16. The Good News about Eye Makeup and Lipstick

Doctor Jacob here today, with another episode for you.

Today it's some good news about eye makeup and lipstick. So eye makeup is really nice because first around the eyes, that tends to not be the acne-prone skin, and second, a lot of comedogenic ingredients can be irritating around the eyes and have been removed from the makeup by the manufacturers. In fact, the D&C red dyes, which we talked about in the episode about blushers, they are not permitted in eye makeup by many governments regulations, so makeup can't even have that in there as a comedogenic ingredient. So eye makeup tends to be really safe, and if you want to cross over your eye makeup, for example if you have a red eyeliner and you want to use it as a blush, that's a really great idea. So eye makeup tends to be wonderfully safe.

A word about makeup removers. When you go to remove the eye makeup, if it gets smeared all over the face, or if you're using a makeup remover which itself has comedogenic ingredients, then that can be a problem. So I do recommend if you want just plain mineral oil - it's cheap and easy to get a hold of and will remove makeup no problem. However you remove the makeup, be sure to wash your face with soap or cleanser and water after removing the makeup.

Now, a couple of words about lipstick. Lipstick is an exception. So we talk a lot about searching for ingredients that could be comedogenic and clog the pores. Well, luckily on the lips it doesn't matter, because there are no oil glands, there are no pores on the lips; there are no hair follicles to get sludged up, you can't actually get acne on the vermilion lip, which is the pink part of the lip. The only time people get into trouble with lipstick is when they don't apply it carefully and it gets smudged into the skin around the lips, and then you have potentially the ability to generate some acne, some little bubbles, some comedones, as we say, if you're not careful in applying the lipstick to the lip and you smudge it around a little bit.

Well, that's the good news for today. Lipstick is safe as long as it's applied properly, and eye makeup - you can go crazy with; do whatever you want, as long as you remove it with something that doesn't break out your acne and you wash your face afterwards.

I'm Doctor Jacob, we'll see you next time.