Sometime around November last year, the skin around my eyes started getting very sore and red. My eyelids were red and shiny, sometimes the skin was weeping. Below my eyes, the skin was flaky and red. I would spend days on end without any make-up or creams and then the minute I went back to my normal regime, my eyes would start reacting again. I had been using the Boots Protect and Perfect range so I dumped the whole lot and bought another set of moisturiser and eye cream – this time from Avon. Unfortunately the same thing happened again. It was really getting me down as not only were my eyes sore and painful, but I couldn’t even wear mascara! As my eyelashes are blonde without any help, mascara is one of those Desert Island necessities for me. 

Anyway, back to the story in hand ……I did a bit of research, spoke to a couple of ladies in a local Beauty Salon and my GP and realised that I was one of the many, many women around who had suffered similar reactions.

The cosmetics and creams that most of us use and buy on a daily basis are packed full of all manner of nasties that we wouldn’t consider rubbing in our faces if we really understood what they contained. So many manufacturers bandy the word ‘natural’ around and constantly pull the wool over, not only, our proverbial eyes.

In the moisturisers and cleansers section of Boots recently, I looked at around 10 different labels on so-called ‘natural’ products and all of them contained Sodium Laurel Sulphate (SLS or SLES). Go from this article to Google and look it up along with parabens and the other multifarious ingredients listed on the back of your own cosmetics and be prepared to be shocked.

I have become a Weleda convert since my eye debacle a few months back and haven’t had one single problem since except for the weekend I went to Paris, forgot my eye cream and bought a Roc one which caused an immediate flare-up.

I now use the Weleda Almond Cleansing Lotion to cleanse and take my make-up off in the evening and I use the Weleda Wild Rose Day Cream and Wild Rose Intensive Eye Cream every morning and night. I find night creams generally too heavy for my skin although perhaps I should be using them at my age. The Wild Rose range smells absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never before used such a nice-smelling moisturiser. The Weleda Sea Buckthorn Body Lotion sinks in beautifully but oh I wish they had packaged it in something a little less medicinal looking. The bottle really does remind me of the old Milk of Magnesia bottles.

So if you want to go down the really natural, chemical-free route for your cosmetics then Weleda is defintely the way to go.

6 Ingredients to Avoid (If you see any of these synthetic ingredients on a personal care product, think twice before buying it.)

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
DMDM Hydantoin
Petrolatum
Parabens
Oxybenzone
Dimethicone

Dr Hauschka, Neals Yard Remedies and Burts Bees are all worth taking a look at too but are considerably more expensive than Weleda for similar products.

Mrs C.