Eczema is a fairly common skin condition known to cause the skin to become itchy, dry, and bumpy due to various triggers. The skin condition also weakens the skin’s barrier function, causing excessive dryness and sensitivity.
While it can be tricky to manage this skin condition and prevent flare-ups, some adjustments to how you care for your skin can help you effectively reduce rash flare-up frequency and severity.
Here are seven ways to better care for sensitive, eczema-prone skin.
Switch To Natural Laundry Soap
The fragrances, dyes, preservatives, and various other chemicals in most laundry soaps can cause rashes and skin irritation for those with sensitive skin. Laundry detergents with certain ingredients can trigger skin conditions like eczema.
So it’s best to switch to a natural soap for laundry to prevent rash flare-ups.
In addition to changing your laundry soap, it’s also essential to do your laundry correctly. If laundry detergent is not rinsed out thoroughly, leftover residue can upset sensitive skin types.
Moreover, if you don’t use the correct soil level setting on your washing machine, your garments might not be clean enough, and you might experience eczema flare-ups.
Throw Out Chemical Household Cleaning Products
Harsh chemical household cleaning products that contain ingredients like ammonia can be highly damaging to skin health. This particular ingredient can cause pain, inflammation, and even blisters if the concentration is strong enough.
Some studies even link the consistent use of ammonia cleaning products during pregnancy to skin conditions in infancy.
Throw out harmful chemical cleaning products and instead use cleaning products that only contain natural and organic ingredients. Otherwise, you can also consider making your own organic cleaning products with ingredients like vinegar, lemon juice, bicarb, and even mint.
Use Organic Skincare
Skincare products like moisturizers, under-eye creams, cleansers, body wash, and others can also cause skin irritations in those with sensitive skin.
Make sure you are only using skincare products that contain organic ingredients. Harmful ingredients to look out for include synthetic fragrances, sodium lauryl sulfates, parabens, alcohol, and artificial preservatives.
Switch To Organic Cosmetic Products
As with skincare products, it’s also essential to eliminate the use of cosmetic products with risky ingredients.
Makeup often also contains dangerous ingredients for sensitive skin, like parabens, sulfates, and others. These ingredients don’t just enhance the risk of skin irritation and rash flare-ups, as they are also known as cancer-causing ingredients.
Evaluate all your cosmetic products and throw out items that contain harmful ingredients. It’s worthwhile to only buy cosmetics from brands that promise organic and natural formulations if you have sensitive skin.
Invest In Cotton And Other Skin-Friendly Garments
Synthetic fabrics can also cause rashes for those with sensitive skin. Instead of wearing any material, invest in cotton and other natural, skin-friendly fabric choices like cashmere and silk.
Natural fabrics are a lot more breathable, while they also tend to be softer and more comfortable for the skin.
Throw Out Synthetic Bed Linen
As with your wardrobe, it’s also wise to switch your bed linen to natural fabrics.
Synthetic bed linen fabrics like polycotton, microfiber, and others are not breathable. And while this means you’ll be a lot more sweaty during the night, it also means you’ll be experiencing more eczema flare-ups and even acne breakouts.
The best natural bed linen fabrics are 100% cotton or silk. Even though these fabrics are pricier than synthetic options, there’s a good reason cotton and silks are considered a luxury.
Use Natural Topical Remedies To Treat Flare-Ups
Even though you can use cortisone creams and ointments to treat flare-ups effectively, cortisone will lead to skin thinning, a burning, and stinging sensation, changes in skin tone, and other side effects.
Instead of risking eventual skin damage, treat eczema flare-ups with natural ointments like aloe vera gel, apple cider vinegar, oatmeal, honey, tea tree oil, coconut oil, or vitamin E oil. These natural ingredients will soothe the symptoms of a flare-up without damaging the skin.
Caring for sensitive skin can be challenging, even more so if you have eczema-prone skin. Flare-ups can be a damper in terms of confidence, and eczema rashes cause immense discomfort due to itching, dryness, and burnings.
Fortunately, making a few changes to your product and fabric choices can effectively help reduce the frequency and severity of rash flare-ups and skin irritation symptoms. And if these changes don’t bring you any relief, it’s best to consult a dermatologist to evaluate other factors, such as dietary factors that might be disrupting skin health.
