Knowing your skin part 2

Hello everyone,

Today I was thinking about doing the other part of knowing your skin. Talking about how stress, cigarette smoke, perfume, certain foods, animals and also makeup can affect your skin.

I think once you have a basic knowledge of what your skin likes and dislikes then you can have better skin for longer, yes you'll have set backs I do some months. Like this month for some reason I've just been breaking out in spots. I was never really spotty as a teenager so I managed to skip that part but being almost 29 for some reason my skin has just decided to break out for whatever reason.

So where we left off, I spoke about creams and what I have tried in the past and what I can now use and as you read from the blog posts, I haven't really stepped into skincare much, it is simple I end up making my eczema flare up and I spend months getting it back to normal again. Also washing powders, they can affect you in a different way just having something with a scent or a perfume to it can set me off, then it can feel worse if you're out in public or at work and you can't go take them off to help you relieve the itching.

Let's start with cigarette smoke, that can affect your skin as it can sit on your clothes which is near your skin and make everything irritated and set things off that way if you aren't careful. It can also just be absorbed into the skin over makeup and just set things off. I have had it happen to me before being over someone's house and they smoked, and my skin would be fine being there but when I can home to take the makeup off and I have loads of little itchy bumps everywhere and of course I've moved all the makeup off so I then sit and itch it all then I just make my skin and face sore and it just takes much longer to heal so it's a losing situation.

Then we have perfume, can't say much about this but for me I can't have perfumes on my skin for some reason I come out in a rash and like most rashes it takes a while for it to go. Not sure why this happens but I knew from a teenager that I couldn't spray certain things onto my skin.

Diet like I say I can only speak for myself, but I find that a lot of junk food sets my skin off into a frenzy of being sore looking and itchy. I find that fast food does it to me and coke, along with most chocolate and sweets. There are only a certain amount of things that I can get away with in small amounts so my skin doesn't get so upset with me. But I have heard that other foods can affect your skin but since I'm going off what I know for me I won't go into that as I can't comment on them but if you can't tell what affects you then you can ask your doctor for an allergy test which should help you figure out what sets the skin off.

Animals as much as we love them they can also become a nightmare for the skin, if you're like me I suffer from hay fever so I have watery eyes all the time, constantly sneezing. So being around animals that I'm not accustom to then I get all those symptoms also I will end up getting small itchy bumps, with a rash which once that starts itching it won't stop for ages and unfortunately that's when it gets to the point of being really bad and bleeding if I can't contain myself. Best thing for that is antihistamines and take them morning and night. I think that's the best thing to do especially if you love animals like I do.

Makeup now this is a tricky one because anything in makeup can set you off in the makeup world, it could be eyeshadows, foundation even lipstick. It's more than likely something the company uses and unfortunately your skin, along with mine won't like it. What I found is the only thing that works is to simple not buy the certain things that affect you, like with me I know that I can't use two faced concealer so whatever they use in that affects my eyes so I know not to go near that from that brand. Sometimes you can get lucky as they are always changing things to improve, it can be good as it could be something you couldn't use but now can or it's something you've been using years then all of a sudden they change something and then you have to get rid of it. I hate to think how much money I have spent over the years for makeup and having things I love suddenly change and I can't use them.

Stress can be one of the biggest things to set your skin off, I know it's one of my major points that I have been trying over the years not to stress over. Suffering with eczema is a stressful thing as you are constantly worrying about what you look like (not in a vain sense) but more hoping no-one else notices your skin, making sure that you don't have so much redness from scratching. But I know having stressful things come up in life, like a breakup, stressful job, family issues, or life can just be stressful at times but what I have found helps me a lot recently is meditation and as annoying as it sounds is just not to stress over things and accepting the fact things won't go your way all the time and that this stress at the moment is just a small thing that will pass.

Well I think I have covered most things that can set eczema off, I will add I'm not a doctor or in no place to tell you this is 100% what sets eczema off and how to sort it. This is all my views and all I have learnt over the years by trying different things out and seeing what works for me and these are the things that work for me. Even to this day I am still learning and adapting what I know, this is some ideas that might help you or someone you know out but if you need help then go see you pharmacist or doctor for more medical help.

Well I hope you enjoy an extra long read this week and I'll get back to posting on my social medias more this week as last week was a tough and stressful week, which gave me the idea for this weeks post!

Write in the comments what you have found works for your skin and what you have found helps keep eczema at bay!

See you all in the next one! X

#knowingyourskin #eczema #blog #stress #makeup #animals #helpingothers