The Inkey List Oat Cleansing Balm review - a squeezy, sensitive skin solution to take the day off

Ceramic bowl by saskiarigby.com

As any Instagram followers may be aware, my profile blurb there reads: "Perfume blogger and industrial market researcher, prone to occasional bouts of travel writing, mindless knitting, and several kinds of dermatitis."

I should update it really, as I retired five years ago(!), though I still often undertake ad hoc research-related favours for friends - currently one to do with the relative merits and facilities of pitches at a motorhome park near Koblenz, whose website is only in German. The rest of my byline remains true, though touch wood I seem to have shaken off one of the three kinds of dermatitis, namely "seborrheic". For the record, I am convinced it was L-glutamine that fixed it by healing my gut in some way, though my GP was dismissive and said that dermatitis naturally comes and goes, so it was more likely just coincidence. Be that as it may, I continue to suffer from allergic and irritant contact dermatitis, especially in the current pollen season. The skin on my upper eyelids goes dry and crinkly / crepey (or more so than it is normally, say!). My eyes feel prickly and my face hot and stinging, prompting me to seek relief by spraying calming canisters of thermal water on it. In extreme cases**, I get redness, creasing and bags under my eyes as well, though not so far this year, thankfully. So while the pollen creates a baseline of irritation half the year, if I come into contact with an aggressive toiletry product as well, all dermatological hell breaks loose!

**For a very scary picture of how bad my skin used to get in summer, click on this post.

Ceramic cup on the right by saskiarigby.com

Now I already have a completely benign product for taking off make up (there will always be tinted sunscreen to deal with, even if my face is too sensitive to bear any more cosmetics than that), namely La Roche-Posay's Toleriane Dermo-Cleanser. It is absolutely bombproof for sensitive and angry skin, and I recommend it unreservedly, ditto their Toleriane Dermallergo Eye Cream. The Toleriane range is routinely endorsed by dermatologists on both sides of the pond, and I can't fault these two products for gentleness and lack of irritating ingredients.

However, for some time now I have been looking for an alternative to the Toleriane cleanser, for no other reason really than I find it a bit chilly when it hits my skin! I realise this must sound a bit illogical, when I have just said I spray my face with cold water to cool it down. But I also use the cleanser year round, and on a cold winter's night it can be tempting to go to bed with a face of slap on, rather than subject my complexion to chilly blobs of white goo...before remembering the dark admonitions of Caroline Hirons, and pulling myself together!

In the past I have enjoyed using the scentless - I flat out refuse to say "iconic", though it is revered as something of a gold standard of cleansers - Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm, which is white and odourless and reminds me very much of a craft glue we used in primary school, which came in a big tub. Reminds me in a good way, I hasten to add. ;) What I liked about it was the way it melted onto your skin, with no drag factor, and left it feeling silky soft. The downside was the fact that you were continually dipping your (potentially grubby) fingers into the tub, and the last one I owned ended up growing a disconcerting patina of black mould when it was only half used. Obviously, even I had to toss it in the end(!), though had it been a lump of cheese I might have just cut out the offending bits. I think the twin flaws with Take The Day Off were the size of the pot as well as the fact that it came in a pot in the first place rather than a squeezable tube. Had it been half the price and size, I might have been able to use it up in a timely manner, even with frequent finger forays. I have since established that there is a 30ml size for about £12, compared to £20-£34 for 125ml, but it does work out very costly that way, ditto the 15ml travel size for about a tenner! I might go for one of those even so, though the premium cost of the small tubs irks me.

But meanwhile I did a lot of research into well regarded cleansers, comparing different women's magazine polls and the like, and homed in on The Inkey List Oat Cleansing Balm as a possible budget contender, at £12 for 150ml versus £16 for 200ml in the case of the Toleriane (which makes them exactly the same price pro rata).

Source: Amazon

Here are the magic ingredients listed by The Inkey List(!):

• 3% Oat Kernel Oil: a rich, natural oat oil which effectively removes stubborn makeup and SPF whilst hydrating and moisturizing by gently supporting skin’s moisture levels. 
• 1% Colloidal Oatmeal: Helps to reduce the appearance of redness and soothe irritation.

I immediately thought that The Inkey List balm would be kind to my irritable skin on account of the oat-based formulation. I had tried an Aveeno moisturiser in the past that was primarily meant for babies and contained "colloidal oatmeal"; it didn't irritate me, though it was not as hydrating as I had hoped. To this day I don't know what a "colloid" is... Wikipedia to the rescue!

A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance.

Is the oatmeal suspended in something, then? Moving on...I have been using The Inkey List Cleansing Balm for a couple of weeks now, and I can confirm that it is completely safe for sensitive skin - you can't get much more sensitive than mine, I wouldn't have thought, so I feel very confident in recommending it to the public at large. It goes on easily, but doesn't glide as such, or melt into your skin in the way the Clinique Take The Day Off does, or certain oil cleansers I have used in the past. There is a little bit of dragging involved, but not in an overly concerning way. It cleanses perfectly - even lashings of mascara - I wipe it off with a damp cotton wool pad, and it does leave my skin feeling comfortable and moist. Occasionally the balm seems to separate in the tube into a part clear, part opaque gel, but that doesn't bother me unduly either, and it doesn't happen routinely. And of course it is in a tube, which is great for hygiene reasons, and most importantly, it isn't cold on my skin! I can see this being a real winner in winter.

In conclusion, I wouldn't go so far as to say that this balm is my Holy Grail because of the lack of gliding and melting ;), but if (whatever the season) it keeps me from looking like Joe Bugner after he's gone six rounds, it's a keeper! 

My scented week: from zero to hero (Aroma M Geisha Noire!) via some musty old books

In last week's post about my recent brush with allergic contact dermatitis I mentioned that I don't believe fragrance is a contributory factor. I still don't, yet at the same time, I haven't felt much like wearing perfume lately, whether during the flare ups or the fragile periods of quiescence in between. When the double decker oedemas strike, my whole focus is on calming my skin down, not adding other chemicals to the mix. And when my skin is in a good phase, a bit of me doesn't want to tempt fate on the remote offchance that fragrance might be a trigger. But mostly I have gone scentless in recent weeks because as with make up I have simply got out of the habit. Though I have worn the odd dab of Lancome's La Vie est Belle from my newly acquired miniature, and can report that I do like it as much on me as I did on my friend L's friend S in France. ;)

Then this week wasn't actually free of dermatological incident in any case: I had a bad reaction to raw garlic and/or onion on Tuesday evening while engaging in a rare bout of cooking. That'll teach me! Turns out they are poisonous plants, to dogs at least, so go figure. Luckily, thanks to a timely tip off from Lisa Jones, the immediate deployment of a couple of new weapons in my skincare armoury from the Avene range - specially formulated for 'peaux intolerantes' - had things back under control by the middle of the next day.

Two days later saw the installation of a new dishwasher, seven weeks after the polystyrene cube was deposited by the delivery men in the middle of the dining room floor. The excitement I felt to see the appliance in position at last triggered a completely out of character five hour flurry of kitchen cleaning.  One cupboard leads to another, you know how it is... And in the course of this operation, my hands inevitably came into contact with a wide range of powerful cleaning agents, as I didn't wear rubber gloves consistently throughout. Cue flare up No 2! Cooking, cleaning...why, I have only myself to blame. ;)

Friday saw the visit of an antiquarian book dealer, who had come to appraise a small selection of my late father's enormous collection of theological and devotional books. We holed ourselves up at the dining room table for a couple of hours: I passed the lady each book in turn, which she examined with professional care, noting the type and quality of paper, the lie of the ribbon marker, the pattern of end papers, the clasps, the binding - no aspect was left unturned. She was also looking for any rips or tears, missing pages, faded covers, brown stains or foxing, loose stitching, defacement in the form of underlining / annotations / colouring in(!) by lost generations of Victorian children - and most pertinently in the context of this post, she put the books to her nose and inhaled deeply, on the look out for any which had a musty smell.

For as with old clothes in a wardrobe, a musty smell is not a desirable aspect in an old book, and detracts from its appeal, and ultimately also its value. I watched rapt, as the book dealer conscientiously sniffed each volume. Humidity is the main culprit in causing books to go mildewy, and some cursory research on the Net has unearthed a surprising number of strategies for removing this unpleasant odour, including baking soda, cat litter(!), coffee grounds, charcoal briquettes, clothes dryer sheets, newspaper, and something called 'MicroChamber paper', incorporating zeolite molecular traps, whatever they may be. Unfortunately, my father's books run into the thousands, so the logistics of submitting the mustier volumes to one or more of these ingenious remedies make this pretty much a non-starter.

Then by Saturday, my skin was in a holding pattern of good behaviour, and at a gig that night, I risked both makeup and perfume for the first time in a while. My SOTE was the very addictive Geisha Noire from Aroma M. I shan't attempt a full review of it, as I couldn't possibly top The Silver Fox's glorious paean here. I will just say that Geisha Noire is a smouldering, furrily sensuous, ceremonial cupcake of a scent that did not feel out of place in the atmospheric venue, a converted church, partly dating back to 1270. Interesting factoid - one of the 49 rectors to have officiated in St Mary at the Walls (as it was called in its consecrated days) turns out to be the grandson of Thomas Twining, founder of the tea company of that name, whose 'Everyday' tea bags are standard issue in the Premier Inn where we were staying.

Source: geograph.org.uk

I had several unprompted compliments on Geisha Noire from other audience members, and one of the band pronounced it 'sweet', before adding: 'It's nice', in case I might construe that as a criticism. I am afraid I completely forgot to sniff any of my friends - including Caryne, the diehard Lush fan, and Andy, whom I introduced to Ormonde Jayne. I did at least chat about perfume to my Swedish friend Louise. (Check out this post for the lowdown on Stockholm's perfume trail during my stay with her in 2009.)

Courtesy of Louise Bodin 

As we strolled though the churchyard during the very noisy support act, Louise told me about her recent perfume purchases in a British branch of T K Maxx: L'Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu and a Penhaligon's whose name escaped her, except that it began with 'z'.  (That was easy to check later - my money is on Zizonia!)

And speaking of Penhaligon's, the band played 'Stick Your Hand Up if You're Louche', with its reference to Tralala mentioned in a recent post. As you can see, the bass player took this opportunity to come clean. We were in a church, after all.

Quick (and slow!) skincare fixes: Part 2 - 'The eyes have (had) it': my brush with allergic contact dermatitis (aka eyelid eczema) prompts toiletries triage and cosmetics cull

Me, on a good skin day, dressed up for a wedding - but scroll on...!

I had been planning to do a post sometime on my overall skincare routine, having spent a couple of years now concertedly experimenting with various high end serums, night creams, eye creams, acid toners etc, and generally trying to up my game in terms of taking care of my skin, albeit very, very belatedly. But since the ill-fated day in April where I needed a quick fix before a gig for dark circles under my eyes, my whole dermatological regime has been thrown into total disarray and is only now starting to fall into (a very different) place...

For as well as buying that Clarins concealer mentioned in that post, in order to qualify for four free handbag sized items and a sponge bag to put them in, the sales assistant talked me into buying another skincare product, and I opted for a cream cleanser with gentian in it. I had forgotten to pack my usual Micellar water, which had actually started to sting a bit lately, so I was on the lookout for other eye makeup removing products that were suitable for sensitive skin. To the SA's credit, she said that this cleanser wasn't formulated specially for eyes, and might irritate some people, but that I would probably be okay. I was so keen to qualify for the goody bag(!) that I recklessly took a punt. 'It's Clarins, how bad can it be?' I thought to myself.

That night I took my make up off with this supposedly 'gentle, water-free formula for oily skin', that offered 'optimum comfort' and promised to leave my skin 'gently refreshed', albeit not necessarily my eyes, though there were no overt warnings not to use it on the eye area.  Well, as the next day wore on, my dark circles may have been history, but I swapped them for swollen eyelids that were both red and weirdly crepey - so-called 'lizard eyes'. It was a scary transformation, and not something I would have expected to happen while using such a premium brand.

Now you don't tend to see pics of women looking like s*** in any of the women's magazines, or even in some actual adverts for / articles on eczema products. Here is an image from an article in Allure magazine on the subject - she really has it bad as you can see...

But thankfully some of the beauty bloggers who suffer from eczema are brave enough to post pictures of themselves to raise awareness of the problem and its possible causes. Some have been lifelong sufferers, others, like me, have only started to have problems in later life.

So here goes - I would like to get the word out that some of the ingredients in so called 'dermatologically tested' and 'gentle' products are anything but. Or they can be for some people, say.

Moreover, this was not the first time I had had a bad reaction to a cleansing product, but over two years had elapsed, and I was fervently hoping the previous occasion was a one-off. I was down in Norwich, also at a gig(!), and had bought some 'emergency' cheapo, Spa brand 'cleansing eye makeup remover pads' the day before, prompting an identical flare up of the red, swollen, wrinkly variety described above. I spent half the evening hiding in the toilets at the venue, but at the end of the night when the lights went up there was no hiding place. I had warned the band of my dermatological crisis, and one of them, on seeing me, tactfully observed: 'You just look...um...slightly engraved?' And trust me, that was being kind.

Spa?!?! Not as relaxing as it sounds

So while I was free of incidents between January 2014, and April of this year, I was starting to be aware of my skin's growing sensitivity in general. And now, since the Clarins 'do' in April, I have had frequent though intermittent problems, including one or two that were so bad friends said they wouldn't have recognised me! (Not that I left the house much at those times.)

I have now been 'under the doctor' since the beginning of August, and have had good results with a very mild hydrocortisone ointment. I know it has form for thinning the skin, but in a sufficiently low dose (0.5%) and used for a finite amount of time (two weeks), it really did help. But I did have a minor recurrence after I came off that, so the doctor put me on an immuno-suppressant called Elidel (pimecrolimus), also for two weeks.

It hurt like hell for the first week, as it is known to do, but my face got used to it after that and the cream has really made a difference. If anyone ever finds themselves in this unfortunate position, and is prescribed Elidel, I can definitely recommend persisting with it. The idea is that the medication turns off the allergic reaction to the affected area.

Irritating preservatives

Meanwhile, the doctor asked me to see if I could possibly identify what ingredients I might be allergic to, although I will also be going for patch tests at some point. Eyeballing the ingredients on the cheap wipes from 2014, my eye immediately lit on 2-BROMO-2-NITROPROPANE-1, 3-DIOL, a formaldehyde releasing microbial preservative, which is also in Simple wipes, would you believe? I have used those a lot down the years, but they were starting to bother me, now I think of it.

Then the Clarins cleanser has a controversial preservative in it called METHYLISOTHIAZOLINONE - that I can actually spell now without looking it up each time! I note that people suffering from an allergy to this have their own Facebook page, and it isn't pretty, like that pic of me below. The European regulations changed in 2005, allowing a much greater concentration of this chemical in beauty products, and dermatologists are witnessing an epidemic of cases of allergic contact dermatitis, especially in the past two years - perhaps these things have a cumulative effect, and are now just reaching a tipping point?

Here is a sobering article on the matter - I am that soldier, no question!

Truly shocking 'double decker' scenario - don't remember me this way!!

Now of course I don't know for certain that these are the two offending ingredients, but having done a triage of toiletries that have made my skin sting and those that don't, the pile containing one or other of these ingredients tells its own story. Yes, all unwittingly over the summer, I had regularly been using a hand wash (by The White Company!), a shower gel (by Molton Brown!), a supposedly nourishing shampoo with argan oil and a Micellar water, ALL with MI or some kind of formaldehyde-releasing chemical in it. Anything with 'urea' in the name is a giveaway of the latter. 

I also learnt in my reading up on the subject that there is a distinction between so-called 'leave-on' products (creams and to a degree also cleansers), and 'rinse off' products like liquid soaps, shampoos etc. The latter should be less of an issue in theory, as the residue is meant to be washed off your skin. In practice, however, I ain't so sure, plus there is the risk that you might inadvertently rub your eye with a finger that has just touched something really quite aggressive - which shampoos are as a rule. 

Very elderly shower gel on its last gasp

I should also say that my problem may not just be caused by preservatives in cleansing products, though they were definitely triggers. I sense that I may be guilty of contributory negligence of every stripe over the years, creating an underlying climate of intolerance which has finally blown! The other two villains in my triple pronged campaign of skin abuse may well be:

Using old makeup / skincare products

Hey, I have blogged about this more than once, have even been proud of myself for not being wasteful, and defiant in the face of the dire warnings of bad reactions to bacteria-ridden mascaras. Well, that was flagrant and chronic hubris on my part for which I may now be paying!

Using too many products at once

Certainly in the past two years, I have been testing and trying out loads of products in every skincare category imaginable, toggling between 2-3 serums or eye creams or toners in any given week, complicating my beauty regime to such an extent that my skin may not have known if it is coming or going! Goodness knows how Korean women get away with it, with their 21 step routines - but I think my skin was very possibly registering a protest vote...

After extensively reading blogs by fellow sufferers, I have now switched to a new set of skincare products, which also retains a few tried and tested favourites:

Facial cleanser / makeup remover - La Roche-Posay Toleriane and Fushi Organic Sweet Almond Oil (I also have their Coconut Oil, but have yet to try it.) I cannot speak highly enough of the Toleriane cleanser - it is totally bombproof, however sore my face is feeling.

Daytime serum - Olay Regenerist Daily Regenerating Serum (several years in, and counting!)

Daytime facial moisturiser - Nivea Light Moisturising Day Cream with SPF 15 (on cloudy days) and Paula's Choice Resist Super-Light Daily Wrinkle Defense with SPF 30 (for sunny days ;) )

Body lotion - Fushi Organic Virgin Unrefined Shea Butter. I would probably use most things, as it is only the face that is sensitive, though I would wash my hands well afterwards.

Shampoo - Dr Organic Vitamin E shampoo

Hand Wash - Marsiglia BioOliva with olive oil liquid soap, but anything wholesome-looking from T K Maxx will fit the bill

Night cream - either The Fushi Organic Sweet Almond Oil above or Dr Organic Manuka Honey Rescue Cream

Washing up liquid (for my dishes, I hasten to add!) - good old Ecover

And that's it so far, but I might gradually - and very tentatively - try to introduce a few other things at some point. Also, I don't think soap is the problem, nor perfume - oh, I do hope not! Nor parabens or SLS or other additives that often come under suspicion. I am just being really careful while I try to figure out if my hunch about the preservatives is correct.

Trusty staple Nivea has never been anything other than benign

And even now, I can't be sure if the dermatological demons were just resting on shoulder for a while or have dug their forks in for the long haul...But with my new armoury of truly gentle products, a policy of wearing only new-ish makeup, and not too often at that, I am least doing everything I can to keep them at bay.

Me today, not a scrap of makeup - first such photo on here in 7 years!

And the good thing to have come out of all of this? The fact that I have had to wear no makeup almost all summer. Unthinkable, really. And to my astonishment, I have still been served in shops and some friends have said they didn't even notice - whereas I thought I looked completely different. I haven't not worn makeup since I was 18. So the summer has been character building, and a real eye opener in a good way, as well as harrowing and depressing at times.

Have you suffered from eczema of any kind? Do share your own tips and remedies in the comments!