yeah it took literally a year and a half for anyone to even mention it! "Must be eczema because you have food allergies!" and that was it. So it's good to know. Thankfully this seems to be the only contact allergen that's a problem for me, but it's a pain that it's in everything
thankfully for me I have low allergies to those except for tree/grass-related oils.
thank you so much for chiming in! The thing I'm allergic to is isothiazolinone which is purely a biocide/fungicide used unfortunately...pretty much everywhere it seems, but thankfully I don't have any allergies to honey. Re: essential oils, I'd have to be allergic to the substance itself, and
I'll let you know what works! I haven't researched making paints myself much so I can't speak to what's involved
thanks!
thanks for the resource! I'm definitely interested in potentially checking out some indie makers, or trying to make my own -- having a consistent product is pretty important for the color-matching work I do, but perhaps that's possible with small batches...I think I just need to research it more!
interesting! I hadn't heard this but I'll ask my dr about it
I think it might be possible to mix your own without preservatives so that's something worth considering, but I guess we'll see! But yeah it seems like all the big companies are using it
thank you! Gloves are the first thing I'm going to try for sure
my take exactly, honestly
Thanks for the rec! These are gorgeous colors -- I'm curious whether small-scale paint producers don't use preservatives, or if they do, what they use
thank you! I think it'll be a bit of a learning curve for me to work with gloves (I'm dyspraxic with a lot of autistic coordination issues) but it's worth it to keep art-ing!
indeed!
oh no that sounds awful! I definitely feel like this is causing some all-body reactions (starting to think some of my other health problems might actually just be inflammation from this) but yeah, it's no fun, that's for sure
it is, but thankfully not in mine! (I use aveda)
thank you, and honestly I'm definitely going to try a lot of solutions before giving up! I'm hopeful that I can just treat my paint like a contaminant and still use it haha
so far both companies I've heard back from say it's in all their water-based paints. Winsor Newton explicitly said all water-based paints need it, so I presume so (I also broadly asked "in your watercolors and gouache")
haha now that's looking on the bright side!
NOTE: you'll see me probably list methylisothiazolinone, methylchloroisothiazolinone, benzisothiazoline and MBIT (2-Methyl-1,2-benzothiazol-3(2H)-one) during this; my understanding is they're the same family and cross-reactivity is common. Winsor Newton's regulatory department told me as much, too
Heard back from Holbein. Their paints include Benzisothiazoline as well.
thank you! I'm considering trying both of those to see if it works!
yeah, it's a bummer, ngl, but I'm hoping gloves work 🤞🤞
good point. I'm pretty covid-cautious so I still have N95 masks so...yeah I could do that, too, sigh, such a pain to do all this to paint!
thank you! No matter what, I won't give up on art! 😤 I'm hopeful gloves or something will work, but if not, I might explore doing more work digitally or something, because even paper (like my sketchbook!) might have it, sigh
thank you, me too!!
yep it's in a tone of them, but thankfully it's not in many that I use -- only my dish soap and my laundry soap -- but be it that it's on my hands, I suspect those are ALSO a problem, but now have confirmed it's in my paint as well
I also do, actually -- I'm allergic to most bandaid adhesives (but not Bandaid brand weirdly!) so I get itchy most times my blood is taken/given a vaccine. But I asked about it and they use hypoallergenic sticky on the patches and I haven't reacted yet to it :)
An update on the paint allergy: Winsor Newton got back to me, and yep, they use isothiazolinone as a preservative in their paints. Now to see if literally all my supplies contain it... I'll update when I hear responses if others are interested
you're totally right, honey is in all KINDS of things, it must be really hard to eliminate it. Isothiazolinone is a preservative so it's in a TON of things, too, thankfully I don't seem to use too many of them though
ugh I know -- it's diagnosed via patch testing (you have stickers with allergens placed on your back for days), but the alternative is apparently formaldehyde which is (I think?) carcinogenic, so that's why it's used, but it sucks because a lot of people are allergic to it
