Apart from my obvious interest in skincare and wanting to take better care of the body’s largest organ, I started the Beauty Edit as a platform community for people to learn about the industry and skin, which in turn, they would know what to use to optimise skin health. My interest began with a personal skin issue I’ve had since I can remember – eczema. It’s estimated that 2.4% of the world’s population has eczema, which affects 20% of children and 10% of adults. It’s a skin disease that can develop as a child or later in the adult years. It is pesky, it is itchy, and it is just downright irritating. There is no cure, but you can at least treat it. While I post about various skin topics on my website here, I will be sprinkling in pieces that concern eczema and what kind of treatments, more so, products, I’ve found that have been effective for me – treatments that don’t involve a doctor’s visit and steroids.
The best treatment for me is holistic, involving lifestyle and diet apart from using skincare products. This is personal to me, I’m not here to tell you what to do, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for other people, but if you want to play a game of trial and error, by all means, go for it.
If you fancy steak, then this might not be for you. I cut out red meats many years ago and noticed that I no longer developed eczema on my face that looked like polka dots of dry red patches. Red meats are high in saturated fats known to cause skin inflammation, which then leads us to another culprit – dairy. Hate to break it to all my cheese and ice cream lovers out there (me included), but dairy is also known to trigger eczema. It was earth-shattering for me to imagine a life without ice cream and butter on toast, so instead of cutting dairy out completely, I consumed it in moderation. Another thing I consumed in moderation is alcohol. I know we all like a little guilty pleasure, but alcohol enhances flare ups, making skin more itchy and irritating. I also got myself a best friend, my trusty and bulky water tumbler, like the Stanley Quencher. Even if I’m not feeling thirsty, I still take gulps of water throughout the day to stay hydrated which does wonders for skin.
Moving back into skincare, I slather on a nice coat of moisturiser right after every shower to lock in moisture. In the winters I use Eucerin’s repairing body lotion and in the summers I swap that for something lighter, like St. Ives. Aveeno is also a very eczema-friendly brand that I like using. They offer specific products that cater to eczema-prone skin with the hero ingredient being colloidal oatmeal. Eczema appears mainly on my hands and around the mouth, so keeping them moisturised 24/7 is a full-time job, I kid you not. I always have a portable-sized tub of Vaseline on hand, but the greasy finish can be annoying. So, some hand creams that worked for me include skinfix’s Eczema + Ceramide Hand + Foot Relief Cream and CeraVe’s Therapeutic Hand Cream that’s great for cracked skin. For my lips, my go-to’s are Vaseline’s Cocoa Butter Lip Therapy and Palmers’ Cocoa Butter Formula.
This is just a start, but I’m always on the lookout for products that help my eczema. To more discoveries and in turn, tune in here to check if there are possible remedies you could try!
