I’ve always had pink cheeks. When I was first getting into makeup as a teen, I remember never wanting to include blush in my routine—why add to the perpetual rosiness I experienced already? I didn’t know it then, but looking back, my constant state of flush was because I had rosacea, a skin condition I wasn’t diagnosed with until my late 20s.
“Rosacea causes redness and flushing on the midface,” Ted Lain, MD, a Texas-based dermatologist previously told Allure. Some people get visible blood vessels and/or papulopustular (acne rosacea). For me, it’s the flushing and blood vessels. Over the years, I’ve been able to tame the inflammation with a prescription topical treatment, like Soolantra, but, of course, I can’t prevent it—it’s chronic.
But even with my prescription, it’s hard to fight against the effects of the summer heat. Hot temperatures, among other triggers like caffeine, steamy showers, spicy food, and stress, can exacerbate the visible effects of rosacea, causing unwanted inflamed flare-ups.
Hot temps can also aggravate other skin conditions, like eczema (another fun one for me!), which causes patches of cracked, scaly skin, leading to uncomfortable, incessant itchiness. “Increased sweating in the summer can definitely make your eczema flare up, particularly if you have it in the creases of your elbows or knees or on your palms,” Erin Gilbert, MD, a dermatologist in New York City, previously told Allure.
To help fight flare-ups (of both conditions) caused by the dog days of summer, here are a few tips I’ve picked up from dermatologists over the years. Because while I wish I could just stay in bed all day with a book and never meet the heat again, I live and work in a very humid climate that requires multiple-minute walks to the train and steamy subway waiting times. So avoiding the seasonal warmth just isn’t in the cards for me. Here are those tips:
1. Opt for indoor activities: Like I said, it’s impossible to ask someone to stay inside… all the time, but keeping cool is one of the easiest ways to avoid any sort of annoying irritation. So buy some movie tickets, hang out at the library, invest in a window AC unit—whatever will keep you inside for a few hours when the temperature is at its highest.