Suffer from eczema? Here’s exactly how to approach your skincare routine

For as long as I or my parents can remember, my skin has caused me great discomfort, pain, and maybe surprisingly, embarrassment. Living with eczema is, quite frankly, a daily annoyance, and the slightest change in environment can cause huge flare-ups of angry red sores. This has been my daily life for 25 years, and since I did not grow out of it in my teens like many people do, this will be my reality for the rest of my life.

Eczema to most people conjures images of red blotchy skin and dry patches. While that is pretty much true of its basic symptoms, it has much wider ranging effects than that. Every eczema sufferer is different, I’m sure, but we all are at the mercy of the key factors—both avoidable and not—that cause flare-ups to happen: diet (avoidable—I know yeast is a trigger for me); stress (sadly unavoidable and by far my biggest trigger); changes in temperature, and certain fabrics, such as wool. Try navigating winter dressing without being able to wear wool (it irritates eczema beyond belief), or party dressing when just looking at unnatural fibres such as Lurex summons the pain they will inflict. Cotton for a Christmas party just doesn’t have a chic ring to it, does it?

There are worse things to live with than eczema, there is no denying that, but people don’t talk about how much effort it can actually be to cope with. I don’t let eczema dictate what I do, but I do have to consider things that other people don’t. Take a night out. Alcohol robs your skin of moisture, so one drink too many can mean itchy, dry skin for a few days after. This, I can handle. Couple the alcohol with a hot nightclub dance-floor, however, and you have a situation that causes massive and instant discomfort. One night out with friends can mean a week of open sores on my neck, arms and legs, not to mention my back and face.

When I was a child, eczema would only affect the creases of my arms, the backs of my knees and my neck. Now, though, I think the only place on my body that doesn’t fall prey to the sores is my feet. Mostly, I can hide the embarrassing, angry red rashes (as I see them – the reality is no one else cares), from prying eyes with soft cotton long sleeved-tops and trousers all year round, but when it spread to my face a few years ago, that was a new low.

As soon as the temperature drops in October, a big red blotch appears on my right cheek and over my eyelids. Facial eczema is definitely the hardest to combat, and the edit of products below has really helped me to keep my eczema down. I still have a red mark on my cheek, but it isn’t sore or itchy, and does not look nearly as angry as it might do if left it alone. This year, it’s simply a rougher patch of manageable skin. (Not like last year, when I had to sit in the open-plan office with a make-up free, blotchy face slathered in Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream to try and ease the pain.)

When it comes to dealing with eczema, I have tried everything. I’ve thrown money at the problem, tried dead sea salt baths, slathered myself in horrible greasy emollients (which leave me feeling like a chicken prepped to be roasted, not nice). You name it, I’ve probably done it. And over the course of 25 years, I have picked up some valuable learnings – however obvious they may seem. Baths are to be avoided, or kept short and lukewarm. Ditto showers, which should be lukewarm, never hot, and kept to one a day (and even skipped some days). Non-bio washing powder is the only way. I have learned to avoid wool and unnatural fibres, and always carry a nourishing balm for flare-ups (Bobbi Brown’s is highly recommended). On top of that I now know not to wear make-up over eczema on my face, and avoid wearing any when possible, and – finally – there is no such thing as too much moisturiser.

Recently, I’ve started taking a probiotic called Symprove to see if I can heal from within, and Curapel just announced a supplement called Pellamex to help boost fillaggrin production (fillaggrin is a protein that strengthens the skin barrier and it is found to be lacking in most eczema sufferers), so maybe that’s worth a spin too. For now though, I stand by a rigorously tested edit of skincare products that keep me moisturised, boost my skin’s hydration and soothe irritations to help keep sores at bay.