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I think if you're trying out a product on the whole, the key is to patch test on a soft piece of skin, but cover no more than 1x1cm, from experience. That way, you only have a small bit of irritation and can deal with that more effectively than if your face is lobster-esque in shade and texture! Inner elbow is a good place to start. Alternatively, should you react nastily to a 'whole' product, i.e. the complete mixture, then patch testers are readily available, they'll give a pin-prick situation to the top few layers of skin with some well-known allergens and some allergens that might be specific to the mixture. If anything reacts, it shows as a redder/angrier mark and may be itchy etc. If that's the case, they'll likely have an antihistamine cream/tablet that would subside any uncomfiness.
I think asking people to try a product when you're starting out is the best way to do it - I've seen it on this forum already, having people put their name down and ask for feedback. I've done the same in work with some new product exploits. That way, you know you're in people's comfort zones because they've chosen to trial it. It also gives a good 'randomness' to the 'experiment' because you want to have as varied a trial as possible. The only thing I'd suggest for this approach is to give warning to the amount to use and where to use it - i.e. do not apply undiluted to genitals, etc. Last thing you want is someone applying it liberally to their face, getting it on their eyelids and having it filter down directly into their eyes (eyelids are porous and whatever is applied to them usually filters down over the eyeball and towards the lacrimal (tear) ducts). I know from experience that you can put something on your eyelids only for it to sting your eyes to holy-hell-and-back minutes later. In my experience that was with anti-itch E45 cream.
If you have a couple of products that do cause a reaction, feel free to send me a list of their ingredients as shown on the label and I'll see where the consistencies are (though I'm sure you can do that yourself anyway)! They should be listed as INCI (cosmetics database) wordings, such as 'aqua' rather than 'water', 'cera alba' instead of 'beeswax' and 'CI 77499' instead of 'black iron oxide'...they sometimes aren't if it's a DIY project which is starting to build up steam. Thereafter you can go to a doctor or similar and say you're having consistent reactions to certain products and they should be able to suggest allergen testing. You can say to your allergen tester that 'x, y and z' chemical are in the products which give you grief, so they'd likely be tested. It might seem like a lot of hoo-hah but you'd be able to try products in the future knowing which chemicals to keep an eye out for. I have a friend who is entirely allergic to lanolin and suffers from eczema, and has skin infections as a result of his dermatitis. He knows now that if he avoids lanolin-containing products he'll be at least this much (makes gesture) more comfortable.
Hopefully this wasn't too tedious a read!
P.s. my offer of comparing and contrasting chemicals in products is extended to anyone who thinks they might need it. If you want anything further explained, just ask!
