synthetic beeswax allergy

I was diagnosed by the dermatologist. I do notice that foods tend to aggravate it. He also recommended CortiBalm which is an OTC 1% Hydrocortisone lipbalm (which I purchased and started using immediately) and that I stop using mouthwash and to stop using my teeth-whiting toothpaste and just use a regular paste. Allergic contact cheilitis caused by carnauba wax in a lip balm. It can be complicated. Our new vegan (beeswax-free) lip balm is now available for purchase at https://zizaidermatology.com/Beeswax-Free-Lip-Balm.html. And now he wants to do a biopsy but I do not want to do that yet. I had used Burts Bees Mango lip balm forever and suddenly had the same issues that you and and the flare ups were happening more and more and took 5-6 weeks to get better. Thank you!!! When I read this I knew immediately without even getting myself tested for anything that this could be it. I made the connection only because my index finger would also get a rash (the finger I wrapped the floss around). Mine is Aquaphor Lip Therapy, so I’m going to try and find some plain Aquaphor. I have made my own lip balm for years and just started having trouble with my raw beeswax formulation (which was sadly my favorite). I’m sad I can’t use it anymore, but glad to have an answer and also glad I can still use refined beeswax. Do you have any blog entries about shampoo/conditioner allergy/sensitivity reactions? I narrowed my problem down pretty quickly to Burts Bees lip balm. A few weeks later, I started googling images…I found your pics & they looked just like mine.After reading your blog, I realized that I had purchased some Burts Beeswax lip balm in February.I used it all the time, even after my lips began to be sore. As a side, the external cream compound and CortiBalm lipbalm have been very helpful in recovering from the painful symptoms. https://zizaidermatology.com/Beeswax-Free-Lip-Balm.html, i do have some reaction to beeswax to, my lips are tender n dark spot around my lips,so i need to stop using it. A rash slowly formed around my lips and eyes, and then eventually (because not knowing what it was, I kept covering it with more make-up) it spread rapidly and swelled around my eyes and lips. Substance Name: Beeswax, synthetic RN: 71243-51-1. The external mouth symptoms + the rawness feeling on the roof of my mouth. And Beeswax is my problem too.. also licking my lips outside. Carnauba wax, however, tends to be a problem for some people with propolis allergy. Excellent point – glad you mentioned it here. Hope I can add to the list of helpful tips and considerations when choosing natural products. I stumbled across your website in a desperate attempt to figure out what is causing my itchy, chapped lips. I am using Vaseline and Nivea to as it is still very dry but not so red. I will miss you, Burt’s, but I must try to go without you for a while to see if you are causing my problems. Thank again! It consists primarily of C18-30-alkyl ester of C16-32 fatty acids, C16-32 fatty acids and C22-34 alkanes I have now found many articles linking beeswax (and carnauba wax) with propolis. The lips, around the eyes, and most of the face just happen to be much more sensitive so these areas react faster/earlier. I apply Vaseline no joke about 50x a day. (Burt’s Bees Beeswax lip balm has all those ingredients). I had a similar reaction to that except mine spread around the outside around my mouth a bit more and was fire engine red for around four months. I know tomato and some green leafy vegs are in this category. Sometimes it takes me 4 to 5 days to break out after using something with Balm of peru in it. She has beeswax-free lipstick too. For dry lips (mine were such a sight!) Wrong! I’ve failed utterly, feeling like a freak with overly sensitive lips. Excellent question. We finally resorted to high doses of Valtrex, which helped dry out the large blisters, but didn’t help the itching, pain, tingling. I was using Toms toothpaste but switched to flouride free thinking it might help. I was using Burt’s Bees balm ALL the time, for several years, and had tubes of it tucked all over the place for easy application. I occasionally have my eyebrows waxed and usually develop severe redness, that I attributed to the ripping of the hair from my eyebrows. This was not covered by insurance thus my husband paid $73.89 for this! My first guess would be fluoride as that has been connected with PD, next would be SLS. When you eliminated the Balsum of Peru did you follow all the other names for it, like benzyl benzoate, etc.? I can’t use neosporin or other salves. Same with mascaras. 2020 Apr 1;17(7):2404. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17072404. Propolis is an increasingly important allergen, with European studies reporting positive patch test rates of 1.2 to 6.6%. Eventually I stopped applying anything but pure vitamin E oil to my lips and surrounding skin – finally the skin began to improve. I’m so glad that I found this thread. I am allergic to balsam of peru which is in EVERYTHING from hair dye to Neosporin to cinammon, including anything w/a FRAGRANCE. I am most fond of the roll-on. Most recently, the rash appeared 4 months ago. Thank you for sharing this important information ZiZai, I recently made a simple lip balm using beeswax and had the exact same rash on the margins of my lips and corners of my mouth. Don’t put anything on your lips so the skin will peel quicker. . Hi! At night I used zinc & they would heal a bit then during the day I would get sores around my mouth. This spring it started again and i thought i would go insane…the itching, stinging, inflammation was so bad i would cry daily because i could not even move my mouth and felt like ” cutting them off” my mental health started suffering. Yes, you must avoid contact with beeswax anywhere on your skin. Thank you!!! Eliminating nearly all the products I was using and offending foods has made a big difference. I ended up making a cream of rose hydrosol, macadamia nut oil, meadowfoam seed oil, rosehip seed oil, shea butter, vitamin E, rose essential oil, and substituted the beeswax this time for an emulsifying wax. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The funny thing is, when I use lipstick the rash comes out around my eyes and on top of my eyelids and at the corners of my mouth. When the lips started to recover, of course I would apply my Lip-smacker and flare-up again! What is happening to me, is that I have had an eczema outbreak on my face and neck and eyes for about 4 months (after about 40 years relatively eczema-free). Thank you everyone for sharing your stories! haha, finally there is an answer for me. Email ( required; will not be published ). Mine was only one hand as well. Now I won’t make the same mistake and it didn’t take months to figure out what caused it. He found that I am allergic to Balsam of Peru and to look at the items in which it is contained that are related to my mouth. I’ve used an extremely high grade of beeswax (yellow as well as white) for the past 3 years in everything I use and it wasn’t until adding the Shea to these recipes that I realized it must be the latter causing all the issues with rash and irritation. Beeswax CERA ALBA. I recently developed new allergies after giving birth to my now 3 month old daughter (who is allergic to milk & soy- that’s fun too!). Our suggestion is to patch test, apart from the baseline series and the patient's own products, also with beeswax and propolis. Now I know. It or some of its derivatives iss virtually in all makeups. Not only can we discuss our issues, but there are ideas and options to help eachother figure it all out. I used olive oil at night & bag balm during the day. It may or may not be the Burts Bees wash. I stopped using products with beeswax and its healing nicely. This is so helpful, I had exact same thing on lips, and just used more and more Burt’s Bees chapstick, making it worse and worse until I learned it was the Burt’s Bees that was causing the problem! It does get better though! Although this sensitivity is caused from a different substance in the wax than honey, your great information confirmed my suspensions. Readers, have you seen a good tinted balm with no beeswax, no lanolin or no jojoba oil in it? When ingested I can’t breathe. They flared up bad. I keep thinking I’m going to miss some of them. Typical symptoms include nasal issues, eye irritation, throat irritation and asthma-related symptoms, according to the Merck Manuals. Then it came back! So at least in my case, my whole life wasn’t permanently altered by this allergy – and my dermatologist/allergist said that was fairly normal and that most people can “beat” the allergy by strict avoidance for an extended period of time. That is crazy. I don’t know if I will dare use beeswax again, probably not, at least on my lips! I truly believe that the Burt’s triggered an allergy. Yesterday i thought maybe I”m coming down with something, but after an hour or so it went away. I have been a chapstick addict for about 15 years. I don’t think I’ll be able to cease using chapstick. Beeswax. Is there any chapsticks you would recommend that is cheap ? Oh my god I’ve been a loyal user of Burt’s Bees Pomegranite beeswax lipbalm for years… because I love the red sheen it leaves on your lips, so natural looking and ugh… I’ve had this insufferable rash for over a month that just won’t go away. Thank you!! I don’t know what else to do anymore. I have been struggling for months with this horrid red rash around my mouth and sore lips, and at first was told it was a sun reaction, and to wear lots of sunscreen. 4 days later– my mouth still feels kind of itchy after two days of swollen mouth and tongue, especially in the morning, and then just general weird feelings, and now I am breaking out in HIVES! and from then on i realized i needed to stop using burts beeswax lip balm and continue to use my vaseline. My Mom directed me to this blog. I have no reaction to Badger lip balm which DOES have beeswax (filtered as well). That’s what I’ve been using for my baby girls severe ezcema from when she was on the milk formula. Then, I discovered that I reacted to locally produced strawberries and cherries. Three months ago I go dry redness on my hand index within a few weeks ankles and then on my right hand. I noticed it bothers me the most when I’m hot or eating a meal. So not only have I been using skin care products in my daily skin care routine for my whole life, but in recent years I have been applying lots of ointments, lip balms, lotions, etc. Update: I had the patch testing done and I am indeed allergic to propolis. Good luck! Beeswax! Give it a couple of days of just Vaseline and try our lip balm again once they are calm. No itch but burning and a “raw” taste when I liked my lips. I truly appreciate! And now the last 2 days in a row my husband burned a candle and a couple hours later I started coughing and couldn’t stop. Now that I’m healing its on to Zi Zai to shop for skin care that I know wont harm the delicate tissue around my lips. After my first reaction two years ago, it took several months to heal the rash. Honey and Beeswax, for example, are considered to this day a gift from mother nature and granted with esoteric and mystical qualities. Same thing happened today a couple hours after burning the same candle. Propolis sensitivity seems very logical. I’m praying your products work for me!! I saw 3 dermatologists and 3 regular MDs just taking chances hoping one would find out what it is. Within hours, my lips and surrounding skin were red, inflamed, itching and burning. i JUST got the rash around my lips again like 2 or 3 days ago. I absolutely recommend it to people who deal with lip rashes or herpes. . I was experiencing the same rash around my mouth for about 8 months before I figured out what was happening. I cut up my apples rather than bite into them and am fine (my allergist suggested that). If I had had the foresight then, I would have taken many more photographs (and higher resolution ones). When I finally saw your post, your pictures were like a revelation. I first had a rash on the top part of my lip last winter (2017). Makes perfect since, my asthma flairs up when I need carmex, never put it togheter. She prescribed me Xanax (5MG tablets once a day). Let your lips dry out as quickly as possible so the skin can peel and once it does, let it. Whole Foods is also a good place to go for help. It’s meant to lend a structure similar to beeswax. People at cosmetic counters think I’m crazy when I ask them if their products have beeswax in them. Is it bcs of beeswax? You just want to stay away from beeswax (cera alba) and carnauba wax. Available in original formula or tinted (a lovely light wine color), buy it here: https://zizaidermatology.com/Beeswax-Free-Lip-Balm.html. The doctor advised me to use Aquaphor on my lips to help them heal, but I have still had no relief. I think it is awesome. Thank you SO much for not only posting all the details in this post but for including photos as I could quickly relate to your experience. Thank you so much! I’ve washed it all off and am using vitamin E to try to help calm it. But recently i used the new EOS lip balm and for the 3rd time it happened again. Avoid propolis in any supplements, toothpaste and topical lotions. So glad you figured things out! It eventually turned into small blisters which leaked (kind of like skin does after a bad sunburn). I was making my own homemade deodorant using coconut oil, shea butter, baking soda and arrowroot. So then I read the ingredients of my bag of products, and every lip balm I have been using for years has beeswax as the second ingredient. I’ve seen the doctor but he said it’s not allergic. Fingers crossed! It is seriously powerful stuff!! Thank you in advance. Then they just got worse and rashy and then one morning they were swollen! So, I filtered out some toothpastes I was using, several butter products containing benzoates, Trader Joe’s tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner, and my Clean & Clear face wash containing benzyl peroxide. Just looked online and Carmex has beeswax in it! I’m in the process of tethering out A LOT of allergies and am currently on a rotation diet. I realized after many years that I was allergic to sugars, especially cane sugar, maple syrup, and honey. I had been using beeswax lip products for years and never had an issue. Additionally, atopics (people who have atopic asthma and/or atopic eczema) have a strong tendency to develop allergies to substances very easily. (Turns out some foods/drinks did make it worse even though they were not the original cause of the rash. My lips are getting better after cocnut oil mixed with honey. The perioral dermatis is still there after following directions from dermatologist for almost 3 weeks now. So I bought the healthiest versions I could find – several different ones by Badger, and a few others – and slathered them on constantly when in the sun. There’s no contact dermatitis, just a few other bodily reactions that I’m trying to decypher. For YEARS my lips peeled. so used it a few times that day, and then that evening…out of no where I felt these blisters begin to come out on my lower part of my lips..I kinda scratched it while I was just watching tv without thinking and man that started the reaction again..it was horrible my lips blistered that night and the next morning scabbed up and when I woke up they were so bad I took a cool damp towel and lightly rubbed off the scabs ugh that was not good. Next spring it came back and took another 4 months to heal. Then I tried yours a few times but stopped because my lips continued to have a reaction. I found it looking for why I’m allergic to the natural deodorant I’m using and ended up solving my lip rash mystery! 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