Welcome to part 2 of how my invisible disabilities affect my sense of style and fashion. Just a reminder from part 1, I have pain- and immune-system related disabilities. I'm hoping that anyone reading this becomes a little more understanding of why people might dress differently than them or than what's considered "fashionable". Today's topic is beauty! Makeup and Skincare: This is the most obvious. My skin is so sensitive that I can't wear any foundation and barely any concealer (trust me, I've tried nearly them all and wasted tons of money). I'm talking zits that hurt all day, everyday until my beleaguered immune system finally heals them two weeks later. I also can't wear eye makeup and sometimes Aquaphor is the only lip balm I can use. As I've posted before, my skincare has to be the most parred down routine ever. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but multiple studies show that people only take women seriously if they wear "natural" or "no-makeup" makeup. That's a little hard when you can't wear makeup because of medical conditions. My Hair has to Flush to the Back of My Head: Because I have chronic back and neck pain, I usually have to wear my hair so I don't sit to far forward in my car because I have a huge clip or bun in the way. It also makes it easier to lie down which I sometimes have to because of pain. Toenail Polish: I am not particularly clumsy but when my feet get hurt by shoes, my toenails bleed. To prevent other people from seeing, I always have my toenails painted during warm months. I don't even care if the polish looks good as long as it covers up my toenails. When it starts to chip I just fill in the chips (because I'm classy like that). Laundry Detergent: Part of my immune issues means my skin is super sensitive. I once tried a new laundry detergent because it was cheap. But then I started getting weird rashes but only where clothes washed in the new detergent were touching. So now I have to only buy detergent, lotions, soaps and hair care products with no fragrance or dye or very, very minimal dye or fragrance. That's all for this post. Thanks for reading!
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Like many people, I've experienced acne since I was a teenager and into adulthood. All medical interventions failed me or had side effects that nearly killed me (literally). And I never wanted to try Accutane because of the potential side effects. People kept recommending "add more products" but the acne kept getting worse. Eventually, I realized it wasn't about adding more but taking away the products that were causing my acne. All the fancy products I tried were just making my acne worse. So I started using as few products as possible and not using anything with oil. And my acne got much better without medical intervention and extreme side effects. The first thing I changed was not washing my face. Seriously. I started cleaning my face with witch hazel in the morning and face wipes followed by witch hazel in the evening. Turns out the fancy face washes were just irritating my sensitive skin, causing inflammation which causes more acne. I also started using zinc oxide as both a sunscreen/moisturizer and as an acne spot treatment. The spot treatment was around 20% zinc oxide and the moisturizer I use has around 3%. Besides being a great physical sunscreen, zinc oxide can also reduce inflammation making acne less likely and painful. Plus zinc oxide doesn't bleach clothes, sheets or pillow cases like benzoyl peroxide. Moisturizing my skin was a problem. I mainly used the zinc oxide sunscreen/moisturizer. However, I also used aloe vera gel. Aloe vera gel was usually enough for most of the year but during the winter I needed more moisturizing than just aloe vera gel and a sunscreen moisturizer. I would mix the aloe vera gel with jojoba oil and vegetable glycerin. The jojoba oil, despite being called 'oil', is actually a wax so it doesn't cause acne. The glycerin helps the aloe vera and jojoba oil to emulsify. I've also used cocoa butter mixed with jojoba oil in a 1:1 mixture. The cocoa butter can be melted and the jojoba mixed in. The one drawback of cocoa butter is that it can melt in hot weather if you don't have air conditioning. The biggest problem I encountered in changing to a non-comedogenic beauty routine was finding a shampoo and conditioner that didn't cause acne. Besides making sure nothing had oil (including coconut oil), I tried to get products with the fewest ingredients. Baby shampoos seemed to work but they are not very good at getting hair clean. Mostly I tried clarifying shampoos and diluted them if they were too strong. For conditioner, I had to mix aloe vera gel, jojoba oil and vegetable glycerin just like for my skin. This mixture can be dilutes in water for a nice leave-in conditioner. |
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November 2019
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