Allergic Reaction to What?

A couple weeks ago I ran out of the dish soap I was using so grabbed the next bottle on the shelf that I had gotten with coupons.  I was busy making supper for a new Mom so didn’t really pay attention too much as I was baking and cleaning the kitchen.  When I got all the goodies packed up to deliver and was on my way I noticed that my hands were burning.  With the cold weather lately my first thought was that they were probably chapped and needed lotion.  I put some lotion on, visited the Mom, dropped off the meal and was on my way back home when I realized that my hands were getting worse.

I started thinking about all the stuff I had done in the last few hours and realized it had to be the new dish soap.  As soon as I got home I put benedryl cream on my hands and started reading the ingredients on the bottle trying to figure out what it was that made me react so badly.  The amazing part is the bottle (even though it was a well known brand) didn’t list the ingredients just said “botanical” but it had a picture of a white flower and the soap was blue.  A couple years ago I had a reaction to a flower shampoo that was blue as well so maybe it was the same type of flower or something about the blue color either way I would have to go through testing to figure out what it was that did it so for now my brother’s family has extra soap and I will avoid flower soaps that have a blue color.

Even though it has been a couple weeks my hands, although better, are a still a little rougher despite all the extra cream that I have put on them.  It is amazing how one 10 minute dish washing session can effect even your hands if the soap doesn’t agree with you.  I am grateful to have relatively few allergies compared to many people.  Thankfully, the allergies I do have are manageable like avoiding blue soaps.  Do you have allergies?  How does it effect you?