![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acne and dairy update!
1 Dec 2013 01:57 pmI have had a couple of cases where I accidentally ate small amounts of milk since intending to go off it - cafeteria/coffee shop situations where I absent-mindedly judged something safe and only afterwards thought it could've been made with milk after all.
However, I've had several breakouts since then that seem out of proportion, to me, to have been caused by dairy. My skin was clear briefly, a couple of weeks ago, but since then it's been a case of a new breakout every time one heals.
On the other hand, they're also healing WAY, WAY faster under the influence of tea tree oil, which also is the best topical anaesthetic I've ever felt for them (and there's also fewer of them). Sometimes mine are so painful as to be actually distracting, but tea tree oil absorbs quickly into the skin and then numbs them, sort of the way Carmex does to cracked lips but with a completely different (albeit stronger) smell.
Anyway, my dairy hypothesis is weakened, but I haven't given up on it yet because reaction times for breakouts can be quite long and giving up dairy can't actually hurt, and potentially has digestive benefits as well as skin benefits, so. Not going to stop yet.
I also spent ages online trying to find out a way to get tea tree oil from anywhere other than The Body Shop, but without any success. There are various sources, far more available in the US, but it seems hard to judge their quality, since apparently essential oils counterfeiting (and synthesizing) is a big deal. The Body Shop, unlike the leading US healthfood store brand, packages the oil according to the guidelines of the Australian producers, in tiny opaque bottles (sunlight damages the chemical makeup), but against their guidelines, doesn't mark their bottles with an expiration date (according to the growers, the shelf-life even sealed in a dark container is around 6 months). I'm inclined to think that's because they ship to their stores and then leave the stock on the shelves forever, because it definitely looks like my store has had a whole case and nobody has been buying them but me. So I suppose it could just be that my last few bottles were old.
However, I've had several breakouts since then that seem out of proportion, to me, to have been caused by dairy. My skin was clear briefly, a couple of weeks ago, but since then it's been a case of a new breakout every time one heals.
On the other hand, they're also healing WAY, WAY faster under the influence of tea tree oil, which also is the best topical anaesthetic I've ever felt for them (and there's also fewer of them). Sometimes mine are so painful as to be actually distracting, but tea tree oil absorbs quickly into the skin and then numbs them, sort of the way Carmex does to cracked lips but with a completely different (albeit stronger) smell.
Anyway, my dairy hypothesis is weakened, but I haven't given up on it yet because reaction times for breakouts can be quite long and giving up dairy can't actually hurt, and potentially has digestive benefits as well as skin benefits, so. Not going to stop yet.
I also spent ages online trying to find out a way to get tea tree oil from anywhere other than The Body Shop, but without any success. There are various sources, far more available in the US, but it seems hard to judge their quality, since apparently essential oils counterfeiting (and synthesizing) is a big deal. The Body Shop, unlike the leading US healthfood store brand, packages the oil according to the guidelines of the Australian producers, in tiny opaque bottles (sunlight damages the chemical makeup), but against their guidelines, doesn't mark their bottles with an expiration date (according to the growers, the shelf-life even sealed in a dark container is around 6 months). I'm inclined to think that's because they ship to their stores and then leave the stock on the shelves forever, because it definitely looks like my store has had a whole case and nobody has been buying them but me. So I suppose it could just be that my last few bottles were old.
