eyes and skin care is no different so today let's discuss the implications of the skincare you're using around your eyes on your ocular surface health welcome back to school with me dr.d where i teach you about products and treatments related to dry eye syndromeand eye beauty so that you can have healthy beautiful comfortable eyes instability and symptoms of dry eye syndrome in addition numerous adverse events have been reported with the use of cosmetics around the eye prospective,
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| Does Skincare Affect Your Eye? How about we Talk Ocular Surface Health!-healthier life day |
studies have demonstrated that eyeliner application at the inner eyelash line or water line is associated with higher levels of tear film contamination and ocular discomfort than application at the outer periocular skin this is why i've been saying for years to never apply your liner on the waterline and a recent randomized trial
also highlighted the potential for eye cosmetic wear to compromise the efficacy of lipid-based dry eye supplements so yes what you're putting around your eyes winds up in your eyes and really matters whether that is your liner your mascara your makeup or your skin care so let's talk about the tears the most superficial layer of the tear foam is composed of a complex mixture of lipids secreted by the meibomian glands and a continuous surface lipid layer is required to inhibit tear evaporation it's been suggested that the migration of
cosmetic products across the eyelid margin may potentially contribute toward an increase in debris within the surface tear film lipid layer in clinical practice i see this all the time cosmetics in the tear film results in very oily looking tears i can literally see your makeup floating in your tears and it absolutely changes your tear chemistry and how your tears behave leading to symptoms of
dryness and irritation and we see that in the studies it causes irritation changes in the lipid film layer meibomian gland blockage and even mibum contamination so that leads to styes if your meibomian glands become contaminated the resulting destabilization of the tears of the lipid layer can prompt increased tear evaporation and reduced tear film stability so your tears
are messed up they're not in the appropriate concentration they should be and your ocular surface pays for that as a result complications of skin and eye products can be related to allergy or toxicity and they're often attributable to perfumes that are within the formulations first i'm going to talk about preservatives and i've talked about preservatives a ton but preservatives are in
everything whether it's your cosmetics or your skin care and this is truly where i say you have to flip over those bottles and see what your skincare is being preserved with the potential role of preservatives used within eye cosmetic formulations has also been raised a review suggested that bak or benzalkonium chloride which
is a quaternary ammonium preservative may contribute toward lipid layer destabilization through its detergent like effects however it's noted that bak is no longer widely used in eye cosmetic products partly due to its re reduced preservative efficacy within formulations containing solid particulate matter so you are
going to see bak within eye drops you're not going to see bak as frequently in any of your solid formulations like you see in cosmetics nevertheless this review also proposed a model by which lipophilic constituents of cosmetic formulations may disrupt the integrity of the tear film lipid layer even in a solid makeup
formulation if there are lipophilic constituents present it can change the lipid layer of your tears i also have on my website a guide to toxic makeup and in that in that guide i have a lot of the preservatives that you'll see often in skin care so make sure to take a look because i rated many of the preservatives as something you should use with caution it's important to realize that we have to
preserve our makeup and skin care the alternative could be much worse right we certainly don't want bacteria or fungal organisms living in our skin care and makeup that we're putting on the delicate structures of our face every day so it is important to have
some preservatives but it becomes an issue of how concentrated are they and what preservatives are used together and in what concentrations and so if you investigate my free download on preservatives in skincare and makeup i think that will be very helpful in helping you as you flip over those bottles and find out
what might or might not be hurting your tear film next up we have actives and skin care actives are often recommended by dermatologists as a way to exfoliate the skin promote collagen formulation and skin regeneration and many of these are acids so you think about ahas and glycolic acid and these all do have
the potential to cause acidic corneal and or conjunctival burns there's anecdotal cases of glycolic acid doing just that getting in the eyes and causing redness and irritation overall it's just important that you use caution with using any acid near your eye obviously and rinse it out very very well if it does get in your eye i would be
remiss if i didn't bring up retinols the effect of tretinoin and retinol derivatives on the meibomian glands is well documented in the literature as well as on my channel i'll link videos i've done on these negative on the negative impact retinols have on the meibomian glands here as well as my advice on how to apply retinol if you must
use it the next category that i've not covered before dyes and fragrances so another component of skin care that is undoubtedly migrating to the ocular surface as the rest of the cosmetic migrates are the dyes and the fragrances that are contained within the product itself like preservatives fragrances and dyes can possibly
modify to your film chemistry and stability and potentially cause irritation as well as dry eye symptoms there are a number of the components of your skin care that could be affecting your eyes your tear film and therefore giving you dry eye symptoms you want
to watch out for preservatives dyes and fragrances as well as any acid-based actives and remember anything you're putting around your eyes will migrate to the ocular surface therefore it's incredibly important to flip over those labels and analyze all the components of the skin care and cosmetics that you're placing around your eyes
think critically about how it will impact your tear film and if you have any questions don't hesitate to comment below and contact me and i'll help you find out if those preservatives or other components are affecting the front of your eye this is an emerging
science this is something we don't know everything about at this time so everything you guys share with me is very helpful in starting these conversations about what our skin care and eye cosmetics do to our ocular surface and if you've made it this far and you're not already.
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