Teach Soap

I've been making lotion bars and lip balm for a year and a half. I've used the same ingredients (coconut oil, beeswax, cocoa butter, shea butter (lip balm only), sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, vitamin E and fragrance. I've also replaced the sweet almond oil with sunflower oil with positive results to test.

I've gotten RAVE reviews. I have pretty faithful local customers who SWEAR by these bars and share them with friends, and I started a store on etsy last October and I've gotten really positive feedback.

JUST recently (like two weeks ago on Tuesday), I've started to react to these bars. At first I thought it was my experimenting with sunflower oil, but this morning I put a FRAGRANCE FREE, NO sunflower oil bar on the inside of my elbow and started breaking out. None of the ingredients have changed. NO ONE else has reported any issues. I've called my most faithful users and they report no problems (despite having JUST received brand new bars within the past week). I have always used them on my kids and THEY don't have any reactions. I always clean all my equipment when I make the bars, no ingredient is new within the past couple months (except for the sunflower oil previously mentioned), same molds etc etc etc.

Is there ANY advice about what is happening to me? Could I suddenly have become allergic to an ingredient? No new ingredients were used, just the same ones I always use. I use the bars all the time. This is so disconcerting for me and I don't know why I'm having this issue.

When you say "breaking out" do you mean rash, irritation or do do you mean acne?

But yes, you can become sensitive to things after using them regularly.

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Genny

The inside of the elbow is some of the most sensitive skin on the body (even more sensitive than the face!) and tends to have more "violent" reactions to even the slightest amount of agitation. You could be developing a sensitivity to something in the bar, or something the bar touched, or something you touched before you touched the bar etc etc. Cocoa butter and shea butter are definitely things that you can become sensitized to over time (not sure about the other oils!). It could also be from something else all together and just be coincidence that you put the lotion bar on there at that time. The "inner elbow" is know for contact dermatitis (itchy red rash, usually with bumps, and sometimes a deep burning sensation). I have a bad spot there myself, from my own sweat of all things! Try some hydrocortizone cream to clear it up (the 1% "eczema cream" in the purple and red tube works great! I forget the company name though)!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I don't know your situation, but I am now allergic to shea butter, which I have used many times in the past.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thank you everyone for your help! I'm going to take a week off of using anything to see if I can figure it out.

I would test by trying each individual ingredient on a different spot, and mark them, like a doctor would. See if any/which react.
Good luck! I'd hate to be allergic to shea and cocoa butter! I love them in everything!

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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