I think what happened is when I got such a bad case of poison ivy last fall, it made the skin on my face hyper-sensitive to almost everything plant based. A few months after my bout with poison ivy, I pulled a weed in the yard - a very common weed i have pulled with my bare hands many many times, and I developed a pretty bad rash on my face. I knew it was from pulling the weed, and I knew it wasn't poison ivy. Nevertheless, the rash was very annoying. It wasn't nearly as bad as the poison ivy, but it was uncomfortable. Then, when I was in Colorado last month, I rubbed some pine needles between my fingers so I could smell the scent of pine. Then in a couple of days I had just a few whelps on my face, but it didn't get bad and went away in a few days. I don't know WHY I decided to pull out the grass in the garden with my bare hands, you'd think I'd know by now NOT TO DO THAT!I just think the terrible bout of poison ivy has made the skin on my face extremely sensitive to all plant based oils. I'm just going to have to be very very careful now. I must always wear gloves when I'm handling plants. GRRRRR!
