Dear Beauty Banter,
Dealing with rosacea can get annoying. Your skin can be drier on some days rather than others, you wake up with either shades of pink or red on your cheeks, and all you want is for it to disappear with the snap of a finger. For years, I’ve watched my mom put green goo under her foundation, with the hope that the color would mask the red. Is this technique a little outdated? What is the best way to conceal the redness? Plus, applying blush seems like a boundary that should not be crossed. Are there blushes available that work well to hide or blend already pink cheeks?
Sincerely,
Frustrated by Redness
Dear Frustrated,
Rosacea can be extremely frustrating for the sufferer– between the redness, flushing, dryness, burning, and challenges in hiding it. The very first thing that I would recommend is to seek treatment from a dermatologist who can prescribe a variety of medications that can help treat the rosacea and certainly slow its progression. The other thing is to try to figure out what factors can be aggravating the rosacea. The most important is the sun– it is essential to wear a broad spectrum UVA/UVB sunblock every single day of the year to stay protected. Spicy foods, caffeine, and alcohol are also known to aggravate rosacea.??
Skin care must be tailored to sensitive and redness-prone skin, which means avoiding scrubs and astringents. Calming creams such as Eucerin anti-redness, Avnes Redness Relief Soothing Cream, Aveeno ultra-calming, and Clinique’s anti-redness products (to name a few) can be helpful. Applying green primers and moisturizers under foundation can still be quite helpful in cosmetically camouflaging the redness caused by rosacea. I recommend using mineral-based foundations, which not only give good coverage, but also contain extra sun-protection. In addition, I find mineral makeup is soothing to skin and contains little if any preservatives– a definite plus when it comes to rosacea. Once the foundation is applied, a very mildly toned mineral powdered blush can be applied to cheeks for soft glow.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jeannette Graf
A leading skin science expert, Dr. Graf is a board certified, clinical and research Dermatologist. Known for her extensive and comprehensive approach to dermatology, Dr. Graf combines minimally invasive office procedures and effective skincare products with fundamental nutrition and lifestyle counseling to elicit both an inner and outer beauty from each of her patients. Dr. Graf is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and is the author of Stop Aging, Start Living (Crown, Fall 2007), which discusses her four-point body alkalinizing plan as a means to approach beauty, vitality and health from the inside, out. For more information, please visit, www.askdrgraf.com.
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