Chapped lips, flaky skin, ingrown hairs, more hair in my brush than I’d like – annoying problems that drive me batty. I think I’m not alone craving products that make our lives easier. So here you have my answers to the problems mentioned above – products and ingredients that work! Because from time to time, glamour is overrated.
Therefore, without further ado, three products that have been my personal lifesavers again and again and again.
The problem: chapped lips, ultra-dry and cracked skin, scrapes, minor wounds.
The solution: Panthenol cream is my personal holy grail for all kinds of skin issues. Here in Germany you can buy it under the name Bepanthen Creme from Beyer or Panthenol Salbe. If you’re in the US, I’d recommend searching on Amazon for Bepanthen or Bepanthol, the product from Beyer will come up. It’s a thick, white cream and I virtually use that on everything – on cuts, small wounds, scrapes, hangnails, dry cuticles, rough winter skin. (Don’t use it on burns, though.) Its ingredients are simple – mostly its main components are water, glycerine and lanolin. But that’s not the reason it’s good for your skin. That’s panthenol. Panthenol is a provitamin of B5 (which means that your body will convert it into vitamin B5) and is effective for hydration and wound healing.
I’ve used it on my hands every night for about 20 years now, and let me tell you, my hands don’t show my age. At all. Also, I wake up with nicely moisturized, supple skin on my hands every morning. Then it’s great for dry or flaky lips. I use it on my lips every night and sometimes during the day, especially before I use matte lipstick (apply it when you start doing your makeup, and when you’re done, wipe it off gently), which helps a lot with those extra dry and drying mattes! There’s always a tube of that stuff on my nightstand.
Ingredients to watch out for: Panthenol, or B5.
The problem: Ingrown hairs after you waxed/shaved
The solution: Sagella Sensitive lotion. I suffer from ingrown hairs a lot. No matter if I shave, wax or sugar, I get those pesky little buggers. Now, you don’t peel your skin enough, you might say. Well, I always use a peeling scrub or a peeling mitt every time I shower, and I still get them. As you know, those things get painful and ugly really quick, so some time ago I got kind of desperate and went to my local pharmacy. After a thorough talk with the pharmacist, she recommended Sagella Sensitive lotion that you can use everywhere on your body, even on intimate areas like your bikini zone. It’s touted as a lotion to use after hair removal and makes a lot of claims on their homepage – it’s supposed to be calming after hair removal and also supposed to make hair grow slower. Well, that’s of course hard to judge because hair tends to grow sparser when you remove it regularly, but I can definitely confirm that it both calms and I don’t get ingrown hairs as often as before.
The reason for that is the Black Willow bark extract which contains salicylic acid and hamamelis (witch hazel). Salicylic acid doesn’t only act as an exfoliant, but also as an anti-irritant. It also has anti-microbial properties. Witch Hazel is usually used to reduce swelling and to soothe wounds. It’s a light, milky lotion that doesn’t sting at all – it’s slightly sticky though, so give it a few minutes to dry before you start to dress. I’ve bought this one again and again and again since the nice pharmacist recommended it. (For international readers: Try amazon and ebay if you want to buy this one!)
Ingredients to watch out for: The combo of Salicylic acid and Hamamelis is a winner.
The problem: After washing your hair, it’s so tangled that you can’t drag your comb through it.
The solution: I’ve chemically treated hair, and I go swimming a lot. The harsh chlorine water is a disaster for my hair and no matter how many masks and conditioners I put in it, I leave more broken off strands in my Tangle Teezer that I’d like. When I read about that topic on Beaut.ie, some people recommended detangler sprays for kids as leave-in sprays after washing, but, alas, I don’t have a Boots near me and have to do with paltry German dms. Imagine my surprise when I spotted a detangler spray in their kids’ section! It’s pink, it smells of peaches, its name is ridiculous – but it works (Prinzessind Sternenzauber Leicht-Kämm Spray). And it doesn’t have a bucketful of alcohols and silicones in it, too. When I had a look at the ingredients, though, I’m quite hard-pressed to say what it is exactly that works that well with my hair. It’s a not too uncommon mix of water, a derivate of palm oil that works as a conditioning agent, a humectant and coco glucosamide, a very mild surfactant.
It does work for me, and I conclude that it’s rather the absence of harsher ingredients than an abundance of beneficial ingredients.
Ingredients to watch out for: Not an ingredient per se, but do browse the kids’s section of your local drugstore from time to time! Ingredients are likely less harsh.
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