Skin Troubles (and life updates?)
6:00 PMHello all! Wow, what a long busy week!! I'm going to start and share that I did 15k steps, just during my shift yesterday. I walked faster and larger strides than usual, so I don't think that's a truly accurate count.
Also my skin is shitty right now. I usually have redness and have been able to tone it down with a gentler cleansing and actually being gentle when I cleanse; hydrating layers and paying close attention to fermented products, such as that amazing fermented tea I've mentioned it on a couple threads on the AB subreddit, but it's gotten worse, in some ways.
Basically, back around the beginning of the year, in early to mid January, a mysterious dry patch with a few bumps on the side of my mouth appeared, but it went away after I put a CosRX pimple patch or two on the area while at work.
At the time, I thought that maybe my Gokujun lotion was the problem--the weather at the time was cold and the HA as a result might have drawn moisture from my skin instead of pulling moisture from the air around (as its supposed to do), but I don't think this was the culprit. Looking back, it was probably lack of hydration and stress.
Unfortunately, it was replaced by a similar, bugger patch on the side of my nose literally a few days later, towards the end of January. The second patch looked nastier--it looks like a sudden case of seb derm or a delayed reaction to some skincare product. This patch been dry, flaky and extremely red. Whenever I put makeup over it, it often will clump and look cake-y in the area.
I decided to strip my routine to nothing and slowly add back products to try and to narrow it down.
At first, I thought my HH Aloe gel was drying my face out. Turns out that yes, it can but mixing or layering it with a hydrating lotion yields a much better result and can avoid the aloe components drying out the skin. I fixed that by using less of the aloe gel but mixing it with the last of my Gokujun lotion--it worked!!! At the time of the first patch, I also noticed Dr Jart+ Liquid Ceramidan would be stickier than usual on my face and I just stocked it up to odd climate changes and overusing the product.
Throughout February, I also thought that my almost daily use of Benton's Snail Bee essence wasn't helping either. While it calmed my redness and I would repurchase for this wondrous reason, I'm not sure whether its potency clashed with my skin or another product, and whether that is one of the culprits for this patch. The aloe ingredients may have clashed with the HH Aloe gel and caused my face to not be as hydrated as it should, despite following up with an essence afterwards.
I will say that the weather lately has sucked ass: it's been a wild mix of sunny then super rainy, cold and very windy, all within a couple of hours. The differences between the air from home, outside and inside, at work. Work tends to be dry and dusty--even more so in the back and home is dusty, too.
At the same time, the patch manifested on the left side of my nose...I'm at a loss. It's dry and red at most times, or just red. It does not itch but will get flaky if I don't moisturize. I have noticed the difference my skin is having without using either the HL Gokujun lotion or Liquid Ceramidan....I need to buy both.
Coming into March, I've been busy with starting my new position at work. I wake up at 4.25am to start work at 6am, and work until 3pm. I walk a lot around the store, work in the backroom and bring out stock to the floor, both far more than before--I am near dusty areas, handling cardboard and plastic from the stock, near various dirty surfaces and many temperature changes. I sweat more and am breathing through my mouth more, too (so it affects my lips). When I get home, I tend to shower at some point and will be in bed by 9pm, to do it all over again. As a result, while I am getting more sleep than usual, I have less free time and less time to do my AM and PM routines. The plus is than I am getting more exercise throughout the day (20k steps, just at work!)
Because of my changed work life, my skincare routine is different. I haven't been cleansing with my usual First Aid Beauty cleanser or either the Skinfood Egg pore cleanser or some other one. I've found that my cleansers are too drying and are likely too high of a pH, and that I need to switch to a different one. I will try out the CosRX low pH cleanser soon, and will do a post about my current cleansers. So as I finish writing this post in mid March, I have relied on a micellar water to quickly cleanse in the morning--either the Simple one, or the mini I have of the Dr Jart+ Derma water--and both sides of the patch have faded significantly.
I also severely decreased use of Kose's softymo cleansing oil on my face as I'd sweat off most of my face makeup, leaving only the eye makeup, and would just focus the Softymo on removing the makeup from my eyes. So far, so good.
Unfortunately this week (March 14~), I've gotten the flu and my skin is suffering! My poor nose! I've gone through a lot of tissues and rolls of toilet paper and of course, the dry patch is back. It's currently very dry--I'm not doing my routine much because I have not repurchased products that I'm out of and money I'm earning is going elsewhere until the summertime.
I have concluded that:
- The HH Aloe gel has to combined with the Gokujun lotion for the best result
- Benton Snail Bee essence works best in the AM for me, and has to be combined with a moisturizer or a light hydrating layer no more than 10 or 15 mins afterwards.
- I need to keep an eye on the Kose softymo....
- Low pH cleanser, here I come!!!!!!
- HL Gokujun lotion really works!
0 comments