Beauty Talk: Hyperpigmentation lets talk about it

Not my usual kind of beauty blog post today, but I’m in one of those reflective moods, you know those moods where you just have way too many thoughts going on in your head, so I thought why not do one of the best things possible and lay those thoughts to paper or internet in this case…

I strongly advice you grab a cup of tea and settle in for the read :-)

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, I’m sure most of you have heard about the pop singer Dencia and her infamous new cream called whitenecious! This was followed by the beautiful speech Lupita did at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards ceremony, which completely brought me to tears and more recently followed up with the cringe worthy interview Dencia did on Channel Four!

But just in case you have missed it, here is the image and both videos that have sparked off the world to discuss issues surrounding shadism, bleaching, body confidence and which prompted my reflections for this post

The Review: Palmers Even Tone Body Milk & Skin Therapy Oil

For anyone who has been following me for a while you will know that one of my biggest beauty challenges is scarring left from previous breakouts both on my face and back, so when I was given the Palmers Even Tone Body Milk and the Skin Therapy Oil, I was keen to try them out to see if they could help both with the scarring and just my overall skin tone 

I have been using the Body Milk and the Skin Therapy Oil together for a couple of months as I wanted to give them enough time to see some results, so thought this would be a good time to do a review 

Even Tone Body Milk

What they Say

Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Eventone Dark Spot Corrector delivers a dose of advanced ingredients for targeting discoloration such as age spots, dark spots, post-acne scars, and sun damage to even skin tone and unveil a brighter, more luminous complexion. A blend of Palmer's Eventone Tone Enhancing Complex containing Cocoa Butter, Niacinamide, Synovea, Vitamin C, Licorice Extract and Soy combine with powerful Japanese Songyi Mushroom Extract, and work synergystically to balance skin's tone and texture. Recommended for all skin types and tones.

#63 Question about scarring

One of the things I love about beauty is that it brings us together – we all have something we can’t live without, we all want to be beautiful in our own individual way and most of us have a beauty bug bear or question. I received an email a little while ago from a reader who wanted to find out some information about breakouts and scarring

Question

I’m on warfarin so I bruise easily and lately I have started to break out a lot. So whatever small scar I have, it turns into a huge scar! So, in short am looking for something that will clear my scar big time!!! I used to use Garnier cleanser/scrub and that was ok-ish but the Olay was on offer so I decided to get the Regenerist Polisher and Cleanser. The cleanser made me breakout a lot, I still use the Regenerist serum as at 26 pounds I wasn’t going to let it to go to waste! Now, am confused whether to treat my skin because it bruises easily or treat my skin breaking out from using Oil of Olay Regenerist Cleanser. What to do?!

Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog will know that the subject of scarring is one of my biggest beauty bugs – so I completely understand and sympathise

First up – you need to STOP using the Olay Regenerist Cleanser - It doesn’t matter how much it cost you, if your skin is breaking out then it sounds like your skin obviously doesn’t agree with something in the product and I don’t think continuing to use it is going to do you any favours. I personally am not a fan of the whole “oh your face needs to break out if the product is working theory” to me I have enough to deal with without also needing to treat my skin following the use of such a product. So unless you are sure that the serum isn’t causing you to break out as well then I would stop using that too

Next I would say you need to treat the breakouts first before you treat the scarring – with skin of colour we have more melanin in our skin which makes our skin more reactive, so a breakout, rash etc can act as a stimulus and trigger off the production of melanin which results in a dark mark or in scientific terms post inflammatory hyper pigmentation. As you mentioned being on warfarin means you bruise easily –so it’s important to reduce the damage and scarring being caused by your breakouts. You need a skincare regime that will help to deep cleanse your skin, exfoliate to remove the dead skin cells and a good moisturiser to put moisture back in the skin.

A cleanser/exfoliator that I have used and loved is Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash. It stimulates the skin's natural cell renewal cycle, actively smoothing and refining, whilst gently sloughing away dead skin cells which dull the complexion. I love that it doesn’t contain SLS which I find can cause my sensitive skin to be reactive and I found that it really helped to polish and improve the texture of my skin as well as help to fade my scars. The only thing with it is that you need to use it on already pre-cleansed skin as it isn’t a cleanser as such, that you would use to take off your makeup. In the mornings I just use it immediately but at night I pre-cleanse to remove makeup etc. I would also suggest that you look into using a mask once or twice a week – combined with a steam (but don’t steam your face more than once a week).

To fade the marks I would suggest a combination of exfoliation, skin brighteners, an oil and daily use of an SPF. Exfoliating regularly helps to clear clogged pores and to polish and break down the pigment in the scar. I prefer to use non gritty exfoliators and firm favourites that I turn to are the Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash as mentioned previously, Origin’s Modern Friction (read a previous review here) and Demalogica’s Daily Microexfoliant which I think is fantastic for creating an even surface and an instant brightening boost – they say it can be used everyday but I tend to use it every other day otherwise I find my skin seems to get slightly oily and sensitive. Skin brightening ingredients (completely different to skin lightening) will help to suppress the excess melanin and to even out your skin tone – ingredients to look for are Vitamin C, Mulberry, Bilberry etc. At nightime I love using oils and have used Bio Oil in the past which my face seemed to love, another oil that was recommended to me recently is Cosmetics a la Carte's Rose Elixir, It was recommended by Ateh, she used it on a scar on her hand and it faded it really quickly, see the review here atehjewelbeautyinsider.blogspot Follow this up with a good SPF every day to protect your skin from the sun’s rays which can exacerbate discolorations. If you would like to give your skin a big jump start then a professional facial that focuses on exfoliating and fading scars will really help and you can work on maintaining the results at home with the right products. Finally another important thing to note is that unfortunately there is no quick fix so you have to be patient and commit to a proper routine to keep it under control. I hope this has been of some help and wish you the best of luck. Keep me posted on how it works out

P.S check out my previous post on Lumecin Overnight Treatment and Darphin Clear White, they are both products that are meant to help with scarring and brightening the skin. However I have only just started testing them out so I can’t really tell you how they have worked for me yet but check back in a few weeks for a review.

Xoxo