Benton update and what you can do if you are affected by the Havoc
As you may or may not have heard Benton had a contamination issue recently.They apologized, issued refunds and replacements for people who bought the contaminated Snail Bee essence.
I was so lucky to own a contaminated essence but didn't get any break outs or skin issues from it.
When the contamination came to surface I checked my essence and it seemed fine, I still decided to stop using it though.
About 3 days later a foreign particle showed up, 5 days later it just kept growing.
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| Hello there little contamination buddy! |
I messaged Benton and they immediately sent me a generous refund and replacement, but they also called me a liar.
I wanted to put the Aloe line issue to their attention since I thought that as a brand they might want to know all of their products that might have some kind of manufacturing issue.
They told me everything was fine with the Aloe line.
If by fine they mean that if you put it on your face there is a high chance that your skin will break out into a lot of tiny bumps and pustules and that after 5 months they still wouldn’t be gone, than yeah I guess it is fine.
I asked them if they tested the product to determine if it is fine, they said yes.
But do I believe that they tested the product within 24 hours and came to that conclusion?
Well I don’t to be honest.
When I insisted that there is an issue with the products they kept saying that it was my skin only and every one else loved it.
Oh yeah sorry I forgot, these are all the people that loved it too!
Sample Hime was so nice to make a compilation of a few people who had the same issue in the post linked above.
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| Sample Hime posted this last month, around 6 months after using the Aloe Toner |
So 5 months later, after over 4 and a half months of various acne treatments and acid usage my skin looks like this.
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| Timeline of bumpy redness |
But consider, I never even had a bump last me for longer than 2 days before, and I usually only got 5 pimples a year.
Besides the fact that I never had PIH in my life before.
So yeah my skin might be a pain in the butt by hating everything I put on it and being so dry that it hurts, but at least it always looked flawless without make up.
I would like that back!
And it simply isn’t normal for non blemish prone skin to act like this at all!
So what kind of strange black magic potion of doom did I have to apply to my face to still have scars and raised bumps after over 5 months?
Well honestly I can’t wait to find out.
Luckily I found some left over toner I threw in a corner in a fit of rage and sent it to Sample Hime. She happens to be a medical technologist and has a lab available for her to analyze the toner I used.
We will see what happens next!
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| If you are lucky you get punched instead of contaminated skin! |
Do I still support Benton?
Well yes and no.
I haven’t bought any of their products since the incident, I have not told people not to use their products either.
I did make them aware of the issue for them to come to their own decisions about buying or not buying though.
Have I been using their products?
Well yes.
I got replacements for their essence and have been using them on my skin.
The reason for that is that I have simply not found a replacement for it yet.
But I am still looking for one and when I find it I will stop using the essence.
I have decided for myself that I won’t support Benton in a monetary way from now on.
Not because I hold a grudge forever or because they had manufacturing issues, but because they refuse to accept that there might be more issues with their products and not trying to resolve the problem with the people that bring it to their attention.
Dismissal doesn’t make me happy and neither do my bumpy cheek buddies.
As far as what you can do if you were affected by this Benton disaster, I can only tell you what I did.
I started with some deep cleansing products such as clay masks and other purifying masks.
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| This is my favorite |
I washed all the items that could have come in contact with my face or hands on high heat.
I started using acids on a daily basis as well.
Before the incident, I used to do a weekly lactic acid treatment which I stopped.
I started using Paula's Choice AHA (Glycolic acid), and then added the Paula's Choice BHA (Salicylic acid). I got an improvement of my skin but it still wasn’t completely back to normal yet.
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| Not that kind of acid! |
A few days ago I stopped with Triacneal and started with 5% Mandelic acid.
I use the acid everyday, sometimes once sometimes twice, every other day I use the BHA on my cheeks and nose only.
I haven’t seen an improvement on my pores unfortunately and I don’t think that either the BHA or the AHA works better than the other.
I don’t physically exfoliate unless I have a special occasion then I do indeed use a very gentle exfoliator.
I haven’t switched to acne products since what I have is not really acne to be honest.
I did use LJH Teatree essence for the first month of the incident, and it did indeed help a lot.
But now I am left with bumps that never come to a head so I don’t think the essence would help.
I do use spot treatments on the bigger bumps since sometimes they show a teeny tiny bit of a microscopic head.
But it doesn't make the bumps go away.
I do it anyway just in case.
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| Yep, that's me! |
This method did indeed improve my skin condition quite a lot until about 3 weeks ago when my skin suddenly became worse for an unknown reason.
Have you been affected by any of the Benton products and if so do you have a magical cure to get rid of the after effects?
