Skin
Apr 1, 2022

10-Step K-Beauty Routines Gave Me Perioral Dermatitis—Here's How I Saved My Skin

by Aralyn Beaumont

A little while ago, I jumped on the Korean-beauty trend that has seemingly taken all young people by storm. In all my years of living until that point, I simply washed my face with a basic water-based cleanser and moisturized with something so generic I can't even remember what exactly it was, which makes me wonder if I even moisturized at all. I was lucky to have very well-behaved skin; that is until I jumped on the 10-step K-beauty routine my boyfriend at the time was trying out in an attempt to achieve glowing skin of his own.

My clear and normal-looking skin kicked into high gear. Suddenly, it was glowing like the sparkly reflections of the sun on the ocean. Suddenly, the dark circles under my eyes were hardly visible, even to me. Suddenly, people left and right were asking me what I was using on my skin. And then, the quest for perfect skin felt infinite.

I introduced salicylic acid into my routine because I decided the pores on my nose could be smaller. Almost immediately, a small red mark popped up beneath my left nostril, on which I applied more salicylic acid. The redness grew, then spread to the other side of my nose and below my mouth. Every night, I used masks that promised to detox and calm my skin. No! you may be screaming to yourself, and I'll assure you my roommate did the same thing when she saw the packages mounting in the trash night after night. But I proceeded, lathering my face in all the things because surely this had more to do with my new affinity for natural wine or a recent transcontinental trip than the multitude of products I was piling on my face.

I called my doctor, Sinae Kane, MD, of Presidio Dermatology in San Francisco, to share with Who What Wear what she told me. Here she is to explain the enigma that is perioral dermatitis and warn that she's seeing more cases of it every day.

"What we know about perioral dermatitis is that it's believed to be a form of rosacea, and although there's a lot of speculation about the condition, we do know that there are some main triggers," says Kane. "The ones we usually see are the use of a lot of heavy products—thicker creams, oils, or ointments—and overuse of products, in general.

"Especially with the natural-skincare industry booming, a lot of patients have gotten really interested in learning about skincare, and although I think it’s really fun, people end up trying on a lot of products and using multiple products at once, so that often creates an environment where it will trigger a flare of perioral dermatitis.

"Kind of going hand in hand with the natural-skincare industry booming, I think 10-step Korean skincare processes are a bit of a setup for perioral dermatitis as well. We've definitely been seeing an increase in the number of patients with this condition, and the most common situation is a patient comes in and tells me, 'My skin was dry, so I started using a bunch of products, and I saw the bumps pop up and it felt irritated and dry, so I wanted to use some other products,' and they keep adding product on top of product to try to solve it, and typically it just makes it worse."

I didn’t want to believe Kane when I first saw her, and in fact, I didn't. After the antibiotics she prescribed me cleared up my skin, I went back to many of the products I was using before. And sure enough, I had another flare-up. It was at this moment I realized I needed to change everything.

"One way to treat this is with zero therapy, which means you put nothing on your face—like no products at all," Kane adds. "I always tell people it's not a popular option because your skin will go through a very dry and uncomfortable phase and won't look great, but that actually is one way to get the bumps to go down. I always tell people this because I think it drives home the point that products can trigger the reaction."

When I finally listened to my doctor and simplified my skincare regimen down to the brass tacks, my skin almost immediately cleared up.

"The thing I have to remind patients about is once you've had it, you're sort of always prone to potentially getting a flare of it in the future, so you'll have to be careful in terms of your product selection," Kane warns.

"I tell people, once you get your skin clear and you're at the point where you're wanting to reintroduce things, you can always pick one product and try it out. You'll want to wait a couple of weeks and see how your skin responds."

Keep reading to see the products I used that cleared my skin and what I've been slowly reintroducing to my regimen now that I've been in the clear for more than six months.

Notes From an Expert

A New Era: In the Clear

Shop my simplified skincare routine:

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