I share how I got back into makeup after being diagnosed with dry eyes, blepharitis and MGD, as well as my favorite brands. This is not medical advice. Just sharing my experience!
Hello friends! How are you; I hope you had a wonderful morning! We’re wrapping up Rodeo break (wah) so the kids can go back to school and get back to changing things around here. I hope you have a great day!
For today’s post, I wanted to do a reader’s request after a comment I received last week. Since posting about my eye problems, I’ve been overwhelmed by amazing messages and comments, but also saddened to hear that so many of you have been in a similar boat with flare-ups, autoimmune issues, and painful, red eyes. While I was in the depths of all of this last year, I was so frustrated and sad. I couldn’t see myself wearing contacts or eye makeup again. (I have no foresight, so in my mind, what happens now means it will happen forever.)
I couldn’t wear makeup for many months and slowly went back to contacts and eye makeup. It took a lot of work and healing – I’ll share more on my healing journey and what I’ve done to reduce my histamine responses and inflammation in an upcoming post – but *knock wood* I can finally make it through the day without thinking constantly my eyes. I’m just putting this hope out there for my dry eye friends — it can and will get better. This won’t be forever. Hold on, friends.
Please remember I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. At the same time, many traditional eye doctors were overwhelmed by my condition and did not know how to help me. I was determined to get to the root cause and improve the issue and did a lot of research and experimenting on myself along the way. Shout out to my favorite dry eye expert who gave me some answers and guidance! Shout out to the beauty of functional testing as well, because I learned so much about how my stress, gut imbalances, toxicities and deficiencies were affecting me.
wearing makeup with blepharitis, dry eye and MGD
Here is the comment I received:
I was recently diagnosed with dry eye, MGD and blepharitis and found your post so incredibly helpful! I use a heat mask twice a day, the wipes and spray you’ve recommended (a variety of different types of wipes) and I’ve ordered the disposable masks you use as well. I also use Optase drops several times a day and before bed as well. Questions for you – do you wear any eye makeup? If so, what kind? (I avoid and try not to put anything else on or around my eyes or on my lids like pressed powder or bronzer.) My other question is under eye cream for wrinkles, circles and puffiness…do you use something that you use will did i recommend At this point, I’ve stopped using it as well in an effort to put the least amount of anything on or around my eyes that isn’t treatment related, but my eyes look so worn and tired and I really don’t want to stop I use my eye cream, at least under my eyes. Any suggestions or products you could recommend? Thank you very much!
Can you wear eye makeup with blepharitis?
Here’s the deal: you can’t wear eye makeup when your eyes are puffy and when you have active blepharitis. (Learned the hard and expensive way lol.) Blepharitis is an overgrowth of bacteria on the eyelids and eyelashes, so you contaminate your brushes, eyeliner, face cream, and makeup if you try to wear makeup during this time . year. The first step is to get the blepharitis OUT OF THERE and under control! I had a ZocuZest cleanse at the dry eye specialist and it made a huge difference. I also clean my eyelids daily in the morning and before bed to make sure they stay clean and healthy. My go-to eyelid cleansers are in this post.
Once I had my blepharitis under control and was cleared to wear contacts again, I waited several weeks to make sure I had no flare-ups. (I still had eye flares from the histamine response, which was unrelated to this. It made it extremely confusing and painful! It was a huge lightbulb moment when I reduced my histamine response.) I made sure my eyes were clean and not dry or itchy all day when I worked up the courage to add makeup back into my life.
Here is my makeup strategy:
– Make sure the lids are clean before you start. (Love Cliradex. It burns a little, especially at first, but it works better.) I’ll wait about 15 minutes and pop in my contacts (pre-makeup contacts).
– Use an eyeshadow primer. Thrive Causmetics is my favorite. You want the eyeshadow to stick to the primer so it’s less likely to get on the eye, get trapped and cause inflammation.
– Use soft eyeshadows. Tarte has always been the best for my sensitive eyes. (These are two palettes that I use everyday and they are $40 for both!) I don’t use a ton of the shimmery shadows as the glitter can get in your eyes, but the shimmery neutrals are all perfect.
– Tarte pencil eyeliner. The liquid started making my eyes itch after using it for years! It’s a double-sided eyeliner, so I only use the pencil side
– Tarte primer mascara and mascaraonly in special cases, only on the edges.
– No more eyelash glue. When I need to take pictures from the blog, I attach eyelashes to the outer part of my eyes using the glue that is already on them. They don’t last long, but it’s better than trying to get glue out of my lashes later or getting puffy from the ingredients.
– At the end of the night, I use a makeup eraser towel, clean my face and eyes fresh cleaner, and then use Oasis lid and eyelash cleaner to remove remaining makeup. It’s wild to see how much eyelid cleanser will remove, especially when you think you have it all. I basically went 37 years without properly removing every bit of makeup from my eyes. Yes. Disinfect brushes often too.
* Makeup and contact breaks: I don’t wear eye makeup everyday anymore. I usually wear sunglasses to school, so I only wear makeup on nights when we have something, film blog content, or will be out in public for a long time. During the day I wear glasses while working on the computer and put my contacts in around noon. I have at least 1-2 days each week where I exclusively wear glasses now.
Skin care with blepharitis and dry eyes
I simplified my skincare routine because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t contributing to my allergy reactions. I used the Glow Blueberry Bounce Cleanser – a new bottle and an old favorite of mine – and both eyes were almost completely swollen shut. I contacted the company and they couldn’t tell me what changed with the formula, so no more Glow products for me.
Right now, here’s what works on a daily basis:
– NOW serum (use FITNESSISTA)
– NOW eye cream (use FITNESSISTA)
Sometimes:
All Bright C Serum the overnight peel
Masks:
Red light face mask (use FITNESSISTA15). There are promising studies on the benefits of red light for dry eye, but I still wear eye protection when using this mask.
I think this is it! If you have any questions or anything I can share in my next post, please let me know. If you’re going through this, please don’t take “I don’t know, here’s your steroid crash” as an answer. Find another doctor, seek alternative opinions, seek a dry eye specialist in your area with good reviews. If you can swing it on a budget, functional testing can also give amazing perspective on what’s going on in your unique body. I’m always happy to help with the testing side of things – just email me gina@fitnessista.com subject TEST.
Hope you have a great day and see you soon!
ho ho
Gina
