This one is especially for my friends in the Albinism community. I think we can all agree that – while the blonde hair is a blessing – the translucent skin is a curse! Especially when you have redness on top of that.
I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I purposely keep my arms (in particular) covered. The problem with translucent skin is that redness shows constantly – I know for me, it means my arms end up looking like someone has slapped me, and the rest of my skin is deathly white! I’m so conscious of it, and the only way I’ve covered it before is with a spray tan. But constant spray tanning isn’t pracitical – or financially healthy!
So a few weeks ago, a friend gave me some bottles of a new skincare range that she’s been using recently – a range called Ocean Bloom. Usually, I won’t try a new range even when I do get a recommendation – my skin is so sensitive and the smallest thing can set me off with a rash or reaction. But I must admit, when I checked out the ingredients on their website, I was impressed. Their moisturiser has an SPF – super important for someone with albinism because of our lack of pigment. No parabens, no nasty sulphates or silicones – and all organic ingredients. They don’t test on animals either.
So I thought “I’ll give this a go!”.
I started out with the moisturiser and eye serum. Of course, I patch tested both first, and no reaction so I was ready to go. Woohoo!
Within a week, there was a clear difference in the redness of my face, something I’ve always had trouble with and something I put down to my albinism. The red pigment and hue in my face started to fade – not entirely – but noticeably enough. I’ve been doing a bit of Google’ing, and seaweed (the main ingredient) reduces skin redness, inflammation, and is a natural way to hydrate skin. So maybe this explains it? All I know is the redness is going slowly, and I’m super happy about that!
Similarly with the eye serum, the dark circles around my eyes are gone way down too! Again, these circles are something I used to put down the strain on my eyes by everyday tasks – I’m sure you all know how difficult it can be to work around nystagmus. I felt it was my nystagmus made these circles worse – there’s a lot of pressure on my eyes day to day. So obviously I’m super happy with this too. It’s nice and soft around my eyes too – again, I’m so careful with what goes near them because it’s important to keep them as healthy as possible.
When these results were so good after just a week, I started using some of their other products – the main ingredient in the range is seaweed from West Cork. So it MUST be good for the rest of my skin, right?
Remember what I said about the redness in my face being reduced with the moisturiser? Well, the body butter had the EXACT same effect! I can only presume its because of the way seaweed reduces redness? Or maybe its because something soothing is on my skin. Whatever the reason, it basically means I don’t have to keep my arms constantly hidden if I have no tan on! R-E-S-U-L-T!!
I’m always the first one to share any good products I find – especially when it comes to something that helps with the lesser effects of my albinism. Trust me when I say this really helped the redness on my face, that I think is mostly down to my albinism. The same with the redness on my arms and parts of my legs. It hasn’t disappeared, but there’s a huuuuuge reduction in it. Hopefully as I keep using it, it’ll continue to reduce it. I’ve noticed that my skin is a lot healthier in general since I started using the moisturiser and body butter.
I’ve included links in this post if any of you want to have a look at Ocean Bloom’s online store, you can. If you guys end up trying these products too, please message me and let me know! I think it’ll be really beneficial for people like me with albinism who suffer from the same type of redness.
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