How To Reduce Facial Redness

Wash your face with a cleanser that contains oat extract, which is an antihistamine, or green tea, which can help reduce the capillary dilation that leads to blotchy skin.

Use a moisturizer containing feverfew, an herb that helps lessen redness.

Women can downplay a ruddy complexion by applying a primer followed by green-tinted foundation. The primer helps the makeup adhere to the skin, and the green tint camouflages redness.

Calm redness from wind or exertion by soaking a washcloth in ice-cold milk and laying it on your face for 10 minutes. The milk’s proteins, fat, amino acids, and vitamin A all help reduce redness.

If you have a special event that a blotchy face is threatening to ruin, apply some one-half percent hydrocortisone, which is available over the counter. It will temporarily reduce the redness. Just don’t do it often or it will thin your skin.

Try this trick: Put an ice cube in your mouth and press it against the roof of your mouth. Receptors that respond to cold constrict blood vessels in your face, which is enough to reduce redness for some people.

Ask a dermatologist about a “photofacial,” a procedure that reduces facial redness by zapping the red pigment in blood vessels under the skin’s surface with a high-intensity light pulse.