A Rash Move

One of the downsides of being a beauty ed (yes, there are one or two!) is that sometimes skin has a bad reaction to a product. I try to test the majority of what’s sent to me so its not suprising really that my complexion has just gone into total melt-down. Very un-beautiful! The latest culprit is NV Perricone Eye Area Therapy that I applied on Friday night. By Saturday morning I looked like a puffer fish. It’s the most extreme reaction I’ve ever had to any product. It’s Monday now and although I’ve lost the fishface, my eyes still look like they’ve taken a hefty punch. By chance I had a dermatologist appointment for another matter – a bumpy rash down the side of my face – again, probably (although not definitely) caused by a skin product – with the glamorous name of perioral dermatitis. It’s going to take 6-12 weeks of antibiotics to clear it up. However, back to Perricone. There is probably no known celebrity who hasn’t tried this brand – it claims some very A list fans, and it’s hideously – really hideously – expensive. For those who aren’t allergic to it, however, it is can produce some truly amazing results. Although, a couple of years on Perricone and you could have paid for a facelift….Even though I’m livid that I’ve had this reaction and wonder how an eyecream could be so potent it can produce such an extreme allergy, it’s kind of my own fault. Reading the label after the event (spot my first mistake!), it recommends a 3-day patch test for reactions and that initially application should be once every other day. So whacking it on willy-nilly twice in one day really didn’t help. So although I didn’t follow the instructions properly, it is still very troubling that such active ingredients can cause truly disasterous reactions. And, I’m guessing the Perricone peeps know this – why else would they bring out a ‘sensitive’ range? The culprit for the Perioral Dermatitis? I will probably never know, but I am going to have patch testing at a hospital so i can avoid testing ingredients that will give me the worst breakout since I was 16.