Thursday 31 October 2013

Irony's a Bitch

In the quest for perfect skin I ruined my face.

Well, very nearly.

My Paula's Choice order arrived on Monday, and I was super excited to get the kit out and start with the recovery of my complexion.  Everything was fine too; I cleansed my face with the CLEAR cleanser, washed my blackhead prone areas with the Balancing cleanser, soothed my skin with the Balancing toner, slathered on some CLEAR extra strength exfoliate and again, treated my blackhead prone area's with the 2% BHA exfoliate.  Everything was hunky, until I applied the 5% Benzoyl Peroxide.

It tingled.  A lot.  Rather uncomfortably so, in fact, and also stung.  Not to the point where it was unbearable and absolutely had to was it off, but it continued on for a long time.  Possibly an hour.  I smoothed on some Balancing moisturiser without SPF on top of it, which was fine.  No adverse reactions or anything, it was actually quite cool upon application.  But I kept checking in the mirror expecting my face to be red.  It wasn't.

Benzoyl Peroxide works by inhibiting the skin's production of oil.  It is notorious for drying out you skin and is a reputable treatment against acne and oily skin for this purpose.  Dry skin and flaking are very common.  What happened to me next happens to only about 10% of BP users.

Ten hours later and I'm getting ready for bed.  I do the whole cleansing, toning, and exfoliating thing as per the norm.  Then I smoothed on some BP.  Probably a little more than I should have, but I wanted those spots gone!

My face burned.  More so than the first time I applied it.  It wasn't bad at first, but it steadily grew worse and worse.  I don't even know how long I distracted myself for before it got too much and had to wash it off, but when I did, holy crap Santa would have been jealous.  My nose and cheeks were scarlet right down into the crease of my neck.  I used cold water and the Balancing cleanser to wash off all the BP, which was probably a bad idea to use on dry skin, but I needed to make sure it was all off.

My skin felt dry and scaly to the touch, and it itched and hurt like crazy, but I wasn't too worried.  I'd read up on BP and knew that dry skin was a side effect, and just thought the level of dryness my skin was experiencing was me being over ambitious using BP twice in one day.  I still thought this was normal when my thick hydrating moisturiser made my skin sting and wasn't providing anything but the barest minimum of relief.  I just caked myself in the moisturiser and somehow fell asleep.

The next day was tolerable.  I was still red and scaly, but just kept applying moisturiser every half hour or so.  I'd rinse it off my face every three hours and then go through the motions again as my skin just wasn't absorbing the moisturiser.  I even went to the gym with my face lit up like a Christmas tree expecting my face to heal in the next couple of days.  Oh was I wrong.  That night I went to sleep with Neutrogena Norwegian Formula lip balm all over my face, as it was the only thing that made the burning stop.

Next came the olive oil, which helped a little by providing a barrier against my skin, but no moisture.  Then the Vaseline I found in the bathroom, which worked for a good couple of house, but then started to make me itch as my skin couldn't breathe.  Then I tried some random Aloe Vera cream that was in the bathroom, which stung like hell and made me turn bright red even though it contained no alcohol, but put some vague resemblance of moisture back into the parched bits.  I still ended up sleeping with Vaseline caked on my face though, after cleansing with some natural yogurt.  My face peeled a little with that, which was a good sign.

Today I woke up with the Vaseline still mostly in place, and my skin hurting considerably less.  So I wash off the Vaseline with just plain old water, and reapplied it.  A few hours later, I wanted to claw my skin off it was so itchy!  I pleaded with Mr Blue Eyes to run to the chemist and get me some pure Aloe gel, which he lovingly did, and wiped off all the Vaseline.  This helped a lot with the itching.  My face was still horribly chapped, but the burning was less than the previous day, and I could tolerate it until the boyfriend returned.

He didn't return with Aloe though, as the chemist had none.  He explained my plight to one of the ladies serving at the counter, and returned with Calendulan, a well known burn and scar creme here in Holland.  I was getting desperate by this point, and so slathered it on.  Hey!  It doesn't burn!  Always a good sign, and a surprising one as it contains alcohol, which is considered an irritant.  It wasn't soothing to be exact, more like it just cut all external stimuli off from my skin.  It was at this point, while applying it under my chin, that I noticed the hives.  This wasn't a normal side effect; either I was allergic to the Aloe creme, or I'd had an allergic reaction to the BP.

I knew what was wrong finally, but I was still miserable, and after a few hours or applying the Calendulan on the hour, my skin was feeling rough rather than scaly.  I took one of my body exfoliating gloves and with a little water, exfoliated away the rough skin before reapplying the Calendulan.  A few hours later, again, my skin was feeling rough, and there was enough noticeably flaky skin to risk exfoliating again.  And oh, the joy!

My skin tone is finally evening out, and while my skin is still sensitive and itchy, it isn't scaly anymore.  I probably have a good few more days of babying my skin ahead of me before I can risk using one of my cleansers again, but this little tube of burn creme I feel has sped up the healing process of my skin by leaps and bounds.  I'm taking anti-histamine tablets and am going to pick up a topical tomorrow to help with the hives under my chin.

Surprisingly, even though I've been putting fatty and oily substances on my skin, my acne hasn't worsened.  I have three or four new spots, but they are superficial and will disappear quick enough.  It's even more surprising that I had an allergic reaction to BP in the first place, as I have no allergies to speak of, and that the hives are only under my chin instead of everywhere I treated with BP.  Needless to say I will not be using BP every again.  I think I'll just invest in a Calrisonic when I get a job.

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