Beauty Tips For Body Care
Hey everybody. I just wanted to share a tidbit that I discovered about my skin and about a lot of the products I have tried in the past. This is a very long post, but I want to be thorough and detailed.I have oily, very acne-prone skin that is easily dehydrated, and I tend to have a hard time staying moisturized because my skin hates most fatty alcohols (cetyl alone is fine for me, weirdly), most oils, and any kind of SD alcohol/ethanol. I have gotten a pretty good routine down and my acne has mostly subsided except for when new products break me out or I have a hormonal flare up on my chin. I never ever break out on my forehead or around my nose, unless a product has caused it. I will also note here that I take near-daily photographs of my skin in order to track products breakouts (my skin used to be horrible and it really helped me see what helped/hurt my skin, and now I still do it out of habit).I like to supplement my routine with Dermal sheet masks–I like Green Tea and Q10– because they are cheap, and they help to boost hydration and soothe irritations on my skin without causing acne on my picky face. However, I wanted to see if I could find a product that would do an even better job of hydrating and brightening my mug since I have been experiencing some dryness lately due to my Duac prescription.I decided to try a crowd favorite over at /r/AsianBeauty, and bought a box of My Beauty Diary masks. I chose Mexico Cactus, which smells incredible. As any good SCA-er would do, I vetted the ingredients list of the MBD mask before purchasing for any of my usual acne triggers and could not find a damn thing in there that my skin didn't like, so I thought.I used my first mask about 2-3 weeks ago, and loved it so much I masked every day for the next few days. I also went ham and placed an order for more MBD masks in different types because I loved the way they smelled, felt, and brightened my skin.However, about 2-3 days after I did my first mask, I got an absolutely gigantic, swollen cyst between my eyebrows. I was humiliated by this welt thing on my face and tried very hard not to leave my apartment any more than absolutely necessary. This thing was a solid 1cm in diameter, at least. I assumed the cyst was due to a new moisturizer I had started using about a week prior as I was already uncertain about whether or not it would break me out, and I stopped using that product. It did also cross my mind that maybe the mask was the culprit, so I decided to err on the side of safety though and did not use either product again just in case.Eventually the cystlike bugger stopped being swollen and ended up coming to a head and popping, and it is now a nice little red mark on my face instead of a giant hellish swollen thing. Meanwhile, my mask haul finally came in the mail around the time of its healing, and I decided to try out one of my new masks. This was about 4-5 days ago.The first night I tried the Black Pearl mask and loved it, and just in case, I removed the essence with witch hazel afterwards. I did not have any new acne the next day, so I proceeded to try out the Royal Pearl mask I had received, also removing it with witch hazel afterwards. Later that night, I felt another huge cystlike welt appearing next to my nose. To the point that when I looked down, my vision was blocked by the swelling. This felt like the same kind of zit as before, and this is when I realized that something in these masks was breaking me out.I decided that I needed to get to the bottom of this, and spent like 5 hours making ingredient spreadsheets to see what the hell in these gloriously moisturizing and nice-smelling masks was making my skin angry. I cross-compared with products I like, and could not figure out what on earth the problem was. Triethanolamine is in something I've been using for years so it wasn't that, etc. etc.Finally the only unaccounted for ingredients were botanical extracts, most of which I recognized. However, in both Mexico Cactus and Black Pearl masks, very near the top of the ingredient list, was the ingredient "Laminaria Digitata Extract," which I did not recognize. I googled the ingredient and saw that it is a type of algae, and is apparently listed on site after site as a pore-clogging ingredient. The Mexico Cactus also has "Chondrus Crispus Extract," also known as Carrageenan, an ingredient notorious for causing breakouts and bearing a whopping 5 on the comedogenicity scale on CosDNA.After this, I tracked down ingredient lists of other products that have given me cysts, and found that Laminaria Digitata is also in Benton Snail Bee High Content Essence, which gave me huge pimples as well when I tried it. I also looked into Holy Snails Shark Sauce, which broke me out when I used it, and found that it has Sea Kelp Bioferment, which I believe is related to algae.I apologize for writing a book– I just really want more people to be aware that this ingredient might be flying under your radar. It's in a lot of popular products but it is not for everybody.TL;DR: Tons of products (especially Asian Beauty) contain algae under various botanical names, and are known to be highly comedogenic. Obviously YMMV and some people's skin certainly has no issue with algae products. But for those of us who feel like everything breaks us out, it may be a valuable puzzle piece in figuring out your skin.
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by meriendaselgato
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