Hair & Beauty Magazine

The Body Shop's Tea Tree Line~Eczema Alert

By Kwilliford @ExquisiteEczema
I am a huge fan of The Body Shop, so I wanted to swicth over to their skincare.  I went with their Tea Tree line because I have oily skin and I am prone to breakouts.  It seemed to work well for the first few days and my skin was less oily, but not dried out.  Then it all went south after that.  My skin became very dry and irritated, and small blemishes were still hanging around.
I was using the tea tree cleanser morning and night as well as the blackhead exfoliating wash twice a week.  I also had the toner, clarifying lotion and mask.  I had been using the tea tree oil as a spot  treatment for quit some time and it worked very well.  I eased myself into these products.  After using the tea tree oil for a few months, I brought in the scrub, which also worked fine.  At that point, I figured I was in the clear since my skin is usually so sensitive, it will react immediatley.  At this point, I began using the cleanser, toner and lotion.  That was just too much tea tree for my skin to handle.  It became dried out, red and itchy.  Typical eczema flare up.  I had to bring out my safety net cleanser, Noxzema.  And that cleared up skin in about two days.
There are a few products from this line that did not cause any problems and that is the tea tree oil, blackhead scrub and the mask.  The tea tree oil works great as a natural spot treatment and the scrub is great at getting rid of blackheads.  It isn't the most gentle scrub out there, but it isn't too rough either.  I found the mask to be very refreshing and left my skin feeling smooth.
If this is something that you are interested in trying, tread carefully and try just one of the products from the line.  This represents one of the many struggles people with eczema have.  I feel like I have to choose between not having an eczema or not having breakouts.  I have a hard time finding products that take care of the breakouts, but do not cause my skin to be irriatted.  Noxzema is pretty good at both.  I still get small blackheads (yuck), and the occasional pimple. But nothing too bad.
I just wanted to do a brief little post on this line to inform my fellow eczema sufferers out there :)The

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