Mary muses…I recently decided to switch from my drugstore brand makeup to the Body Shop makeup, thinking that I would be doing myself and the planet a favor (less nasty chemicals, no animal testing, etc.) However, ever since I started using their makeup I have been having teenage-style breakouts. Yikes! I used to NEVER wash my face before bed and very, very rarely had a blemish. Now I have multiple huge zits all the time, mostly on my chin and some on my temples. I have adopted a stringent cleansing regimen and it has not helped. Any ideas? Is the makeup I am using making me break out? I am currently using their concealer, pressed powder, blush, and various eye makeup.
The Right Brain’s reply:
Mary, we’re sorry to hear about your facial eruptions. There are many possible causes so it’s not necessarily your makeup change that’s triggering these breakouts. But if you tell us nothing else has changed, we need to be good scientists and check out your Body Shop products. The obvious answer is to discontinue use of this make up for a while and see if your skin clears up. But if you do that in a science savvy way you may be able to figure out which product is problematic for you.
The science of swapping
Try swapping out the products one at a time to see if you can find find the bad guy. It’s unlikely that the eye makeup is the problem since it’s not applied all over your face. Likewise, the pressed powder and the blush don’t coat the skin completely so they are less likely to be the culprit. Our guess is that it’s the concealer. Start by using a different concealer and see if your blemishes go bye-bye. Then try getting rid of the other products as well. It’s also possible, although not very likely, that the products could be reacting together to cause your acne to flair up, so you might have to try testing the products in pairs too.
The Beauty Brains bottom line:
Skin is a wonderful thing. Everyone reacts a little differently so it’s tough to tell which products will cause you to break out and which won’t. But a little experimentation will help you figure out what’s causing the problem. Let us know what you find out!
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If it’s on her temples and chin, sounds more likely to be the powder than concealer unless she’s really using a lot of concealer. How about any new hair products (if your hair is long enough to brush your chin)?
Dear Questioner,
The Body Shop animal tests. It’s just that the components are tested separately by another company so that The Body Shop can say that *they* don’t test on animals.
MoxieHart,
This is the sad truth about ALL cosmetic companies. I manufacture a line of skin care products and I have never read an MSDS sheet for a cosmetic ingredient that didn’t have a toxicity result from testing on animals. This includes all natural and plant based materials, organic or not. So even though a company (including my own) never tests on animals, you can be sure that the ingredients used in their products, have at one time been tested on animals for toxicity.