Yesterday morning I put on some facial moisturizer with sun screen built in before leaving to meet Joe for a hike. This was a 15 spf specifically for use on the face. After a few minutes I started to feel sick….and sicker. I went over everything I had eaten or touched that morning. Every food I ate was clearly GF. This was a new facial moisturizer I bought at CVS, and it was the store brand. It said it was for sensitive skin. I read the ingredients before buying it. No wheat mentioned. I read the list again last night, no wheat or starch or anything that would clue me in to the presence of wheat. But yet, it was what made me feel sick all day yesterday.

Before my diagnosis in February 2013 I would never have dreamed that wheat was in makeup, soaps and other personal products nor that it could make me feel quite sick in such small amounts. I can understand why people are skeptical about the fanatical nature of many celiac sufferers. I felt that skepticism until I began to deal with this myself as someone terribly allergic to wheat.

A few months ago I had to give away or throw away a number of skin cleansers, creams and the like that stated they had wheat in them. I thought I had gotten rid of all that wheaty stuff in my personal care regimen.

So….after feeling sick about an hour we got to our hiking location, there I put a 50 psf sun block on the rest of me. After that I didn’t get worse and slowly over the course of the day I felt a bit better each hour. Today it is 90% gone. Still, that was not a fun way to feel for the Fourth of July.

I went back to CVS today and returned the moisturizer. I looked at what they have available in daily moisturizers. Many choices but I honestly couldn’t tell from the labels whether wheat was in any of them. Nothing said GF on the packaging.

So I went home and checked with my friends at the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the National Celiac Sprue Association; I am friends with them on facebook. They gave me some personal recommendations and directed me to this website: http://www.theceliacdiva.com/gluten-free-face-moistrizer/. This site looks to have a lot of valuable information on this topic and with their comments I feel I may be able to find something that works for me and doesn’t cost a small fortune.

It does shock me at how easily a tiny bit of wheat in a moisturizer can make me feel really lousy. I wrote this posting so you wheat eaters might have a bit more insight into what it is like for those of us with celiac disease. We are not trying to be difficult when we ask wheat related questions. We are just trying to stay healthy and feel good while going about all the daily stuff life entails, like putting on moisturizer, washing our face and eating healthy foods.

Originally posted in early July 2013   I plan an update to this posting within the next week to let you know what I have learned in the last few months about gluten free cosmetics .