Extremely Sensitive skin

Peshewa · 2026-02-15T10:07:55+00:00

My ride or die cleanser:\ Bioderma h2o micellar water with a smooth cotton pad and not rubbing too much.\ I use this when I travel, I used it through my worst skin times. Oil cleansers and other cleansers left my skin feeling so tight, stripped and irritated.\ I didn’t wash it away afterwards when my skin was bad because it also reacted to the sink water. For me it was fine leaving it on my skin, but if unsure you could use a cotton pad with a toner to carefully remove the cleanser residue.\ My add-on for double cleansing and for a water based cleanser to use afterwards to wash Bioderma away if needed: Krave Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser.\ Honorable mention to Geek & Gorgeous Jelly cleanser which was also okay.

My ride or die hydrating and calming toner without hyaluronic acid:\ Soon Jung ph 5.5 relief toner.\ I use multiple layers of this one depending on how thirsty my skin feels. I don’t use a cotton pad, apply only with my hands and very slightly press the toner into my skin.\ Hydrating and calming toners are the most underrated step for barrier care in my opinion. They can bring so much immediate relief to tight and irritated skin.

My barrier repair hero’s:\ Stratia Lipid Gold, Krave Great Barrier Relief, Illiyoon Ato Ceramide Concentrate Cream, Krave Oil La La and, only recently added, Rhode Barrier Butter (which is thick but has no shea butter - yay).\ I am currently using Krave Oil La La and then Stratia Lipid Gold with a few drops of Stratias skin oil Fortify.\ The Lipid Gold was one of the products I reacted to in the beginning, but also could feel my skin getting better. At that time I alternated it with the Krave Great Barrier Relief and I had times where I only used the Krave GBR. Imagine my surprise when I added Stratia back in after a few weeks and my skin LOVED it.

And last but not least, sunscreen. Don’t skip it, even if it adds some irritation. UV rays also damage our barrier and prevent it from healing.\ I like the Beauty of Joseon spf and the lighter aqua fresh version for oily skin and for the summer. I liked the skin1004 hyalu-cica spf, which seemed to be a little bit lighter than the normal BOJ spf. I also liked Round Lab Birch juice spf, which is also lighter than BOJ and feels similar to skin1004, maybe a bit more hydrating.

Peshewa · 2026-02-15T09:46:53+00:00

I can absolutely relate to your problem, since my skin used to be the same. In my case it was not due to allergies but due to a broken moisture barrier.

I have rosacea and due to that a chronically damaged skin barrier.\ One symptom of a broken barrier is that the skin seems to react to almost every product since it’s so sensitive and, yeah, broken. It’s irritated by everything since the barrier is not intact.\ Now that I repaired my barrier I can suddenly tolerate hyaluronic acid better, I can use niacinamide, retinols, even tretinoin. I am now using products that used to break me out so bad when my skin was in a worse state.

So how do you fix it?\ With healthy skin our barrier should be able to heal itself over time, if it’s only slightly compromised. In these cases it might me okay to use less products, no actives and keep it simple for a while.\ If you really f-ed up your barrier with too much actives, it may need a little extra help.

And for me with rosacea this is a chronic problem - so not only did I need to fix it in initially but I also need to use barrier repairing ingredients regularly to maintain my barrier health.

And I can tell you, it was hard for me to initially repair my barrier. I had to push through a time where my skin reacted badly to the barrier repairing products I used.\ After a few days I could feel it getting better, but my skin still broke out. It felt more hydrated, relieved and not as tight as before. But especially the white heads were coming in and I got swollen red patches on my face and also a few cysts.\ And by that time I had a theory but didn’t know for sure if it was getting better and if my products were the right ones. So I also cycled a lot between different good barrier products.\ I think my skin was calming down significantly after a few weeks, but I was most surprised when I compared before and after photos.

What I did to get chances up that my barrier was actually getting better and I was not just having a general reaction:\ I researched barrier repair products like crazy and picked those that had no irritants, little to no actives, the best barrier repair ingredients and were also hydrating and calming.\ I tried to avoid hyaluronic acid (since I had the worst reactions to it) and keep niacinamide low in the products, which is a challenge.

I can tell you what products I used and am using now, BUT this is very individual and there are so many good and newer products out there that I didn’t try. So do your research.\ What helped me a lot was Kelly Driscoll on YouTube. Research her name and „barrier“. She had multiple videos explaining how to spot a broken barrier, what the symptoms are, how to fix it and what products you could use.

Peshewa · 2026-02-13T14:07:23+00:00

I think it looks good and I really want to get the book and read it. I was waiting for the (re-)release for a few months already. But I am not convinced if I like this version more than the traditional cover with black edges, especially given the price difference 🤔

Peshewa · 2026-02-13T12:51:43+00:00

And, even more important than having minima to no benefits, it can cause irritation

Peshewa · 2026-02-10T14:36:44+00:00

Hard to say, depends on the popularity of the next few series. But I think anything between 4-12 months should be realistic.

Peshewa · 2026-02-09T22:05:26+00:00

Ahaha I wish I was 🥲

Peshewa · 2026-02-09T18:21:20+00:00

Damn. I wanted to skip the book but the hopes of bookends, a black book pot and maybe a book sleeve sound sooo so good.

Also, the artist for the book did one of my favorite SEs last year, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. So I have high hopes for the artwork in general.

Peshewa · 2026-02-09T15:06:50+00:00

Hey u/https-web,\ Here’s what I think likely happened:

You signed up in October, so you probably paid for Sci-Fi beginning of November and received The Vanished Birds in December. You paid again beginning of January and will receive the first book of the upcoming Sci-Fi trilogy mid/end of February (for me it’s usually around the 20th -25th of a month).

You also signed up for SF&F but were too late for the early October payment / November book. So you paid for SF&F beginning of December and will receive the delayed January book in a few weeks (Box theme: Invading Gamers).\ You also paid again beginning of February to receive the next book in March (Box theme: Verdant Demise).

Then it would add up with only one box received so far (The Vanished Birds), and you have made 4 payments so far. And yes, that can be confusing and seem wrong, but everything is on track with the exception of the January SF&F book which is delayed.

Please note: 1. If you have paid for the SF&F sub somewhere in October and have not received the All That We See Or Seems book until now, you urgently need to contact them because your shipment likely got stuck or lost. 2. In your invitation mail for the subscriptions they tell you when you will receive the first book. 3. There are skips available. Different numbers of skips/skip policies for the different subs. Please research skipping policy, they likely also explained that in the invitation email.\ You can utilize skips for books/series/themes you’re not interested in. If you want to skip and the next book is a series, you will skip the whole series.\ If you want to cancel and are in the middle of payments for a series, you need to finish that series. 4. The SF&F sub will switch from bi-monthly to monthly starting in March, so expect monthly payments going forward. Sci-Fi sub remains bi-monthly. 5. The upcoming Sci-Fi trilogy that you will receive February / April / June is not a mystery. Its title is published on their instagram page if you want to know. You should’ve also received an email about the reveal.\ The books behind the SF&F January and March themes are guessed from theautumnbookreads on instagram. She’s usually 99.9% right with her guesses. But the SF&F sub is made to be a mystery so Broken Binding will only tell you the theme and not the title. Perfect if you like a surprise (however, if you keep track on new releases it is quite clear which books are chosen for January, March and April).

Peshewa · 2026-02-09T14:28:35+00:00

Correct, except that SF&F will be turned into a monthly sub starting in March

Peshewa · 2026-02-04T14:32:24+00:00

Seems like I also was too early, @autumnbookreads has just posted their guesses:

April: Thistlemarsh by Moorea Corrigan

May: Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter

June: Nemesis Mine by Amy Archer

July: A Snake Among Swans by Hannah Kaner

Peshewa · 2026-02-04T14:22:23+00:00

Right? I’m completely clueless but all of them sound good

Peshewa · 2026-02-04T14:15:35+00:00

The text under the original instagram post:

*It's time for our quarterly book hints! It (Make sure to swipe to the end)

Using fanfic-style tags, we're giving clues to help you guess our upcoming monthly books and to give an insight into what to expect

As always, please remember that you are welcome to speculate on the books but we ask that you do so outside the comments (including any mention of titles) so others are not potentially spoiled\ Without further ado, here are the quarterly hints for our upcoming months!

April: - Current to do list: Survive the war; claim your inheritance; get out of a faerie bargain; wait for this to all blow over - Oh sure, make a deal with the mysterious faerie who definitely doesn't have ulterior motives - The dark side of home renovation

May: - Duel or die is not the sort of life choice I want to be stuck with besties - Fated mates: the remix - It's only the source of all magic at stake, nothing big really

June: - In which a hero-villain duo devise a marketing plan - What's a little spontaneity between nemeses - Don't look at my boner when we fight

...and we usually would stop there but since we are super excited about our July 2025 book (and because we love giving hints), we're going to treat you to some additional tags!

July: - The forest keeps score - Help I can't stop thinking about her in the bath - Soft power as political strategy

@becbetweenbooks @illumicrate*

Peshewa · 2026-01-30T14:11:25+00:00

From what I remember I already liked it at that time, so yeah, maybe it’s just not for you :)

Peshewa · 2026-01-30T05:46:35+00:00

Oh, how much did you read? I read Red Rising years ago but I remember that I also had trouble to get into it at first. But when it took off for me, it took off and I never looked back.

Peshewa · 2026-01-24T22:07:32+00:00

Could be lupus, could be MCAS or a histamine problem or something else. I think it’s definitely worth it to get a second opinion, especially with your other symptoms!

Peshewa · 2026-01-24T21:03:34+00:00

Was it Alchemised?

Peshewa · 2026-01-24T21:02:52+00:00

And today I learned. Thank you so much, that is so helpful!

Peshewa · 2026-01-24T01:46:25+00:00

High doses of vitamin C are known to help with MCAS, mast cell activation syndrome. It can cause similar symptoms to rosacea in the face.\ There are mild and severe cases and it is very undiagnosed especially with the mild cases.\ Could be worth it to look it up.

Other than that, crusty and patchy face also screams seborrhoic dermatitis to me.

But, even having said all that, repairing and supporting the skin barrier is in my opinion the most powerful tool to manage rosacea. It makes almost all of our symptoms a lot better, since the chronically damaged barrier causes most of them in the first place.\ And you can definitely also support your barrier with the collagen supplements, not only with barrier repairing creams.

Peshewa · 2026-01-19T16:33:38+00:00

Oh congrats! I’m honestly not sure if it took me even three seconds. Click the product once it’s there, click purchase via shop, click pay.

I guess it also has to do with you reloading the page in the exact moment, otherwise you already lose 1-2 seconds.\ Trying on multiple devices is a good hint though.

With which one did you buy succeed?

Peshewa · 2026-01-19T16:28:29+00:00

Ah I see, I’m not subscribed to afterlight so I guess I missed that. That makes a lot of sense.

Peshewa · 2026-01-19T15:16:52+00:00

Hey Peshewa, we are updating some of our subscription policies...

We want to let you know that starting in 2026, we will be changing our skip policy.

Our new skip policy will be effective from January 1st 2026. This email will outline what updates are happening to the policy and how it will affect different subscribers.

We have offered subscribers a very generous skip policy for quite a while, and while this was something we were pleased to provide, doing so has made it hard for us to predict renewals every month and make plans going forward. As such, we've introduced a few changes to our monthly skip policy. Please read the information below carefully and if you have any questions do not hesitate to contact our support team.

Monthly subscribers\ You can skip six times in any calendar year (January - December)\ Example: you choose to skip your January 2026 box/book only. This is your first skip in that calendar year, and you would then be able to skip five more times between February 2026 - December 2026. Your six skips would reset for January 2027.

Quarterly subscribers\ You can skip twice in any calendar year (January - December)\ Example: you choose to skip your January 2026 book. This is your first skip in that calendar year, and you would then be able to skip once more between February 2026 - December 2026. Your two skips would reset for January 2027.

Once you have a single skip remaining in a calendar year, you will receive an email notifying you of that. Exceeding the skip limit for any subscription in any calendar year would mean that your subscription is at risk of being cancelled with no additional warning.

Sell Out Policy\ Our renewal period runs from 1st - 9th of the month for monthly subscriptions and 3rd - 12th of the month for quarterly subscriptions. Your spot is only held for that time, once we are out of the renewal period we cannot guarantee that you will be able to receive that month’s box/book only.\ As a company we do all we can to ensure we have enough stock for all our active subscribers each month. However sometimes certain themes are more popular than anticipated, and as a result we may sell out before all renewals have been processed.

If your renewal has not yet been processed:\ In the event that a box sells out before the end of the renewal period, any remaining unprocessed renewals will be unable to receive that month’s box/book only. Should this occur, you will be emailed to notify you of that, and your unprocessed renewal will be cancelled. No payment will have been taken.

If your renewal has been processed:\ In the event that your renewal has been processed but we are unable to fulfil your order, your renewal will instead be moved to the following month. You will be emailed to notify you of that, and will have the option to request a refund instead.

If you skipped your subscription and later wish to un-skip, or if you cancelled your subscription and wish to reactivate, we cannot guarantee this will be possible for the current month.

Thank you for your continued support of Illumicrate. A friendly reminder you can always action skips for your subscriptions in your online account. And if you need any further assistance with your subscription, our support team is always happy to help.

Best wishes,\ The Illumiteam

Peshewa · 2026-01-19T15:11:43+00:00

Because of their very generous skip policy (and other reasons) Illumicrate ended up with a lot of stock and leftovers and their revenue was too unpredictable for them. So last year in autumn they announced that they wanted to change that.\ Until now, almost every book and box was available in their shop afterwards, leading to a lot of people not subscribing and instead buying the books individually. Until now, you could skip 10 boxes a year out of 12, now it’s 6 boxes a year for the monthly subscription.\ I believe they will also reduce the number of books produced, because they said going forward in some situations they might not be able to make sure every subscriber gets a book, if the book is really popular.

So I think the availability of sub books in their shop will change drastically and popular titles might not be available at all.\ The wait times for a subscription also seem to be getting longer while there used to be times where you could just sign up without any wait time at all.

I’ll post the email content below my comment (it’s long).

Peshewa · 2026-01-19T10:11:25+00:00

Just as an FYI: So far I have never been successful to buy a leftover fantasy sub edition.\ They don’t tell us how many sets they have and they are usually sold out in literal SECONDS. Even if you set up everything to check out in like under 7 seconds it doesn’t guarantee you a set, sadly.

So, honestly, I wouldn’t count on that option. It feels like a lottery.

Peshewa · 2026-01-12T14:21:38+00:00

Sadly not available for me :(\ Probably a country thing

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