Skin + Me and eye irritation

[Toffeewhirl]

I've been using Skin + Me for about six months now. No problems, lovely clear skin, etc. Then I suddenly developed one sore, red eye with dry patches of skin underneath. Mortifyingly, this made my undereye wrinkles worse, so I looked 10 years older on one side of my face 😳.

So I contacted Skin + Me. Was advised to stop treatment for at least two weeks, then restart gradually, using a lower strength (0.09).

As my eye had recovered after a fortnight, I started treatment again this week, but buffered with moisturiser first. Didn't put any on my undereye area. Next day, I had one slightly red eye, as before.

Had a one-day break, then reapplied cream after buffering with moisturiser. But this time I only put the cream on my chin and lower face, so nowhere near my eyes.

Woke up to one dry, reddish, wrinkly undereye again!

How can this happen? I don't understand how the cream can reach my eye, although I know that's the side I often sleep on. Do I have to give up tret?

Anyone else had this issue?

I'd been on 0.015% for three months before I started to get the eye irritation.

@picklemewalnuts - that is strange! Could it be because your hands need moisturising? If they're too dry, maybe they react more to the cream.

@Inca22 - sorry this happened to you too. It's awful, isn't it? The exact opposite of what you signed up for!

@mrsjg - that's such a shame. My skin was looking great too, which is why I'm persisting. Dermatica do an alternative for people who can't tolerate tret. Might be worth looking into that instead. That's my Plan B.

I get this issue with adapalene. Vaseline worked for a while but then it started to happen again. It’s almost like it migrates underneath the skin - I know it doesn’t but it was so frustrating.

@DogsAkimbo - I was literally just coming back to say that the tret alternative used by Dermatica is called adapolene. Sorry to hear it can cause the same issues.

And yes, it does seem to migrate through the skin, in spite of the Vaseline. After using the cream the night before last, I was OK at first and posted here. Later that day, I noticed two or three tiny red patches under my eye again, but they had gone by the next morning. So somehow the tret had still managed to get through the Vaseline, but probably the lower strength tret and the buffer mostly protected my skin.

I'm going to try again tonight.

It’s so annoying… adapalene is also called Differin, it’s prescribed for acne but has a mild anti aging effect I guess too.

Update: tried the tret again last night. Loads of buffering as before. All good first thing and thought I'd cracked it.

This evening I have red, dry blotches under my eye and my eye is slightly red.

I think I'm done with it now. It's so annoying because it made my skin look lovely - apart from this one issue.