It’s been a long time since these images were our reality, so for National Eczema Week I thought I’d go back to the beginning and share both mine and Dougie’s eczema stories :
My Story:
Shortly after getting married we were renovation our first home and I started to get this severe eczema around my eyes- completely unexplained. I tried everything to get rid of it from lotions to acupuncture and nothing worked. I went to see a Dr who prescribed a steroid cream which initially made it ease off but as soon as I stopped using it, my eye ballooned worse than before and I vowed never to put a steroid near my face ever again!! This is what started me on my natural skincare journey…
While the skin on my eyes eventually healed when we moved house, the rest of the skin on my face remained extremely sensitised (see images below )
It was sore to touch, felt like it was on fire and was making me irritable! it got so bad I took to Instagram to see if anyone could help me and that is when my savour Cali got in touch!! She’d recently started using Tropic and said I should try it …
I was sooo nervous that it was going to make my skin worse but within a few days I felt the pain ease and within a week my skin had healed!!
I genuinely couldn’t believe it, my face had been sore for sooo long and I wrote a blog post about it here: Tropic Skincare: An Impartial Review | How I’m Dealing with Sensitive Skin. To cut a long story short after many … many(!) experiments with other brands I discovered that it was the strong fragrances, preservatives and stabilisers in mainstream skincare that had been making my eczema worse!
National Eczema Week 2023
The Tropic i’d been using was made with fresh, natural ingredients with no synthetic chemicals, stabilisers, preservatives,SLS’s, parabens or phthalates. The moisturisers also had a butter base rather than a petrochemical base (as in one from crude oil) which meant my skin was more able to breath.
Gut Health
Over the years I’ve done a lot of research info facial eczema and I truly believe it is linked to the gut. I think I was stressed renovating a house, which left me susceptible to allergens and there was something in the flat I was allergic to (possibly mould). When I removed the allergen, my skin was still extremely sensitised and only Tropic helped. I now take a lot of action to support my gut by taking pro-biotics and eating fermented food But it’s a two pronged approach and I am so careful about what I put on my skin now. I know when I use Tropic, the organic ingredients are providing skin with all the care, nourishment, natural oils and vitamins it needs 🌿🌿🌿 and since switching to the make up too my skin has gone from strength to strength 💪🏼
THIS IS WHY I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT TROPIC and it is the main reason I started my @Skincarewithemma account!
Eczema isn’t just ‘itchy skin’ it’s debilitating. It hurts, it itches, it makes you irritable. It’s the first thing you think about in the morning, makes you self conscious and fearful that a solution will never be found… But for us we found something that helps manage it, and this is my experience
First hand Tropic has changed my life and I want to help others do the same so if you are experiencing conditions like mine please do get in touch, either in the comments below or my Instagram page. I want to help xxx
Things you can do to help flare ups (National Eczema Week 2023):
- Take a Pre and ProBiotic supplement
- Eat a gut health diet, high in fiber & low in processed foods (to avoid leaky gut)
- Drink lots of water
- Sleep more
- De-stress – go for a walk/ read a book / take time for you. (Stress causes the gut to produce more cortisol which in turn can trigger eczema)
- stop using perfumed products
- use products with only gentle, hydrating ingredients
- try a hypochlorous acid spray
- avoid triggers like sugar, spicy food, alcohol
- Try to find the underlying cause – this is often a case of a process of elimination. Stop using all your products for a few days and reintroduce them one by one. Allergies can appear from no where, and a product you’ve used all your life could suddenly become the culprit.
I’ll share Dougie’s story in another post as his experience is slightly different …
If you’ve found this article useful please let me know and give me a follow at @skincarewithemma_x . You can read more about my skincare journey here : my skincare journey
Glitz and Glamour blog also has a few good tips on sensitive skin Here
