Like anyone who suffers from perioral dermatitis, trying to find the cause of a flare up is harder than trying to find a DMV with no line, but this time I think I know what caused my latest episode.  I’m blaming the Clarisonic for making my face so angry.  I had put it away for a while because the last time I used it, my face started to dislike me very much as well.  I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I didn’t know that my problem was perioral dermatitis, but I managed to clear it up thinking it was acne (which took forever, mind you).

Fast forward to February of this year. I decided to revisit my Clarisonic cleansing regiment. Almost immediately I started getting “acne” again, only this time it was more intense than the last time and when it appeared around my eyes that’s when I snapped. I quickly made a dermatology appointment and was told it was perioral dermatitis. The doctor gave me some pamphlets, wrote me a script for an oral antibiotic – one which I’m allergic to – and told me to have a nice day.

What the hell? What was this nonsense and why was it on my face?  Why was it itchy and how come some days it was worse? Who does it think it is? I’m too vain for this mischief and it’s not the boss of me!! 😤

Enter google – a confusing and often incorrect guilty pleasure of anyone who travels into cyberspace.  Violet extract, apple cider vinegar, emu oil, honey masks, Greek yogurt wash, coconut oil, crappy tasting organic fluoride free toothpaste, and some evening primrose oil later, my face was still angry and not speaking to me.  I felt so hurt and betrayed!!!

Okay, enough dramatics. I decided to just stop. Stop trying to make it go away and try figuring out why the hell it was there in the first place, which is hard because it could be many things.  But after really thinking about things and deciding that I didn’t really do anything differently or use any new products on my already sensitive face,  I felt that the Clarisonic was the culprit. It was the same exact “rash” I had the last time I had used it a year prior.

I am very kind to my skin right now and through trial and error, I found a way to keep my flare-ups calm. I use bacitracin and 100% vitamin E oil (the thick kind that has the consistency of honey) and that’s all I’m saying on that subject for fear of jinxing myself!!! If I wake up with a flare up tomorrow because of this post, I will promptly make a u-turn, head back to bed, become dramatic and start cursing the universe….!!

So, my question is: has anyone found a link between their perioral dermatitis and their Clarisonic?  I am willing to bet that there are many people who have gotten a bad flare up from using it.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Oh, and in the meantime until this goes away, I figured out a fun way to take attention away from the flare-ups that I get underneath my eyes: false lashes. They’re a disaster to apply, and I’ll save that for a later post, but I find that being creative and sassy helps me to feel like a human being, not a lizard with scaly under eyes.  I posted a pic for you all to see that they draw attention away from the red dots under my eyes.

I will let you know when my skin and I are bff’s again, which I hope will be one day soon.

❤️