Bad skin care habits aren’t formed overnight, and since they’ve continued to grow on you over time, they can be hard to give up like any other bad habit. But what if we tell you that continuing to do them will eventually damage your skin barrier? The skin barrier is the outermost layer of your skin that serves as a protective barrier against free radicals and other potentially harmful environmental pollutants that can irritate your skin. Once your skin barrier is damaged, it causes your skin to be dry, flakey, extra irritated and sensitive, tingly, burning, and/or itchy. No one wants that to happen to their skin, right?
Related: The 11 Skin Care Mistakes You Need to Stop Doing
Whether you know if you’re doing anything bad to your skin or not, it’s high-time that you break them as soon as possible so they don’t create any more problems. Below is a list of bad skin care habits that you may have:
1. Not Practicing Basic Hygiene
Basic hygiene isn’t just about making sure that you get to take a bath everyday — because it can also involve other things, and more often than not, you may not even notice that they’ve already become a bad habit either. Bad hygiene can be as simple as: not changing your clothes after working out, not changing your bed and pillow sheets once or every two weeks, not cleaning your phones, not changing or washing your bath towels often, and using dirty makeup brushes and sponges. All of these things are simple, yet they can make so much difference when done right and practiced properly.
2. Going a Day Without Sunscreen
While sunscreen is an important part of your daily skincare routine, some people still neglect to wear it — maybe because they lack awareness of its importance or they just choose to leave it out. No matter what your reason is for going a day without sunscreen, we’re here to tell you that it’s a bad skin care habit that you may want to break now, as much as possible.
Wearing sunscreen shouldn’t be limited only when you’re going to the beach. Contrary to what you got used to doing, wearing sunscreen should be done everyday whether you’re going out of the house or not. This is because we can still be exposed to UV rays even indoors (at home or in the office) since they can pass through glass and are present on our computer screens or gadgets, meaning you’re not entirely safe from UV exposure. So it’s best to practice proper precaution by wearing sunscreen everyday to prevent skin damage.
Tip: See to it that you choose a sunscreen with broad-spectrum written on its label because this kind of sunscreen is designed to particularly protect your skin from harmful UVA and UVB rays.
Related: 7 Reasons Why You Should Wear Sunscreen Everyday
3. Not Properly Removing Makeup From Your Face
Do you sleep with makeup on your face? Do you directly wash your face with a cleanser without removing it using a proper makeup remover? If you do this, then don’t scroll down just yet.
Makeup can easily stick to the skin and can potentially clog your pores, which can lead to acne breakouts and inflammation. Hence why you have to make sure that you get to properly remove all the makeup residue. Doing this enables you to get rid not only of excess makeup and oils, but also other damaging pollutants that can irritate or cause sensitivities to your skin.
4. Pricking, Poking, and Picking Your Pimple
Touching your face unnecessarily may seem harmless, but what you didn’t know is that your hands can spread dirt, oil, and bacteria, causing clogged pores and breakouts to your face. Are you also fond of pricking, poking, and picking your pimples? That’s a big no-no! While it may be tempting to do all those things just to get rid of that active pimple on your face, it’s not the best solution you should go for and it won’t solve your problem either — not at all. This kind of bad habit tends to shove bacteria and pus down deeper into the skin, giving rise to pits and scars.
5. Not Getting Enough Sleep
Good rest is essential to good skin condition — simple as that. If you don’t get enough sleep, it will show on your skin. But if you get enough sleep, you can avoid age spots, dark circles, and wrinkles. On top of that, it will encourage collagen production, cellular growth, enhance blood flow and hormonal regulation, and boost skin cell regeneration, which will keep your skin from sagging and puffiness
6. Not Listening to What Your Skin Needs
When your skin doesn’t like how it’s being treated, it will tell you and it can be in the form of changes in your skin condition such as sudden redness, itchiness, irritation, or breakouts. When this happens, don’t ignore it. Not listening to what your skin needs is a common bad habit that needs immediate attention because it can eventually wreak havoc on your skin, damaging your skin barrier.
7. Exfoliating Too Much
Exfoliating too much or doing it daily is one of the myths about skin exfoliation. While it’s known to give some remarkable benefits because it removes excess dirt, too much of anything can still have repercussions. Over-exfoliation often leads to a more sensitive and irritated skin, causing your skin to become drier and be moved to produce more oil in the long run, which results in acne breakouts.
8. Applying the Wrong Skincare Products
The reality is that the right skincare products don’t land on your doorstep and will most certainly not call for your name while you’re looking through products in the beauty store. It’s a trial and error process that you’ll have to go through to be able to find the right ones that will suit your skin type and condition.
You have to be cautious of what you’re applying on your skin because not all skincare products can produce the results you want, and applying the wrong ones can potentially irritate or damage your skin in the long run if you continue using them.
- Determine first your skin type so you know what skin care ingredients would best address your skin problems (such as dark spots, blemishes, acne, etc. if there are any) and which ones to avoid.
- Read the label and check the active ingredients.
- Be mindful of the skin care ingredients you’re mixing because not everyone of them works well together — and when mistakenly combined, can cause irritations on the skin.
Related: Skin Care 101: What Skincare Ingredients Shouldn’t Be Mixed Together?
9. Smoking
The health effects of smoking tremendously damage not only your internal organs and cause lung diseases, heart diseases, cancer, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but it can also have adverse effects on your skin. Too much smoking can lead your skin to dry out and be prone to wrinkles and premature aging. This is a very damaging and risky bad habit that’s also probably the most difficult one to break, especially for people who have spent years depending on smoking for many reasons. However, more than that, it’s also equally important to think of gradually breaking this bad habit until it’s completely gone rather than letting it control you. It requires immediate attention, so that it doesn’t take a toll on your overall health in the long run.
If you’re guilty about some or maybe all of the bad skin care habits listed above, this may be the time to do something about it. Take this as your wakeup call to start treating your skin and yourself, in general, with much more care.
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