If you have sensitive skin, you know how difficult it can be to find the right skincare products for you. You somehow have to become a cosmetic chemist just to figure out if any of the ingredients in a product will irritate your skin.
If you have sensitive skin and are acne-prone it can seem almost impossible to find something that’ll help treat breakouts without causing a bad reaction. It can be especially hard when lots of traditional spot treatments contain Benzoyl Peroxide, an ingredient that can be drying and irritating for sensitive skin types.
Lots of spot treatments and general acne care focus on drying out a pimple as the way to get rid of it. But, for sensitive skin types, this approach may just create more irritation.
Do I have sensitive skin?
If you find yourself asking this question, there are a couple of factors that can help you determine if you have sensitive skin.
For one, if you find that your skin is very reactive and can become red and irritated when applying products with strong actives, fragrance, or alcohol, you may have sensitive skin.
For example, if you’ve tried an acne medication with a high concentration of Salicylic Acid or Benzoyl Peroxide and got a pretty bad reaction from it then you likely have sensitive skin. When choosing things like acne products or retinols, it's important to make sure the concentration isn’t too high and to spot test the product before applying it all over the skin.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to sensitive skin and your skincare products is to make sure the product is fragrance-free, alcohol-free, and has a lower amount of actives.
What can you use to spot treat acne on sensitive skin?
If you have sensitive skin and have determined that traditional spot treatments are too harsh for your skin, all is not lost.
You don’t necessarily have to dry out a pimple in order to help it go away and for many sensitive skin types this isn’t an option to begin with. Drying treatments may cause an unwelcome reaction on the skin like flakiness, irritation, and redness.
But, you don’t have to forego all spot treatments, you just have to look for the right ones. Not all spot treatments are drying and they don’t have to have Benzoyl Peroxide to work.
Hydrocolloid blemish patches are a good option for sensitive skin types looking to spot treat pimples as they pop up.
If you’re not familiar hydrocolloid, here are a couple things to know about this material:
🚫Won’t dry out the skin
🪠Sucks up gunk from pimples
🛡️Protects the skin from irritants and finger-picking
💧Creates a moist environment to boost wound-healing
😌Won’t irritate sensitive skin
Most blemish patches are just hydrocolloid, but some have added ingredients to better help heal a pimple.
Which Hanhoo patches can you use?
Now that we’ve established that blemish patches can be used to spot treat acne on sensitive skin, here are the Hanhoo patches you can use:
Blemish Patch and Custom Blemish Patch
Our original Blemish Patch and Custom Blemish Patch are both made of hydrocolloid with no added ingredients. So if you’re not sure where to start with blemish patches, then you can try these out first.
The Blemish Patch comes with small and larger circular patches that are great for the single pimples that’ll pop up out of nowhere. The Custom Blemish Patch is a larger, rectangle-shaped patch that’s great for clusters of pimples on the face or even on the body to help cover them all at once.
Soothing Blemish Patch
The Soothing Blemish Patch is especially helpful for sensitive skin types since it’s infused with calming, gentle ingredients like Aloe and Madecassic Acid, both of which help repair the skin. They are especially helpful to calm a pimple if you have picked and popped it.
Extra Strength Blemish Patch
While you may be wary of Salicylic Acid if you have sensitive skin, this ingredient is a favorite for treating acne for good reason. It helps flush out gunk trapped in pores to help minimize the size of pimples. And, the good news is that the Extra Strength Blemish Patch is non-medicated, so while it's infused with Salicylic Acid it is still gentle enough for sensitive skin types.
For a deeper dive on all our patches check out our breakdown here.
