For most of my life, I never really had to worry about acne. Like many, I would get the occasional spot or two during my teenage years, but it was never anything major, while I did have combination skin my only concerns were the few blackheads over my nose. However, out of the blue, I started to develop clusters of closed comedones—tiny, stubborn bumps that seemed to appear overnight.
In an attempt to clear my skin, I turned to BHA toners, hoping they would help unclog my pores. But instead of improving, my skin took a turn for the worse and erupted into full-blown acne. I was baffled. I hadn’t changed much in my routine other than the BHA toner, and I didn’t even suspect my moisturizer since I had been using it for over a month before the breakouts began.
As my acne worsened, I decided to switch my moisturizer just to make sure it wasn’t my cream causing all this trouble, but the breakouts continued. After seeking medical advice, I began using topical antibiotics and tretinoin, hoping these would be the solution. Yet, to my frustration, there was little to no improvement.
Months later, still struggling with persistent acne, I decided to change my moisturizer again. To my shock, after this switch, the breakouts finally stopped! No more new breakouts and the ones I have started to resolve by themselves. Leaving my face with some post-inflammatory erythema that I was happy to deal with instead of my acne.
Intrigued, I revisited the ingredient lists of my previous moisturizers, and that’s when I discovered that both contained shea butter. A quick online search revealed that, for some people, Shea butter (Butyrospermum parkii Butter) could indeed cause comedones. It was such a surprising revelation, and I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to figure out the culprit.
I hoped this would be the end of my skincare struggles, but unfortunately, my skin had become tired, angry, and red from all the actives I had been using to solve my acne. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in my skincare journey the hypertensive journey that I am still struggling with—one that I’ll share in my next post.
Note: I really don’t think everyone should avoid shea butter I think it is a great ingredient, especially for people with sensitive dry skin, but understanding your skin is what we all should do, Knowing which ingredients your skin likes and dislikes is what my story is all about.
My personal struggle through skincare is the fuel that powers me to build True Glassy, You can add your avoided ingredients to the app so you can skip products that trigger your concerns just like I add Shea butter (Butyrospermum parkii Butter) to my avoided ingredients, doing so saved me the time of looking for ingredients of each product individually.
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