Testing out beauty stuff is precisely like sussing out a prospective date. They both deserve the benefit of a ‘grace period’ – but anything beyond that gives you an indication of whether it is a mismatch or not.

What’s an acceptable acclimatisation interval? I’d say give it two weeks, tops, which is a wee bit more generous than the one week stipulated by take-no-prisoners cosmetic cop Paula Begoun.

If the offender continues to cause chafing or itching past the two-week mark, the problem may not be transient and there’s really something in it that’s not sitting well with your skin. Time to proceed to the tips in the next slide. 

Most rinse-off products are meant to shock and awe your skin into submission without leaving behind any potentially pore-clogging dregs. If you suspect a cream is too rich for all-night use, slap it onto your ‘dirty’ makeup before cleansing, let sit for five minutes, then take it all off. Beauty bonus: You’ll find that your warpaint washes off that much easier too, thanks to the slip and slide afforded by the extra lubrication.

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Apply all new products at your neck; if they don’t roil up any boils after two weeks of use, they get promoted to your jaw; another week and they get bumped up to your cheek.

What happens if, for reasons only known to pores, something that worked for your jaw causes spots to sprout on your forehead? Easy: Back down the ladder the product goes. Anything that doesn’t pass muster eventually gets relegated to the relatively unreactive neck and decolletage – which is just as well since said regions need as much rich lovin’ as they can get.

Your neck’s less susceptible to spots because it has fewer oil-producing sebaceous glands; your lips have none whatsoever. Translation: Even if the product in question were greasy as ghee, your lips simply can’t break out by virtue of biology alone.

Here’s my super quick and super dirty recipe to transform any comedogenic cream into a lip-loving lotion: Dump equal parts cream and Vaseline jelly into clean mixing bowl, give it a good stir, then stash the slurry into an airtight jar. Tadah! Your very own pucker-pampering treatment.

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