Retinol Eye Cream and Alpha-Beta Hydroxy reaction

[Tess21]

I recently started using a new product, a retinol eye cream over top of my hyaluronic acid eye serum. The cream is a new product from the same line and it's recommended that you layer the two. I noticed no reaction at all with the eye serum and retinol eye cream for the first four days. Then I decided to do a self-tanner pad on my face (something I've done plenty of times without any reaction at all). The pad is an Alpha-Beta Hydroxy exfoliant as well as self-tanner. I proceeded with the self tanner pad the way I've done before and then followed up with my eye serum and new eye cream. As soon as I put the serum on I felt a stinging under my eye. I continued with the retinol eye cream (which in retrospect seems like a bad idea). Today I woke up with painful, puffy creases under my eyes. I'm in my twenties and I had no real wrinkles before this and only tried the eye cream because I work in the makeup industry and need to be able to tell people how it feels and works.

From what I now understand about retinol products, there can be a reaction like mine if you overdo it. Combined with the exfoliating alpha-beta product, I'm assuming I really over did the exfoliating on my delicate under eye area. But I'm worried that I may have permanently damaged my skin. Is that a possibility?

If this is not some horrible permanent reaction (seriously praying that it is not) I'm still left with this puffy, wrinkly looking dry skin under my eyes. The burning has subsided after taking a few Advil. Does anyone know how long I can expect this type of reaction to last? And anything I can do to make it go away faster? I've been gently patting some Vaseline over it and it feels less tight and uncomfortable but I really need to get rid of this ASAP. I am supposed to have my picture taken on Sunday and I'm looking pretty bad right now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[GoDawgs]

I'm sorry.  /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />  I can't imagine that there will be any permanent damage.  I once had a AHA reaction and another time had a really bad reaction to using too high a strength in tretinoin.  Something that worked REALLY well in speeding up the healing was a copper peptide product.  Copper peptides started out as a wound healing ingredient, and it's now in some cosmetic products.  I used Neova Night Therapy, which is expensive, but soooo worth it.  I was covered from the bottom of my eye down to my jaw in raw, bright red skin with the tretinoin issue.  After two days of it looking the same I used the Neova and could tell a big difference the next morning.  After the second night of use the redness had completely healed.

You can often find Neova Night Therapy on ebay or Amazon for a good price.

 

[ItsHollyAgain]

Not sure how long it will last. If it is still bad after 2-3 days, I'd consider checking with a doctor /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />  I had a really bad reaction to an eye cream (Dior) and also to a retinol eye cream (fine on my face NOT so much for eye area). For the Dior I required a prescription eye salve and Prednisone (but it was so puffy I couldn't open my eyes all of the way - I looked like I'd been hit. I worked doing makeup at the time and legit my boss wouldn't let me work b/c it looked so bad. My eyes were swollen, raw, and red). To help calm it down, I did cool compresses and Benadryl - that might be worth a shot.