Good news if you eat Rachels Organic Yoghurts

Good news if you eat Rachels Organic Yoghurts (in the UK)

Since I was diagnosed with the BoP allergy, I've been gradually, as I'm sure you all have, been e-mailing food manufacturers asking about their ingredients.

A week or so ago I e-mailed Rachels Organic yoghurts to see if I was able to eat their Strawberry and Raspberry yoghurts.

I got an email from their customer services today, who confirmed for me that there is no vanilla in either of those yoghurts' natural flavourings :)

I'm chuffed to bits as I love raspberry yoghurts.

I've already been eating their Greek Style Honey yoghurts as the ingredients were pretty clear on their website - but I'm a raspberry & strawberry yoghurt fan really.

As I get responses from manufacturers I'll post to let you know the results.

Personal care products that I'm using right now

Well, I'm about a month into these allergies and I finding that I'm triple-checking the labels on all my products as I keep finding out about more allergens.

These are the products that I found are 'safe' for me right now:

Body
Simple Pure Soap (50p a bar)- I bought this the day after I was diagnosed and I use it for washing (almost) everything in the shower.

Sainsburys Pure Bar Soap (50p a bar)- This I use to wash my hands with. I bought it at the same time as the Simple one, thinking that if one didn't work, hopefully the other one would. Also as a test, I thought if my whole body reacted then the simple bar was out and if only my hands reacted then this one would be out. So far, both are fine.

Dove Pure Roll-On Deoderant - There are only about five or so ingredients in this. I've been using it since day two and so far so good. Alas, because its fragrance-free, if I have a busy day, I do end up a little stinky. So I just dab a little peppermint oil on my sleeves and that seems to sort out that problem :)

Neutrogena Deep Moisture Body Lotion for Sensitive Skin (£3.82) - I love this body cream and it's one of the only products that carried over from the 'Before-Diagnosis' days. It's a great moisturiser, had is fragrance-free and soothes any mild itches that you might get. It seems to calm the skin a bit too. It won't work on the big angry rashes that we get, that's what our medicated creams are for, but small, just starting rashes it can soothe.

Cocoa Butter Lotion Bar - I make these myself and they also moisturise and soothe my skin. They contain cocoa butter, coconut oil and beeswax. I also use this if I want to use a mild fragrance as it smells slightly chocolate-y which is nice :)

Sensodyne Total Care F Toothpaste - I just changed to this as I realised that my current toothpaste had limonine in it, so I just switched. I've never really had any oral symptoms before, but it's best to cut it all out at first to see which products really are bad for you.

Face

Sainsburys Pure Bar Soap (50p a bar) - is what I use to wash my face. I was using Elemis Sensitive Face wash up until last week, when I saw that it had Parfum in the ingredients. Not good. I figured that I'd try this as I had a sencond bar lying around. And I've found that it works great, I've not had any reactions to it, I've not had any spots and it cleans my face.

Clinique Dramatically Different + Lotion (£17-£29) - I used to use Clinique all the time, but eventually wandered away because they keep discontinueing the lines that I like to use. However, since I was diagnosed,  I've gone through 5 moisturisers before I decided to go back to Clinique. I went to one of their counters and the lady there let me read pretty much all of their labels until I decided on this one. I've been using it since Friday and I've had no problems with it so far. Plus their claims of it being more moisturising than their previous Dramatically Different Lotion, seem to be true with me.

Hair

Neal's Yard Create Your Own Hair & Body Wash - I bought this specifically for shampoo use as the Simple one I'd been using had geramium oil in it. This was the only one I could find that was BoP and Fragrance-free. I've used it twice now, and so far so good. I don't get the red lumps come up on my hairline that I always got with my old shampoos & conditioners. So I'll take it as a win :)

Fractionated Coconut Oil - I've been using this as a hair conditioner. I was using the solid coconut oil, but I kept getting water into my jar making it go mouldy. Luckily I had a bottle of this lying around. This seems to work quite well as well. I have thick, curly hair and have always needed a Frizz serum, but I haven't needed to since I started using this fractionated coconut oil. Thank goodness I thought to use this because so far, I've not found a conditioner that I can use.

Clothes Washing
 
Simply Sensitive Laundry Powder Tablets (£3.60)

Surcare Fabric Conditioner (£1.50)



Well, these are all the products I'm using right now. It's been a constantly changing list. I usually keep a health journal, but since the diagnosis, I've also been keeping track of all the products that I've not gotten along with.

If you like, I'll do a post shortly about those items and why they didn't work for me.

What is Fragrance Mix Allergy?

The other thing my patch test showed was an allergy to the two fragrance mixes they use. Apparently a lot of people diagnosed with a Balsam of Peru allergy also test positive for fragrances too.

Yet again the best information I found was on the DermNZ website here. This site is extremely helpful, it seems that the components of the Fragrance mixes are:

Cinnamic alcohol 
This smells like hyacinth and is a natural fragrance found in cinnamon leaves, propolis oil, and hyacinth oil. You can find this in most toiletries and in chewing gums and cola drinks, vermouth & bitters.

Cinnamic aldehyde
This smells and tastes of cinnamon, and is actually a part of cinnamon oil.

Eugenol
Smells strongly of clove, is found in oils of cinnamon leaf and clove. Can also be found in carnations, roses, violets & hyacinths. Which pretty much means that wearing a perfume/cologne is pretty much out unless you do a ton of research.

Isoeugenol
Another clove smell, and is a part of ylang ylang and nutmeg oils .

Geraniol
Smells like roses and comprises of large parts of citronella, jasmine, lavender, geranium, palmarose and rose oils. And is in a ton of essential oils.

Alpha amyl cinnamic alcohol
Smells strongly of jasmine and is in lot of synthetic essential oils. So if you're an essential oil user, this and the above make using them a whole lot more complicated.

Hydroxycintronellal
Smells like lily of the valley and is also in synthetic fragrances.

Oak Moss absolute
This smells woody and is an essential oil produced by the solvent extraction of tree lichen. And is used in lots of scented mens products.


Pretty much everything here is in personal care products and perfumes/colognes (well they are fragrances :)) So, at first we'll spend a lot of time in supermarkets reading product labels.
I think I spent about 2 hours in Sainsburys looking at every personal care product. I found only 5 items that I could use! And this was a large Sainsburys too, so quite a large selection.

As this is all still new to me, I find that I have to carry printouts of all my allergy's components around with me - there's just so many names to remember.

What is Balsam of Peru Allergy?

There doesn't seem to be a definitive list online of Balsam of Peru.

The best one I found is here

Balsam of Peru is a sticky substance from the bark of a Myroxolon balsamum tree in El Salvador.

It seems to be used in pretty much every product that you might want to put on your body and want to eat.

When reading product labels be on the look out for any combination of:

• cinnamic acid,
• cinnamyl cinnamate,
• benzyl benzoate,
• benzoic acid,
• vanillin (Vanilla)
• cinnamon,
• cloves,
• nutmeg,
• citrus peel
• tomatoes*

 
*Now tomatoes are very rarely mentioned on the official 'Avoid-Lists' given out by Hospitals, but I did find a study online that shows that we should avoid them. I'll do a post on that soon.
This is a tricky substance because it's not only known as Balsam of Peru, although I haven't actually seen anything labelled as Balsam of Peru, thinking about it :). It's also known as:

• Balsamum peruvianim
• Black balsam
• China oil
• Honduras balsam
• Indian balsam
• Peruvian balsam
• Surinam balsam
• Balsams, Peru
• Balsam Peru oil
• Oil balsam peru
• Peru balsam
• Peru balsam oil
• Myroxylon pereirae klotzsch resin
• Myroxylon pereirae klotzsch oil
• Myrosperum pereira balsam
• Toluifera Pereira balsam 

So you have to keep a sharp eye out.

When buying toiletries, you'll find it's the Benzoates & Cinnamates that try to catch you out. So far I've found about 5 facial moisturisers that I might be able to use. I'll do some posts soon about what toiletries I'm using, and I may also review the products as I find them as well.

Please, chip in if you know of anything I haven't mentioned. The more information on this allergy the better :)
 

Hello, and welcome to Cathy Bumbles along.

Here's a little bit about me I'm 34, and I've had ME/CFS for about 17 years.

For the last few years I've been suffering with skin rashes that were driving me crazy with their itchy-ness and in June I got a large rash on the top of each foot that every shoes I owned would rub against.


I'd been prescribed corticosteroid creams, but I finally convinced the GP that something more was wrong.

I was referred to Dermatology, had a patch test. And two weeks ago I was diagnosed with Allergies to Balsam of Peru and Fragrance mix.

I was given a leaflet and told to avoid everything on it.  I looked up the allergies up on the internet, but there wasn't much information around.

The one thing I found out is that Balsalm of Peru and Perfumes are in EVERYTHING. And there is some conflicting information out there.

So this is my journey figuring out these allergies, I hope you join me.

Cathy