You know what they say about April weather in Germany? That it is temperamental. You´ll always get a mixed bag, ranging from snow to wind to a sudden heat wave.

I didn´t know that was true for everything in your life though, not only for the weather. April surely handed me a mixed bag of events!

 

 

Let´s start with the enjoyable part: We took the kids on a holiday to the mountains, to Nesselwang in beautiful Allgäu, on a farm with animals for some hands on experience. My kids are no strangers to live stock, but really getting involved with feeding the ponies, visiting the chicken in the mornings to get some fresh eggs and seeing the meadows getting fertilized with cow shit (living in the countryside is SO romantic) got them exited. And exhausted by the end of the day, which is always a bonus when traveling with little ones.

 

 

Back then I already had a few patches of eczema on my chest, slowly spreading up to my neck. I am no stranger to atopical eczema, I get the odd patch on my upper arms if I don´t moisturize enough in winter, but so far never experienced it anywhere else. As the first patches appeared on my neck, I went to see my dermatologist. I was pretty certain it was eczema, but I wanted to run my routine past someone professional, to see if I was probably missing something.

She confirmed that it was, yes, atopical eczema, that it had, no, nothing to do with skincare stuff (it started in an area where I don´t apply any face stuff and “actives”, but I still wanted to be sure) and gave me a corticosteroid cream along with the advice to better manage my stress levels, maybe with meditation. *insert major eye roll here*

I treated it with the steroid cream, the patches went away, I stopped using the cream, they came back. Twice. And the third time around not only on my chest and neck, no, they spread on to my face within two days, leaving my skin sore and itchy around the hairline, my eyes and eyebrows, my cheeks and jawline, even on the bridge of my nose. If you look at the picture below, you can see the beginning of it around my hair line.

 

 

So right now, I have stopped doing any kind of skincare routine at all. I treat my face with steroids and Linola, basically a full fat cream developed to ease the itching and soothe the skin. Again, not because I think some of my products are the cause – this is not an allergic reaction (and it flared up all over my body) – but because everything I put on my face burns.

Good thing I have a backlog of product reviews to see me through the upcoming weeks, otherwise things could get quite boring around here.

Oh, and if you ask yourself if my life is particularly stressful right now, let me put it that way: I am a full time working mother of two, trying to build an online presence with her blog and You Tube while maintaining a functional relationship both to her children and her husband. I am not sure if meditation is going to help there…

But speaking of product reviews, let´s see what I did talk about in April!

 

 

Skincare Reviews

My first review, the one about the Sunday Riley Luna Sleeping Night Oil, was actually a republished old one. I have felt the need to put some work in some of my older blog posts for a while now, as they just don´t live up to my standard anymore, but only slowly find the time (see above if you wonder why). This one underwent so many changes that it felt like a completely new blog post, and I treated it accordingly.

Next up was another retinoid oil, or RetinOil, the Instytutum RetinOil Review, which fit perfectly as it gave me the opportunity to compare the two (almost) side by side. After a quick excurse on Cosmeceutical Products and what that term means I published a Brand Overview on Murad Skincare, a U.S. Doctors Brand that is finally available in Germany via Douglas.

 

 

Makeup

The picture above, where I show the beginning eczema patch in my hair line, is actually taken from a Foundation Review, the one of the Sephora Matte Perfection Foundation. On the bright side the eczema patches give me the opportunity to see how a foundation performs on dry patches (or to get comfortable going foundation free), but I admit I rather not have it any longer.

My eyes (especially the right one), have been affected by the eczema flare up as well, but mascara is non-negotiable for me. My pathetic lashes just need some kind of color on the tips to be noticeable. I published the Milk Makeup Ubame Mascara Review with pictures taken before the flare up though, so the close up of my eye does not look to gruesome.

 

 

Lifestyle

Should the eczema flare up continue, I might as well need to turn this one into a lifestyle blog. Good thing I have at least taken a few baby steps into that direction already…

My Low Buy Update March  will be shortly followed up on by the one from April (this Saturday), and after living in my Spring Capsule Wardrobe for almost two months now I am pretty happy that I finally gave it a go. I have a few things on my to buy list that I might share in an upcoming video, but am not sure what I will be able to get as I want to focus on thrifting this time, and that might hold some surprises. But hey, sustainability and such.

Speaking of sustainability, I did film another Beauty Empties video, proof that I do actually use up my stuff and don´t rotate too many thing in and out of my routine.

How has your month been going?