Has your skin ever reacted badly to moisturizers? Which ones could be the causes? Here I'll share with you my thoughts and my experience. In my childhood I often suffered from dermatitis, without really knowing the real causes. As I said many times my skin is a touchy child, 'she' is incredibly reactive to whatever I try to give 'her'.That's why lately I have been increasingly cutting down my skincare routine, to understand which ingredients could be the 'enemies' of my skin. I think the first step should be having a skin's allergies test, to know if there are evident allergy factors. In my case I have a slight reaction to Kathon CG (Isothiazolinone) which is a widely used preservative in cosmetics, almost never displayed in the INCI list, because of the tiny amount used in products. This is an awful discover because I theoretically should avoid nearly every commercial cosmetic, to make sure I don't get in contact with it. Despite of this allergy, I don't think this ingredient is the only one that makes my skin react badly.
Here is a list of the potential comedogenic/irritating ingredients found in most cosmetics (if you want a complete list click here):
- Paraffin and silicons (in my case they have been among the principal causes of breakouts even if they are not necessarily classified as bad comedogenic ingredients) - Shea butter and vegetal butters in general (when I use creams with a big quantity of shea butter on my face/body skin, I get covered by tiny pimples)
- Almond oil (I personally can't use it even as a make up remover because the next day I'll be covered by tiny underskin pimples)
- Emulsifiers (it took a while to realize that they are often the cause of my face skin's reactions. But being sensitive to emulsifiers means that you are not able to use any kind of moisturizers, because they necessarily contain them to bind hydro and lipo ingredients together. Right now I am in a phase of skin detoxication, I am not using moisturizers, I just apply on my face my homemade superfasteasy lotion:)
- Preservatives (since they have to be added in every product, you should monitor if there is any correlation between one of them and your reactions)
- All that you already know causes you allergies (for example I am allergic to pineapple and kiwi, so it wouldn't be even a good idea to apply them on my skin)
What I've learnt in these years is that often dermatologists don't really know how to deal with breakouts problems since it is considered one of the more marginal skin issues, indeed I have never got a real support or useful advices by them. This is one of the reasons why I started to study by my own cosmetic ingredients and formulation in order to create my own beauty allies.
Last but not least, one of the greatest discoveries I made is:'The less you apply on your skin, the better she will be'Love, Kali
