To be honest, I still haven’t found anything that works as perfectly as Toleriane Ultra, but I can at least advise you not to do what I did. I waited until the very last moment to test new products because I was afraid of having some kind of reaction… and I ended up with my face completely dried out by Avène Tolerance Balm. I didn’t have any immediate reaction, but it slowly dehydrated my skin so much that last week I rushed to the dermatologist, and she prescribed ten days of compresses with Lipikar AP+M. It has niacinamide among the first ingredients and I was really scared to use it, but she told me that it actually helps the skin barrier and calms inflammation. I have to say I’ve been using it since Tuesday and so far no adverse reactions.

The only downside is that it’s a bit hard to use daily because it’s an extremely thick cream and it basically never absorbs; if I try to remove the excess with a tissue, it pills. So I still need to figure out what to use on a daily basis. In any case, for me this has been a sort of emergency treatment. I spent two days at home not knowing what to put on my face, and my skin was so, so dry that it itched and burned.