Update 11/24/2010
Ok I lied - I'm not actually allergic to pinapples or the Skinfood Pinapple Peeling Gel at all. I was reacting to the Philosophy Hope In A Jar moisturizer. Read my full post about it here.
Guess what? So I had a most unpleasant surprise last Friday - I found out that I'm allergic to pineapples. Interestingly, I can eat the raw fruit just fine, so how did I find out about this allergy? Well, of the thousands of fruit-products out there I decided to try the Skinfood Pineapple Peeling Gel.
A deep peeling gel with Pineapple Extracts that exfoliate the skin, thus enhancing skin turnover.
From YesAsia.com.
It worked very well on my brother (he's my guinea pig wbahaha). He legit turned 2-3 shades lighter and his skin tone evened out a lot (and many reviews concur this is a nice buy). So with high hopes I smeared this liberally on my face and because I love you all so much I shall reveal to you exactly how I spent my weekend:
....yes, that is my extremely resentful eye staring at you. And yes, even my tear ducts were swollen -___- I'm afraid I don't have the cajones to put my entire miserable face up but I think you get the idea ;) So, basically I broke out with hives all over my face ~7-10 hrs later and itched like a madwomen for about 3-4 days. I took nothing but Claritin (works better on me than Benadryl) and abstained from all makeup/lotions except a gentle cleanser for 4 days. I didn't scar at all but it was a trial for my patience since I couldn't scratch anything.
Honestly, I'm not 100% sure if it's pineapple that caused this or something else in the Skinfood Peeling Gel. Since I can still eat pineapples and I got hives just on my face, I am exploring the possibility that my allergy may be to some other ingredient. I'm currently spot-testing myself (must be my lab rat side coming out) to narrow the possibilities. Either way, this peel is most certainly not for me since I know it was the peel that caused it, pineapple or no.
Anyway, the point of this post is that I read that people allergic to either mangoes, pineapples, or kiwis (all acidic fruits) tend to be allergic/sensitive to all three of these fruits. I broke out in hives around my mouth in HS because I developed an allergy to mangoes (*sigh* I must have been asked if I had an STD 100x) so I guess I should not be surprised I've developed some kind of sensitivity to pineapples as well. I love kiwis so I hope that I won't become allergic to that too >_> Something that kind of supports my allergy theory (tho still unconfirmed) is that my brother is not allergic to mangoes and he took to this gel like a fish to water.