☆Nivea Sensitive After Shave Balm☆

Nivea Sensitive After Shave Balm: My Experience and Why I stopped using it!

I’m usually not a trend follower. Whenever a new beauty trend starts on Instagram or YouTube I’ll be like, okay We’ll see if we want to do that, and then I never do that.

But when well known beauty guru started raving about the use of Nivea After Shave Balm as Primer I was like………… wooooaaaa!!!! I need that in life, suddenly there was flood of beauty gurus using Nivea After Shave Balm as primer. I mean why would someone not use it

1. It’s cheap
2. Easily available
3. Your Idols trust it and use it.

Finally after a few months (yes …months..I’m a lazy person) I ordered Nivea Men After Shave Balm. I was so so so excited about it, I had planned to ditch all my other primers and use this one till eternity. For the first trial, I applied it under my regular makeup, first day first shot everything was fine. After the first successful trial I started wearing it under makeup as primer on regular basis, everything was fine, my makeup stayed on or almost 9-10hours, no breakouts no reactions nothing. After a month there was acne breakout(I have a clear skin, combination of dry and oily, but I swear I never had acne or pimples in my life),as I’m on medication because of PCOS, I thought it’s because of some allergic reaction due to medicines 😦  In the course of next two months I changed my dearest foundations, concealers, changed my medicines etc etc thinking that one of them was causing allergic reaction ( I was like HELL!! Why everyone ditching me, what’s wrong??)

Finally came the day of realization, I and hubby baby were to attend a party out of town, I packed my bags (which included my makeup) but….but I forgot my Shave Balm at home, since I was carrying another primer that time I didn’t think of my Balm much. Surprisingly next day my skin was all normal, no rashes no acne no pimple nothing, clean and clear..That’s when brain started running and did it’s calculations. Next day when we came back I applied after shave balm topped it with foundation roamed around the house, at night I took off my makeup and went to bed, everything regular, next morning, the dreaded morning I woke up with ashes all over my face…..it was burning and turned red!!! *horrified cried for half hour*

So, finally I relised where and what was wrong, it was Nivea men after shave balm!

The product does what it is meant to do i.e heal skin post shave. It has ingredients like Isopropyl Palmitate, Cyclohexasiloxane which are absorbed by the skin, and these ingredients going in the skin means ingredients on top of them too sinking in skin, and this exactly we don’t want. So basically when you apply this balm as primer, it opens all your pores so that your skin can absorb all the balm, and that balm will heal your post shave injuries, but unfortunately with it the makeup too gets absorbed which clogs all our pores and cause breakouts and other allergic reactions.

Now I’m not saying that after shave balm is a bad product or something. It does what it’s meant to do, and it does it very well, but it is definitely not a base for your makeup. Primers are meant to act as a shield or layer or wall on your skin which will make your makeup stay and not sink in. I and hubby both use it post shave (my hands and legs feel awesome thanks to this product) but I definitely do not use it as makeup primer any more, and touch-wood my skin is back to normal! If it works for you as a prime then go ahead and use it, but it’s a big no no for me! Also, I learnt my leasson, not all beauty trends or hacks should be followed blindly ! 😦