This week is invisible illness week. While many of the chats and blog posts around the interwebs have been about raising awareness I thought I’d do a different kind of post – how to treat the visible signs of lupus.
Lupus is latin for “wolf” referring to the lupus face rash reminiscent of a wolf bite. I’ve been pretty lucky (lucky is a relative term) in that I don’t have severe skin issues. That’s not to say I don’t have any lupus related skin issues.
My cheeks and nose are naturally freckled but in between those semi-cute freckles there’s lots of pink. I switch up my facial routine, trying to find something that exfoliates, moisturizes, and reduces the redness caused by lupus.
What doesn’t work: store brand products. Trying to save a couple bucks, I bought the Target brand of the Neutrogena Oil Free Acne wash. I broke out more. St. Ives Apricot Scrub leaves me too dry. Facial wipes are great to rid the top layer of makeup (a necessity when I worked in TV) but I need another face wash to really get clean. Aveeno’s Clear Complextion Cleanser doesn’t have the exfoliating power I need and, like the facial wipes, doesn’t leave my face feeling clean.
Then I read about using lemon juice and honey as a blackhead remover on Pinterest. The acid in the lemon is supposed to brighten your skin while getting rid of bacteria in your pores.
I saw another pin on exfoliating with baking soda and water. As you probably inferred from what doesn’t work, I love the feel of exfoliating beads. But, in traditional cleansers those beads are a little too rough for my sensitive skin. Baking Soda is natural, still giving the scrubbing power I need without the irritation.
This month, I started combining baking soda with lemon juice to wash my face. I LOVE IT! My face feels clean and the pink areas have lightened. Even better, I know I’m not harming my skin with unknown chemicals (can you pronounce every ingredient in your face cleanser? Who comes up with those words?). The icing on the cake is that baking soda and lemon juice can be found anywhere and everywhere and it’s super cheap.
My new facial cleanser
What skin routine works for your lupie face?
WorkingLupie 