I've only recently had to deal with this major eczema flair up stuff, and until recently didn't even know that what I was dealing with was eczema and/or psoriasis. It was a friend who deals with it herself who told me what I'm dealing with. I've never had it this bad, so I've never seen a doc about it, and I currently take nothing for it because I can't afford to see a doc due to low income and no insurance (don't make enough to afford it and make too much for state programs, go figure)
But, historically I've been unable to use OTC shampoos, soaps ,perfumes, etc for decades because I have always reacted to things in them. It's always been a hit or miss thing because I won't know if something is an issue until I use it and either immediately break out in hives, or get rashy skin over time. My response to this has been to religiously only use certain products because I know they won't bother me. I've been using the same soap, detergent for the eons. I always assumed this was allergy based, not a skin condition, so I've always just taken a benadryl and switched products. I've probably been doing the right things all along by accident LOL.
As to my eczema, when I was a kid, the rashy thing was a hit or miss thing. Sometimes it would be a quick small rash that would disappear a day later, sometimes it would be bad reaction that lasted weeks. It was always handled by the adults as nothing more than a simple rash. No one ever told me it was eczema. I never received any meds for it, never had to use special creams etc. At no time did anyone tell me I had eczema, it was simply understood that Gigi was sensitive to chemicals, so we don't use certain things, and being a kid, I accepted that. I took it all as normal, assumed everyone dealt with stupid rashes and took oatmeal baths. What did I know, I was a kid LOL
As I became an adult, most of it stopped. I suppose it stopped because I was doing the product buying, so avoided any skin care product that was blue or green colored (a huge issue for me years ago), only bought pretty smelly things in small tester sizes until I determined that it wasn't going to make me all rashy, and pretty much avoided most topical skin stuff. Detergents at work were never an issue for most of life because I always brought my own bar of soap from home or requested something I could use. Plus I tended to wear gloves at most of my previous manual labor jobs as an ordinary part of my work (house cleaning, working job sites, freight work, etc) or didn't need them if I was at a desk job.
It's only in the past couple of years that this has become a more annoying issue, and only in the past couple of months, that I've been dealing with mega flair ups. My interest in learning about handmade soap has been driven by my curiosity regarding the difference between commercially produced soaps vs handmade soaps and how those differences impact my skin.
It's going to sound very ridiculous, but for some reason, the use of FOs in handmade soap seemed safer to me. I dunno why I thought the FOs were somehow less an issue but I did. And the one I used in both batches in question doesn't seem to bother me, because the first batch gives me no trouble. It also never occurred to me that any of the oils used could give me trouble. Again, because I equate handmade with safer, so didn't think any oil used would bother my skin. I can't imagine making soap and not testing it out before giving it to others to use, so I'm gonna have to at least suffer through hit and miss reactions on my hands and wrists, if I'm going to continue soaping.
Cuz I'm not giving up soaping - no way Jose - not happening LOL.
But it makes me sad to think I can't have pretty smelly soaps for myself
