CC Creams: the Newest Kid on the Block

Well, bless my soul!  I couldn't believe it when I read that there is a "new kid" on the cosmetics' block, with ten new additional ones becoming available in the next week or so - or so rumor by the beauty industry has it.  What caught my attention is the name: get this, it's a CC cream,  after the name "Color Correction Cream," "Color Control Cream," or as Chanel calls it, a "Complete Correction Cream"!  (Well, La di da!)  Already the cosmetics world is having fun with all the puns about CC creams vs BB creams.  It sounds as if these CC cream will be telling the BB creams  (Blemish Balm creams, among other "names") to move over or to even just disappear.  Gosh!  Why do I suddenly feel as if I'm in the midst of a school yard brawl or a bad episode of "Sesame Street"?

I first wrote a review on BB creams here  in March and then in April (link) because they just seemed like such a great pairing with the person who has CFIDS/ME/CFS and fibromyalgia or anyone with illnesses who might experience skin problems.  Honestly, sometimes I feel as if all you need to do is look at us cross-eyed and our skin breaks out with strange rashes and/or hives.  At any rate, I tried out at least six or seven of them and kept coming back to the original one I'd liked.  Since the problems I (as well as others) encountered seemed to stem from the silicone and either how much was in the BB cream or how it was formulated, in September I wrote yet another review on one BB cream without silicone, see the Omorovitzsa link here.   And yes, the experimentation was as time-consuming as it sounds.

However,  I'm even more ecstatic about the promise of the CC Cream - fool that I am?  We'll see: I very well could be!   On the other hand, just think of all the steps "we" can save if we start using the CC cream - thus using up fewer "health credits" or "spoons."  If it proves to be as effective as it claims to be, it may end up - like the BB cream - taking the place of moisturizer, SPF, color and whichever treatments (as in plural) you feel you need, such as:

• help with those pesky wrinkles
• anti-aging properties (including green and white tea, of course, with the Asian products)
• treating hyper-pigmentation
• claims of being light-weight despite better coverage
• higher broad-spectrum SPFs (up to SPF 35 PA++)
• will work to brighen skin

My personal favorite BB cream became the Dr. Jart+ and has remained so, after having unpleasant reactions to quite a few others I tried - with hubby always asking, "are you experimenting with that crud again?" as I, in turn, deny all connection to any experimentation - "what, who, me?" 

So why in the world would companies now spend money on delivering us a new cream, that of the CC?  Hopefully, it won't be because of the same sort of reasoning that gave us the new Coke.  Until so many people in the entire world went ballistic, writing Coke (angry) letters and stockpiling all the old Coke that could be found, Coke then had to change back to the original but with a new name, "Coke Classic," in order to emphasize that they were back to the formula everyone wanted - in order to not lose anymore consumers!  However, if the CC's do as they claim, this could be a real boost to the consumer - not to mention the bottom dollar of the companies making these new CC's.  In fact, I think that it's time for the CC creams in that every company is now making their own BB cream and only a fraction of them, it seems, can legitimately be called BB creams.  Oh how I hope that this doesn't happen with the CC's.

But another reason as to why it's time for the CC?   So many consumers and makeup artist have complained about the limited availability of color and have wanted a larger and better selection of color.  Supposedly, they will now have it - somewhat.  The color variety is not as extensive as some have called for but the color supposedly works itself into the skin so well that the pigmentation won't be such a problem: reading between the lines, I should say, the pigmentation won't be as MUCH of a problem.

Furthermore, the CC creams will now also have remarkable powers to even and brighten the skin.  Furthermore, whereas many beauty editors and makeup artists found problems with the BB creams in terms of texture, feeling like they had too much silicone which made them just too oily and silicone-like on the face, the CC's have corrected this problems too (apparently) and will have a lighter texture.  (We shall see!)  I only hope that these are not yet more empty promises.

Some of the CC's will be more liquidy than others.  I'm hearing that the Olay's "Total Effects Tone Correcting UV Moisturizer" is just a repackaged version of their old BB cream, and is more souped up like a primer, whereas others will have more coverage.  In the the case of the Asian CC creams, the CC creams were developed there and have been in use for a while.  In other words, it'll depend on which you try and which will address your own personal needs.  The Singaporean brand "Rachel K" is getting great press, especially since it has so many goodies, such as "epidermal growth factor, which stimulates collagen production by speeding up your skin's natural exfoliation."  Exfoliation?  Be still my heart!  (Oh dear son and daughter-in-law: Christmas presents?)  I DO know that I'm running right to Chanel's version, which was also developed in Asia, as I do not want to mess up my face any further than the last few months have managed to do so on its very own, thank you very much, so I'm going to the company that I think will most agree with my skin, that Holy Grail: of course, Chanel.

With more treatments (for wrinkles, pores, etc.) added as well as antioxidants, not to mention the color improvement (I felt that that most of the old ones simply sat on your face too much, like a mask), I can't wait to get my hands on them.  Now WHY didn't the Chanel lady at the airport in Malaysia tell me about them?  (Kidding, I think!)

Here's to everyone feeling the very best they can, only better.  Caio and paka!

No Silicone in this Omorovicza's BB Cream: Review

Finally! There's a BB cream with no silicones in it. Given how many skin problems those of us with CFIDS/ME and even fibro have, I decided that I needed to do a bit of an investigation into Omorovicza's "Complexion Perfector BB SPF 20," the BB cream with no silicones but full of all sorts of "goodies."

And really, if BB creams work, how perfect is it for those of us with limited energy, limited ability to present a pretty face to the world? For those of us with the DD, how many steps can be eliminated with just this one product? These BB creams combined with patients who have Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome and/or Myalgic Encephalopathy seems to have been a match made in heaven!

And surprisingly, I've found myself being asked about the silicone aspect in BB's a lot lately and thought that perhaps it's finally time to give my own take on it "officially." (Oh yeah, like I'm "official"? Ha!)

It took a while, but I finally made the huge decision to buy Omorovicza's BB cream version. Thank heavens Omorovicza often includes free full-sized samples which help make the decision (a tiny bit) easier as it is extremely expensive. Yep! I got their full-sized mud mask as my gift with a purchase, an almost unheard of "freebie" that boggles the mind. "The Deep Cleansing Mask" was a stunning 1.7 oz at $113 - free with any purchase. They have all sorts of "schemes" to try to make their products seem more affordable.

As much as it pains me to say this, however, the Omorovicza BB cream has been a bit of a problem as I try to figure out how and what to do with it. Yet, it really shouldn't be so much trouble. After all, one of the beauties of BB creams is that they are supposed to be so easy to deal with, right?

I'd tested other BB creams and wrote a couple of posts about them as you can read here and here. Dr. Jart+ Premium BB Cream, at the top of my list, won with a landslide. I had two or three samples and two BB creams I bought, but they all did my skin no favors, developing bumps or redness in a couple of cases, and even after my review as I later tried other BB creams as well. Yet nothing was as successful as the Dr. Jart. Actually, these BB's are now being produced at a manic rate, and the results are that many BB creams all too often have nothing BB about them.

And mind you, all of this testing was taking place as exasperated hubby kept saying, "you have got to stop messing around with this stuff!" when he'd see the bumpy outcomes, the redness, whatever. Ah! We lead such an exciting life (ha!).

And I DO have a allergy to silicone sheets, as described in an earlier post, which can be read here. I now know that I have sensitivity to most, though not all products with silicones. I have yet to establish which products will work out OK with my skin if the product contains silicone because not all products with silicones have negative reactions. It must have something to do with the formulations and/or fillers and/ or binders - or even the man in the moon, for all I know. The more expensive beauty products that do have silicones seem to work best (wouldn't you know it!) but, really, that's no guarantee.

Getting back to Omorovicza's BB cream. I lusted for this product when I first heard about it to the point where it hurt. (I know, I know! I need a life! Don't judge me! Joke - or not?) I kept looking at the ingredients, reading reviews, and, of course, with my fibro-brain, had trouble making a decision.

The company's literature says that their BB cream has been proclaimed as the “Swiss army knife of the beauty industry” and with an SPF of 20, it's not just a moisturiser, foundation and sunscreen but also a concealer and has anti-aging cream, an "all-in-one!" (The BB creams are all SUPPOSED to be all-in-ones, with moisturizer, an SPF and a bit of tinting a "given," just the rest of the goodies/treatments differing.)

Furthermore, Omorovicza promised that its BB cream leaves your "skin flawless, sheer and even, whilst hydrating and protecting it from UVA/B rays." It also includes hyaluronic acid (discussed here, and also here), something fantastic for plumping the skin and keeping it hydrated. It has Vitamin C for production of collagen and elasticity, dealing with free radical damages and so forth. White lupin and red crystal. OK, OK, they got me!

And so after many months I took the plunge. And then finally the day came when I was well enough to play around with it.

• Day 1: it balled up and kept flaking off. Odd.

It burned a bit, not a good sign, but didn't burn much. But SHOULD it have burned at all?
The color was too pale for me and I'm pretty fair.
It looked as if I'd put on a mask. It didn't blend in well.
It covered nothing. Oh dear.

•  Next attempt: no balling or flaking. Good sign, but what had I done "wrong" the first time?

It still burned. Was this me or the BB cream?
It covered nothing, though there was just the most faintest bit of just "bringing the face together." I'm not sure if anyone can understand that.

•  Next attempt....and next...and next..
• Next #lost count: no balling, no flaking, but burning, still.

However, the other day I happened to glance in the mirror and was shocked as to how pale I've become. There was no color whatsoever to be seen. "White as a ghost" popped into my mind immediately. Scary, but I know - hope! - that it's due to the hypothyroidism and once the meds kick in...

However, the good news was that now the color of the BB cream was fine! There was minimum coverage (if at all), of old freckles and hyper-pigmentation, although a bit of evening of the skin, reduction in redness to a degree? However, there was no improvement in my new wrinkles, nor with other "promises" and the burning would not go away no matter how much I kept trying different approaches on different days. It must truly be the illness and meds causing this, I feel. Yesterday's attempt I was determined to wear for at least 4 hours. I finally gave up after after only three very, very slow and uncomfortable hours.

However, in the midst of all of this, I subjected my poor daughter to the BB cream (as well/yet again) and I applied it to her face - she must have allowed me to do this in order to curry favor for a future time, when needed! Because the BB cream suited her color, evened out her skin, though each and every freckle could be seen, I sent her home with a tiny jar into which I'd pumped in quite a bit of the BB cream. Somehow the BB cream gave her a more polished look, with minimum effort, yet made her face look quite natural. But be forewarned! If you like your freckles, it's great. If you don't like your freckles, forget about it! This can then be applied to age spots, scarring from acne and a handful of other skin problems. You really do need to have pretty good skin to wear this, in addition to being fairly light-complected.

So, after weighing all the pro's and con's, I think that if you want a BB cream with no silicone, this baby is for you. This is seriously something to consider if you have CFIDS/ME, since the oddest things can happen to our skin. You may or may not be sensitive to the silicone, you may or may not be sensitive to any number of ingredients in the formulas.

I'd also feel remiss if I didn't add that there is a drag to the Omorovicza, most probably because of the no-silicone factor, which is not too surprising. And finally, there is the cost to consider - $135, though at 1.7 oz, an impressive size. Their website can be seen here.

I think I'll stick to the Dr. Jart+ Premium BB Cream with a whopping SPF 45 and a (much more) reasonable price of $39 for 1.4 oz. I like the color, the texture and the much higher SPF. It also doesn't burn my sensitive face, it gives much more coverage and feels as if I'm not wearing anything at all on my face. Having said that, I will probably keep using the Omorovicza until I run out of it...it's just too expensive to throw out and I know that the ingredients are top-notch! Furthermore, there must be a way that I can use it and not experience the burning....there must!


Ouch! Sometimes writing the truth (as I see it) hurts. However I'm absolutely sure that there are many women out there who would and do very well with it. It's a class act, just not for this CFIDS/ME person.

Hoping all are doing the best they can be, only better. Ciao and paka!


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Pain Management: The Unwanted Stepchild

This afternoon I started a completely different post on a completely different topic,  which developed into something that potentially affects all of us, not just those with CFIDS/CFS/ME and fibromyalgia, but in fact every human in this country, if not the entire industrialized world.  I thought to myself, "what the hey?  Let me go there first."  And the topic?  How to survive in a hospital and what our rights are.  Well, a bit more: as so many of you know me by now, there's always more!

Beginning in 2010, I had what turned into every parent's nightmare: that their "child," no matter the age, is found in a hospital and no one knows what is going on as that child gets sicker and sicker and, several times, comes close to dying.

Now there were a lot of reasons as to why I'd felt I knew my way around a hospital, not the least of which was that I've had more than my share of hospitalizations (there I go again with those pesky understatements!).  But you know, times change and they are not always for the better.

I get upset because we patients are getting an awful lot of doctor-switching and that is a big bugaboo of mine. If you recall the ophthalmologists vs. the optometrist experience in a previous post (described here) it's becoming a real problem.

You can now add to that list of doctor-switching, psychiatrists who are sleep and pain specialists who pose as neurologists, as I saw over and over again at "the major medical center" where my daughter had so many lengthy hospitalizations, complications, procedures and surgeries.  The chronic pain management people were always coming in and pretending they were anything but what they actually were: psychiatrists. To make things worse, they were always in some sort of "secret" war with the acute pain management people, perhaps the war actually causing the right hand to never fully know, nor understand, what the left was doing.

Oh how I came to hate the chronic pain people!  Why, you ask?  Because they would come in disguised as everything but what they purported to be.  They would very quickly give their names and use euphemisms. You'd (OK, I'd) spend half the time trying to get a good look at the regulated tag everyone wore around their neck but of course the darn thing would always be twisted around, completely unreadable. Finally I got the nerve to start asking for their cards as they left, which were given to me in a very put-upon manner, as if I were the unreasonable one, somehow conveniently forgetting that in the center's booklet given out to all, identification by everyone, including physicians, was clearly stated as a requirement - and in bold letters, if I'm not mistaken.   And I'd get upset, because upon receiving the card, I'd see that the person who I thought was a doctor from neurology or pain would be a nurse of some sort, though with a MA or PhD in some murky field I'd yet to have heard of, or a practitioner in a field I've yet to discover, or most often, a psychiatrist who said that he or she was from the neurology department, very much implying that they were neurologists, never ever mentioning psychiatry. The permutations were endless.

During a few hospitalizations, as the pain people came and went - many pain teams, never realizing a team had just been by, nor who the previous five teams that day had been, in addition to many other specialties - I had many questions each day, often during every shift, as someone was ALWAYS dropping the ball, usually many times during each shift.  At first I would say that there were huge cracks in the foundation.  Soon I learned that there was no foundation. Later yet, I learned that they couldn't even keep their vocabulary straight (the reason we all use words and those words have definitions, NO????)  because what they meant by ONE department was actually two departments and for all I know each of those departments were split into many parts.  But the misunderstandings, when I finally got to the point where I demanded answers, basically all went back to that they themselves never even understood the fact that they were using the same words but with different definitions. To illustrate what I mean, imagine the fictitious scenario I've described of a Brit and a Yank get-together about a problem.


-"Would you look in my boot?" asked the Brit.
-"You don't have a boot, you're wearing shoes but do you want..," answers/questions the Yank (who many indeed be a southerner, not a Yankee from the North!)
-"No, my boot," persists the Brit.
-"What???"
-"My car," patiently repeats the Brit, because all Brits are polite.
-"Your boot's in your car?" asks the Yank, puzzled, but decides, what the hey?  "Where did you put it?  What color is it?"
-Brit now looks looks at the Yank suspiciously and answers, "Why it's black!" wondering if all Yanks are so thick or if it's just this particular Yank.
-"Oh, OK," says the Yank, looking for a boot through the car's window and not seeing any boot of any color, wondering why in the world the Brit would want only one as boots do usually come in pairs.
-"What's wrong with you?  It's not IN the car!" cries the Brit, totally frustrated.
-"But you told me....!" answers the Yank, not understanding that a boot to Brits is what we Americans call the trunk - of a car, not an elephant, I hasten to add.

Had my daughter's life not been on the line and had she not been in such pain 24/7 for two years with very little relentlessness, remembering very little of the entire hospitalization periods, the aforementioned scenario would have been amusing.  But we're talking life and sanity here, not boots.

I was frustrated.  I wanted to know who all the people who were coming by actually were, with very loud voices, not using the "indoor voice" they had been taught in kindergarten if at no other time.  Did they think she was mentally handicapped?  Did they think she didn't speak English - and fall into that trap I most despise - if one doesn't understand the language simply yell loudly and the person will suddenly get it all magically!

As time went by, with each hospitalization becoming progressively more serious and more people coming around, I had many questions:

• Who were these people?
• Where were they from?
• What were their names?
• What was his/her position on the pecking order?
• Was that person's plan we'd just spent 20 minutes discussing the last word or would an attending over-ride the orders?  (It happened all the time!)
• Who was the attending?
• Would the attending stop by?
• Had they read over my daughter's chart before coming into her room?  (Answer: never!)

Now granted, the charts were long, due to all the hospitalizations and complications but "whoever" didn't need to run down those charts to some dark and damp basement.  They simply needed to look in the d*mned computer that the "major medical center" had invested many, many millions of dollars into.   Besides, one of the first things taught in medical school - after treating your nurses like gold - is to take a history and learn as much as you can from the chart. Rotations 101.

With each hospitalization, I'd come home steamed, exhausted not just physically, but emotionally as well.   As I lay in bed 24/7 trying to recover enough for the next hospital crisis in order to go with my daughter again in order to be by her side 24/7, I'd make plans as to how we could circumvent the problems we'd encountered. At every turn I wanted a positive experience, not a negative one.  The body needs and craves positivity in order to heal.  It cannot endure more tears, be they of frustration, be they of pain, be they of fear, whatever.  It was NOT a good situation, but short of going to the Mayo Clinic, we were in the only other place to be.  Besides, how much better, our thinking went, would the Mayo be if this place was just the same as the Mayo, down to so many of the doctors having trained there and vice versa?

I finally got to the point where I tried to write down the person's name in a book as they came in.  That didn't work very long as we had up to 5-12 doctors and their teams come by on some days.  Furthermore, the teams were constantly changing, especially once she got to the surgical building and not the medicine building.

My first break-through: embarrassing.  I'd left the room after who knows which doctor number had just "spoken" to my hubby, daughter, one son and me.  In order to not allow my daughter to see my tears when I saw that hubby's mouth had dropped open when he saw that things were much, much worse than anything I'd described, frustration-wise, I went to my usual "cry area" where no one could see me.  But in coming back a half hour later, with red eyes (and snot probably running down, not to mention the mascara!) two nurses at the huge hub, "everyone's station," asked if they could help. I told them, "no, thank you" several times, not trusting myself.  After a few of those "no's," however, I asked for the name and phone number of the CEO of the place, which they gave me and asked if they could help in any way.  Oh, they knew, trust me, they knew what the problem was.  And I think everyone regretted THAT question.

I then went into a very controlled but unstoppable tirade that only a mother who is scared to death of what is happening to her child is capable of.  I don't know if anyone remembers the old commercial, "When EF Hutton talks, people listen," and everyone in the commerical stops in mid-sentence, mid-step, etc.?

We had that moment.  Every attending at a computer, every Doc Jr., every nurse, every aide, everyone who was at the station, at least 30 souls, stopped mid-step, mid-sentence - you could almost hear the proverbial pin drop - and listened as I gave a synopsis, in a rather trembling but almost-soft voice, of all the problems we'd had and NAMED some of the people who had either lied to us, misrepresented themselves, given us misinformation, or gone back on a promise made.  One of my lines was that I was starting to feel as if we were all car sales people, buyers and sellers alike, each just trying to make the best bargain, in addition to a H*LL of a lot of other things which are a bit too personal to disclose here, but really popped open their eyes.  I really don't think anyone had ever spoken to them like that before, too intimidated.  In fact, many months later, nurses were stunned that I didn't fear anyone and asked me about it, wondered about it.  Why?  Because I feared the illness and nothing else mattered but that monster!

Whatever I said, it took at least a half hour: no one DARED stop me after they'd started it.  (Do I sound like I myself am in a school yard?  Maybe!)  "Baldy," my "name" for the doctor who'd caused my melt-down returned - and mind you, the name was not a disparagement - after all, I too am follicularly-challenged, but we always needed a way to distinguish one person from another in the crowds of people coming and going.   Everyone had staring at his back as I gave my "account" of all the pain my daughter was going through and he came back to the room and meekly discussed everything we had wanted just an hour before, needed and tried to do before the tirade.  Attitude change anyone???   And he must have ended up red-flagged her file somehow (writing "deranged mother" perhaps?) because the problems ceased for two days - bliss!  We could actually all concentrate on her illness.  It was all we needed and what my daughter was due.  And it lasted until she needed that emergency surgery.

And the emergency surgery highlights another aspect of this whole situation and this hits close to those of us with the DD.  Just as she was about to be sent home, yet again, my hubby called her attending from home (after I called sobbing to inform him of this latest development) and said that he simply would not allow her to come home.  By this point, only six weeks since that first day of my driving her to the ER ("Mom, are you SURE you're not going to crash the car?" - this despite it being only a 10-minute drive, but understandable because I hadn't driven in about ten years).   She'd been hospitalized around 5 times, then sent home, only to return back to the ER and a hospitalization a couple of days later.  

There was, hubby insisted to the attending, something deinitely wrong and they were going to find it because she could not continue to be a human yoyo and furthermore, we knew her warts and all (99% good, just a few tiny warts!) and one could count on her having a high pain threshold.  It was hubby's finest hour, in my eyes, especially because when a final test was run yet again for 20th or so time, and as I was actually starting to pack her bags for the ride home, the radiologist called up to the floor in a complete panic: THIS time they found a newly-formed perforation in the colon which had developed overnight and you can bet that at that point everyone started hopping as they prepared her as quickly as possible for the unexpected emergency surgery.  

And I do want to make it perfectly clear her surgeon was a genius, talented, kind, compassionate and what one could only pray for, checking on her twice a day every single day she was at the "major medical center," from the very first day, even as we all still held out hope that it would not develop into a surgical situation. This is definitely NOT willy-nilly doctor-bashing or hospital-bashing at all, simply presenting the way it is.

So, the reason for this tale, this painful rehash of what our daughter went through?  This was a situation that was cut and dry: you see a completely diseased colon and you could then deal with it.

However, we, those of us with the DD, with the invisible illnesses, show little.

And this treatment, which my daughter had to deal with along the entire way, even after surgeries and between surgeries, highlights how lightly the pain issues were taken. Instead of the true monster, that of her vicious atypical hybrid never-to-have-been-seen before Crohn's/ulcerative colitis, a real killer which even included a sudden bout of pancreatitis, the aspect of her health which got all the attention was pain.  Pain is EASY, folks!  It is known.  It is a matter of finding a doctor who has the chutzpah to make the calls.

And so, this is a very real and true example of how we patients must continue to insist on our rights, as well as expect the respect that the doctors listen to us - if we treat them with respect in return - and that we must know who that person we're dealing with is, what his role is, what his pecking order is.

My daughter was considered a drama queen because she came in with pain, a lot of it, brought on quickly, this despite the fact that she'd lost 45 pounds in 25 days - a documented part of her hospital record, not a part of an oral history given by her mom or dad.  She was in and out of hospitals several times before her wonderful local GI realized that this was serious business and transferred her in the middle of the night, using up favors to get her there, knowing exactly what would happen, in fact telling me what would happen as I pleaded with him that NO! this would and could not happen to my baby, please!  

To add to the pluses which we had in spades, and, which in the end well outnumbered for the most part the really, really bad luck she had along each stage of this monstrous illness, they even happened to have a major international conference on GI diseases there during one of her stays.  I later learned that her physicians curb-sided with their international colleagues in order to find out what others thought was going on - a case so unusual that no one had seen the kind of progression her sudden onset had taken, the atypical hybrid she was presenting.  It was a mess.  But the GI people worked it!

However, the pain management people, were, quite frankly, a joke.  Why?   First, because pain is simply not "sexy" in terms of bragging rights, nor in bringing in the money/funding.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, how does one see pain?  How does one assess an invisible illness?

At any rate, this is something I've been thinking about today.  OK, stewing about, now that I've written about it.  The wounds are barely scabs and I'm not sure they'll ever heal over because...heck my daughter almost died and we were all praying that she would somehow survive: on top of dealing with a lot poop that should never ever have been a problem, much less a problem from one hour to the next for the most part.

As someone tweeted not too long ago (there ARE good things about twitter: who knew?) - acute problems are well done in this country.  Unfortunately, chronic conditions, not so much.  This is something good to think about as well as good to keep in mind if it's your misfortune to end up in a hospital.  In the meanwhile, I hope these issues and thoughts help you further understand your rights as a patient.

And finally, I hope all are doing as well as can be, only better!  Ciao and paka!

Beauty To Consider: BB Creams and Silicones....

East meets West:
In light of this being "Western Easter," Eastern Orthodox Easter next week, I thought it'd be fun to show the first compromising of our two cultures blending together as one family.  I love the skeptical looks on the females in hubby's family and won't even try to say what my mom's probably thinking. The tiny bunny was probably the only thing all agreed on!

Just over a week ago, in order to try to cut down on my feebly slow "getting ready in the morning routine" for my appointment with the beauty heaven I was (hopefully) heading to, I thought I'd try a few new beauty products properly.   As always, I'm on the hunt to look my best - with a minimum of effort, please! - in the ever-desperate hope that the savings in time will give me more time/energy for the actual event.  And I'd hoped that I'd have tips or new info to send on to my readers as well.  

I thought I'd test a few more of those BB creams I'd mentioned in an earlier post. May I say how surprised I am by the fact that so few people I've spoken to lately have never even heard of BB creams?  Wow!  For perhaps the first time ever, I may be at the beginning of a trend as opposed to the end of one. Excuse me while I pat myself on my back - and try not to break my arm doing so!

A few days ago, my daughter stopped by the house and I ambushed her as a very reluctant tester for two products, one of which was a luxury sheer coverage foundation I'd put on half of my own face hours earlier in the day.  Yes, the makeup looked nice and I could  see a difference but it was not really worth the exorbitant price. On the other hand, I liked it enough to want to try the fuller coverage version and will get back to you on that when I get up my nerve to order it - enough damage has been done to my wallet lately in the beauty department.

At any rate, when asked if she could tell which side of my face had the sheer coverage, my daughter could see the difference immediately, though she too agreed that it wasn't worth the price.  After putting some of the sheer coverage makeup on her face, I wasn't impressed with it either, though for a different reason. The makeup didn't melt into her skin.  Something was off.  Perhaps it was just too mask-y looking. But, aha!  I thought to try the Dr. Jart+ Premium BB cream on the other side of her face.  

Oh how I love having a daughter!  She too loved the packaging - UNLIKE her dad, who had a hard time finding ANY enthusiasm for it a few weeks ago when I showed him the beautifully engineered and designed "tube."

The Dr. Jart+ went on beautifully. I loved it and best of all, she loved it enough to take my tube home with her.  Actually I think what she loved most was the fact that the SPF was a whopping 45 and though the skin tone had evened out beautifully, she still looked very natural with her freckles peeking through.  I loved it because you could absolutely tell the difference: it just lifted up her skin, making it so fresh and looking almost as if she'd been on vacation, masking the signs on her face of the influenza (not just the "flu") she'd battled a few weeks ago and was slowly recovering from.

So, the next day I tried two other BB creams in order to not have to borrow my daughter's for my one day out of the house... my replacement, which I'd just ordered, would not arrive in time for my great escape.  I tried Clinique's and Boscia's versions. Both companies I like quite a bit.  I've bought their products in the past and been happy with them.  I must say that one of the BB's was OK, but something was still off and it was hard to put my finger on what it was that made it look so wrong. And one or both caused bumps on my face, as well as redness. Furthermore, I had to wash the BB's off BOTH sides of my face within less than a half hour - why I thought the burning would go away for both products I have no idea.  And, BTW, I've never before returned a beauty product - with the caveat that I don't ever REMEMBER doing so - but you can bet that those two were going back; they were in the mail the following day.

I suspected, but now am fairly sure, that I've a problem - I may have an allergy to silicone.  

After my first office visit with my plastic surgeon to get the stitches out for "The Claw," what I affectionately call my arm and hand these days, I was given a silicone sheet to wear on my approximately 30 inches of scars.  I waited for everything to be healed with no broken skin, as instructed by everyone I saw that day.  I swear, I felt as if I were Moses receiving the commandments by God when the silicone sheet instructions were given.  I was nervous but I was really excited.  When I arrived home I sent an email to my best friend and told her all about this miraculous new treatment. I'd googled it, of course, and had been so thrilled to read the rave reviews. Naturally, I'd want my BFF to know about this immediately.  (Oh, of course she must have known this telepathically, but I just had to be SURE she'd gotten the message!)

Finally, I figured out how I would cut the sheet to allow it to fit all of the scarring.  The directions said I could wear the silicone sheeting for just about all day and night, only taking it off for a little time.  My surgeon and his support staff said to put it on for only six hours and no more, but definitely for the six to get the full benefits.  That was rather complicated, since as mentioned before (Ha!) I don't have any predictable sleep patterns.  If I put them - the now cut-up strips - on during the day, I might fall asleep.  If I put them on at night, the same concern.   A few days later I bit the bullet and told myself to stop all the tomfoolery and just get on with it.

Well, after about five minutes, my ever-observant hubby looked over at me and said, "You know, if it hurts you SHOULD take them off."  Well, I had no idea why he said that...I hadn't noticed the tears rolling down from my eyes, "the tell." I answered, while staring at the TV, "That's OK.  I can do it."

Hubby looked at me (again) like I was the crazy one and said, "If it's hurting, take it off - IMMEDIATELY.  Are you nuts?  You're probably having a reaction."

Me?  Nah! "Oh, I can take it," I, more or less, whimpered.  "I don't want those scars!"  

"Are you bonkers? Take those things off and let me take a look at that. Really!" he said, a tad exasperated.

Well, the entire area covered by the strips was red, angry and inflamed. And the spots and lines where the staple holes were - the ones that make you look like Frankenstein - had, more or less leveled off before, but were now back to being ugly, pimple-looking creepy bumps. Gross!

It was awful.  I could take the nettle-stinging feeling but to have such a huge step back in the healing - well, you know how vain I can be.... Or should I say how much I'll give up to look good.... This was a definite mistake.

Of course, I emailed my BFF immediately because with our luck she or one of her (grown up) kids would just have had the sudden misfortune to also be in a position to need those silicone sheets - at that very moment! - and someone would inevitably be told, "Oh, Irene's doctor gave her that and she googled and read in tons of places that this is the best thing out there" and end up having an even worse reaction than I did!

OK, folks, I can be slow. But it finally dawned on me that one day, at the "medical center" with my daughter, I'd put a new primer on my face and immediately, it burned so badly that I threw the sample away - right after thoroughly washing my face, first with warm water and Dove (I always go back to Dove, don't I?) and then applying very cool water compresses because my face was red and getting inflamed, followed by my skin-saving and rescuing LaMer.

After the silicone sheet fiasco, and keeping in mind the one primer reaction, I started noticing reviews on Sephora and other beauty sites about women having problems with dimethicone in beauty products.  It finally hit me that I too must have an allergy to silicone.  But I had been using silicone all along, I realized, as I started to read the ingredients on various beauty products in my cabinets and drawers.  Talk about a headache!  I suddenly realized why I disliked chemistry so much in high school.  But it was fascinating that there were some products that I really didn't care for or some I loved and it was the dimethicone that seemed to be the main difference.  The few products with silicones which didn't seem to bother me were those that looked as if they hardly had any silicone in them.  But I soon realized that perhaps some products were formulated differently - such as with buffers?  What do I know?  To further confuse the issue, I realized that silicone goes by many different names.  

The point is that the reaction didn't hit me strongly under most circumstances.  On the other hand, I seemed to get unexplained little bumps on my face that I had thought were due to nerves about my daughter's precarious situation - they may have been, instead, reactions to the silicone.  Under some circumstances I may not have been getting a bad reaction, but what were those circumstances?  So, at first I stayed away from all silicone while doing research - a guaranteed headache-producing exercise, let me assure you.

I was "outraged" when I read on one skin store's blog site, written by a physician, that Vitamin E should not be used for scars because reactions - allergies - could take place, but that silicone NEVER had any adverse reactions.

OK.  Let's see if I have this straight.  There is something out there that NO one has ever had a reaction to?  Hmmmm.... Ever heard of the exception to the rule?  Well there you go.  Someone's either not thinking or is stretching the truth if they say there's NEVER been an adverse reaction to something.  Don't even get me started.

At the same time, I was suddenly coming across sites with on-line shopping where they proudly advertise the fact that THEIR products have no silicones at all.  The reviews on any number of beauty sites report women having reactions to silicone. It's a HUGE concern.  Some women make silicone sound as bad as when doctors demonize cigarettes as if they were the equivalent of smoking crack cocaine.

When my surgeon's assistant suggested Vitamin E oil, her boss scoffed at her (in a light-hearted way) and when I piped in that I believe in the effectiveness of arnica and lavender essential oils, for example, he looked at me as if I were bonkers.  But he was all for the silicone.

And I don't blame him.  He's kept up with the medical studies that are constantly changing.  These include papers on Vitamin E oil therapy, the latest saying it was the massaging that made the difference.  And of course he wants minimal scaring.  He wants what's best for me.  Furthermore, it is, after all, his work that is on display for the whole world to see - especially when I don't wear sleeves that go from my shoulder down to my fingers.

My feeling?  I think big pharma is putting out good money to keep yet another nasty pharmaceutical problem hidden as long as they can get away with it.  Call me paranoid, but that's exactly what I'm afraid of.

I might have been foolish, but I finally made the decision to go with selected beauty products that have SOME silicone. First, I would continue with the products which I hoped weren't causing problems, for whatever reason, my go-to products.  Secondly, that was after looking at the labels and ensuring that there was very little silicone content in anything I put on my skin.  I would trust the manufacturer to adhere to the requirement that the substances in the products are listed from the highest amount to the lowest.

I mean, the silicone really makes products glide on so beautifully and there are a ton of other pro's for the way they function cosmetically.  It's an incredible new resource for the beauty world from makeup to hair to skincare.

My immunologist, however, said I many want to rethink that, given my extreme reaction with the sheet.  A first allergic reaction, as what I had with the strips, COULD lead to a more severe reaction with the second or third exposure to the substance. In other words, nature is giving a person a "pass" the first time around.  It may be nature's way of not killing off a person the first time, while giving that person a warning (i.e., the bad reaction) that something is off and not working...beware! Nature, evolution - whatever you choose to call it - may thus be offering a second chance at being smart the next time around and figuring it is the fool who goes back for a third or fourth time and Goodnight Moon!  Not necessarily so, but did I want to take that chance?  Had I forgotten the primer incident too?

Geesh!  Perhaps I really AM lucky that I'm bedridden...I don't need to go out much anymore.  Therefore, I don't need to make a decision as "to silicone or not to silicone": that is the question.

Groan...did I really say that?  I guess so!

But I definitely want to work with my Dr. Jart+.  That stuff may be joining my very tiny "hall of fame" keepers.  

Laughing from my sickbed about the new multi-tasking craze...

Oh my.  I have discovered an incredible new category of beauty products, the BB creams, which stand for "Blemish Balm" or "Blemish Base."  Actually, the names are pretty silly because controlling "blemishes" seems the very least of their tasks - if at all.  I wasn't sure exactly how long they'd been around but they seemed to be a wonderful idea for those of us who are a bit lazy when it comes to sun protection and beauty products, be they skincare of just makeup.

OK, OK.  I suppose I should explain my language. When I say, "lazy," I really mean, "too tired and sick."  "Lazy" just seems to make me feel more in control of my life, I suppose. 

Getting back to the BB creams.  I looked them up on Sephora and luckily for me, I didn't have to start pickin' and choosin'.  I am soooo indecisive.  Sephora had a package of a few BB creams just perfect for suckers like me.  Whoops!  Did I say "suckers"?   I meant "enthusiasts." I also had two separate samples from two different companies.  Wow!  I was in business.

The BB creams appear to be all-in-ones.  There are a few differences among them but all appear to be a combination of sunscreen and/or moisturizer/primer, a bit of color that is supposed to fit all and they usually include a skin treatment of one type or another.  You pick out the type you want by which properties you need, be that anti-aging, a  bucket load of anti-oxidants, skin lightening or brightening, and who knows what else!   Incredible.  Since I can never remember which comes first, a sunscreen or a serum, this whole BB cream concept is a no-brainer for me.

If it's at all possible that these creams work, then I'm all for them making my life a little bit easier. It's getting to be a bit difficult to use so very many products at once.  If I don't use sunscreen I'm a fool, if I don't use moisturizer I'll look like a prune, if I don't use a primer my foundation will slide off within an hour of application, and on and on it goes.  In many case I've stopped putting on makeup because it has become such a minefield of products.  And the expression "mutton dressed like lamb" comes to mind, too.

I started off with the Dr. Jart+ Premium Balm (there are two Dr. Jart+'s..why, I have no idea) and can't say how great it is or is not.  The packaging was so wonderfully elegant that I bored my hubby silly by making him examine it for himself.  Of the two of us, I was the person who won the enthusiasm award by a landslide.

Doing a bit of homework I discovered that Dr. Jart+ is evidently one of the first of the BB creams to come to the States from Asia.  Invented by a German dermatologist for patients undergoing laser treatment to sooth red sensitive skin, evidently the creams took South Korea by storm, spreading to the rest of Asia, and then to the US.  BB creams have been described as "an Asian cult favorite."

I have to give Dr. Jart+ another try but I didn't get a rash or break out or feel a burn from my first attempt, a huge plus.  I find that my skin really doesn't like extras, be it because of illness, medicines I'm taking or just plain me, I have no idea.  So, I believe my Dove soap - whoops, they call it a "beauty bar" now - may very well have found a sibling to join my family of must-have's.  I only have to work on figuring out which one I end up liking the most!  

I promise I'll let you know...after all, I'm here to help you live your life a little bit more easily...!