Happy 2021 everyone! Here’s to hoping this year is happier than 2020 was….we don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives anymore.

Now that the holidays are over, we’re getting ready to head into the the really cold winter months which can really dry skin out. The past couple of winters have wreaked a lot of havoc on my skin, especially on my face. My skin was so red and dry, patchy, and itchy, it drove me crazy. I had it the worst around my eyes and my mouth. Both areas were incredibly red and inflamed and nothing I was doing was making it any better. I finally went to a dermatologist last winter who diagnosed it as Eczema and gave me a prescription strength medication to use on it to heal it.

I used the medication he prescribed initially to treat the flare I was having and it helped immensely! But, me being me, I don’t like taking medication (even in a cream form) for things if I don’t have to, so I decided to try out some different skincare products to see if they would help enough to get me off of the medicated cream.

If you remember from last year, I talked about using CeraVe morning and night as my moisturizer of choice and using that everyday also made a really noticeable difference in my skin. My skin felt smooth and hydrated and I noticed a lot of the patchy dry spots went away.

Now, my skin is typically combination/oily, especially in the warmer months, so once the harsher part of winter passed I went back to some of my tried and true moisturizers that aren’t as heavy and aren’t as necessary if my eczema isn’t flaring.

I noticed about 2 months ago, when the weather cooled down again, that I could see and feel some eczema patches coming back around my eyes. They weren’t bad, nor were they super noticeable unless I was touching my eye but I wanted to stop them before they got too bad. Especially since most of the rest of my face still seemed to be in good shape with the moisturizer I’ve been using.

Because my CeraVe moisturizers worked so well, I decided to give their eye cream a try and I have been very impressed with how well it’s working. My undereyes feel so soft and hydrated, which is stark contrast from the dry and flaky feelings they had before. This eye cream is not marketed to be a treatment for eczema, but it does have ceramics and hyaluronic acid to promote hydration to the delicate skin around the eyes. My eyes haven’t felt this soft in awhile…I mean…the skin around them….I don’t regularly touch my eyeballs.

Anyway….

This CeraVe eye cream is meant to treat puffiness and dark circles which it also does really well, in my opinion. It’s also fragrance free, which is also good for eczema sufferers because the last thing we need is another possible irritant. It’s a great little powerhouse eye cream and it’s only like $10 at Target. I’m genuinely impressed.

Now, my most stubborn area has always been around my lips. They were regularly red, flaky, patchy, no matter what I did. Even after my skin cleared after the winter, I would still occasionally get flares around my mouth, even into the summer months for reasons I couldn’t seem to figure out. When I went shopping for the CeraVe, my lips were also flaring more than they had in quite some time, so I decided to give a new lip balm a try to see if that would be better than what I had been using.

I’ve used random products from Burts Bees in the past and in doing some internet sleuthing I saw that a lot of people praise it for help with eczema/extreme dryness. So I decided to give their Intensive Overnight Lip Treatment a try as well.

Admittedly, at first I wasn’t super impressed. I always put some sort of Chapstick/lip balm/treatment on before I go to sleep and depending on what you use, you usually feel the product on your lips for quite some time. I didn’t feel that with this; in fact my lips felt dry like five minutes after I’d put it on, so I was kind of annoyed by that.

But I realized after a few days that my eczema flare was clearing and ya know what…

:knocks on wood desk:

I actually haven’t had any issues since I started using this (well with the exception of one time, but I’ll get into that in a minute). I have had zero eczema issues/flares/etc since I started using this a couple months ago. And ya know what else? The reason why the first time I used it my lips felt dry five minutes later?

IT’S BECAUSE MY LIPS WERE SUPER DRY SO THE SKIN JUST LITERALLY SOAKED IT UP SUPER FAST!

So dry and I didn’t even realize it. Now that my lips are actually more hydrated I do feel the product on my lips for longer. This is become the only lip product I use at night before I go to sleep.

Now, the one product, I will never put on my lips again…..

Chapstick.

And it kind of makes me sad.

I was a Chapstick junkie back in College, it was all I ever wore on my lips, and up until recently, it’s what I primarily used at night before going to sleep.

I’d been using the Burts Bees for about a month when I randomly used Chapstick one night instead (I think Krieger had knocked the Burts Bees pot under the bed and I was being lazy and didn’t feel like searching for it). I will also admit, I put it on a little heavily, I don’t know why, but the next morning I woke up with probably the worst eczema flare I’ve had in a long time around my mouth. The worst part was, I remember feeling a tingling sensation around my mouth at some point while I was sleeping and I remember thinking that I was dreaming so I didn’t do anything about it.

I was so mad when I woke up.

I also threw away my Chapstick (the photo above is actually Devon’s Chapstick since it doesn’t bother him) after doing some reading that a lot of the petroleum based products actually make eczema worse. The petroleum creates a barrier around the skin – it doesn’t actually moisturize – and that barrier can basically suffocate your skin, so it can be very irritating especially if you have problematic or sensitive skin.

Obviously, I am not a doctor, and I’m not going to claim that Chapstick caused my eczema; that would be crazy. But I am saying, for me, I full believe it contributed to it, especially when it was the one place on my face that didn’t clear up as the weather warmed up. For me, its not something I will likely ever use again, just because it’s not worth the breakout. I’d rather not use anything if that’s my only choice.

Using products that are good for your skin, in general, will help ease the discomfort of eczema, especially on your face, but these two products have been absolutely amazing for me and deserved their own special shoutouts here.

Have you tried either of these products? If you do decide to go ahead and try them come back here and leave a comment and tell me what you think!