreen. Used with topical acne treatments and oil absorbing primers, no wonder my skin was crying out in pain!
So for a while I went pretty much cold turkey from all those silicone heavy products. I had a massive purge and gave a lot of my beauty products away to my friends and family. I started replacing my products with more naturally friendly and less preserved alternatives.
I found the book 'No More Dirty Secrets' to be helpful as it explains complicated ingredients with ease.
Admittedly it was hard to swap some of my 'bad' items for good as I'd grown attached to them, but cutting down my skin irritation was the goal and the purge certainly helped with that.
I decided I would try and limit the amount of products I used on my face at one time, which turned out to be the best change for me.
Moving forward, I'm still using mainstream beauty products that are chemical heavy, but I'm aiming for the products I use every single day to be as natural as possible. This applies to my shampoo, deoderant, skincare and base makeup. Colour makeup that I switch between as I feel like it, I'm not going to be so strict with.
A few months on from my discovery and I do still have acne and skin irritations, but the difference between now and then is huge, so I know I'm moving in the right direction.
- Kerry :)
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