14 Harmful Beauty Myths You Need to Stop Believing
1. Sun Exposure Heals Acne
If you have acne, however, you are more likely to burn your skin and never heal it than you are to escape this summer with a tan, so slather the sunscreen and hide your face in it. Increased exposure to sun can add to your hyperpigmentation and darken your existing acne scars, not to mention speed up the aging process!
2. Teeth Should Be Brushed After Every Meal
Our teeth are particularly sensitive after a meal, as the natural acids in food soften enamel. To put even more information into this, brushing too soon after eating will scrub away little bits of your enamel and cause that damage to pile up over time. So, in order to keep your teeth healthy, it is best to fist wait at least after eating for 30 mins to brush your teeth.
3. Lemon Juice Lightens Hyperpigmentation
Our teeth are particularly sensitive after a meal, as the natural acids in food soften enamel. To put even more information into this, brushing too soon after eating will scrub away little bits of your enamel and cause that damage to pile up over time. So, in order to keep your teeth healthy, it is best to fist wait at least after eating for 30 mins to brush your teeth.
4. Oils Are Bad For Oily Skin
Oily skin is simply when your skin is over-producing sebaceous oils. People with oil skin have a tendency to avoid products containing oil — fearing it will make their skin feel worse — but putting oil on your skin makes your oil glands signal to stop overcompensating, allowing your skin to become more balanced over time when the oil is applied as a cleaner, serum or moisturizer.
5. A ‘Base Tan’ Protects Your Skin From Sunburn
The notion that getting a few sessions in a tanning bed before going on holiday will prevent you from burning is one that can only end in some very red, very painful skin! Ten minutes on a tanning bed is equal to an hour of actual sun exposure, but the next hours spent in the open and unprotected sun will do more harm, causing an accelerated skin aging process and the risk of getting skin cancer.
6. Toothpaste Heals Blemishes
Toothpaste has high quantities of an abrasive, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS), that should not be on your skin at all. Calcium carbonate is the ingredient in toothpaste that dries staying the spots but since many face care products come with this ingredient, it is preferable to step back from your toothpaste to avoid adverse side effects such as irritation and peeling.
7. Facial Yoga Reduces Signs of Aging
The idea of facial yoga sounds reasonable – yoga for the body is great! – Exercising the muscles in the face too often results in accelerated breakdown of collagen, and sagging skin as a result of all that pressure and the speed of each movement. Instead, learn how to relax your face during the day, like with short meditative sessions, to delay the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
8. Skin Should Be Exfoliated Daily
Using a chemical exfoliant (AHAs/BHAs) or a physical one (scrubs) in your skincare routine every single day is unnecessary and damaging. Excessive use of chemical exfoliates can burn or even erode your skin and facial scrubs containing particles such as salt, crystal or even the shells of almonds have rough edges that can tear your skin with micro-tears and create permanent scars. Exfoliating correctly thrice a week is absolutely fine for a clear and glowy skin.
9. Shampoo And Conditioner Should Be Applied From Roots to Tips.
Since the point of shampoo is to remove oils and product build-up, it should only be applied to the roots because the ends of your hair will be cleaned with what remains when rinsed out. On the other side, conditioner is to be applied only on the tips since this region of the hair has less moistures comparitively. Avoid unnecessarily dry ends or an overly oily scalp by following these.
10. Shaving Your Peach Fuzz Makes It Grow Back Thicker and Darker
Peach fuzz has a technical term which is vellus hair and shaving it can facilitate smoother makeup. You can be sure that fine hair will grow as usual, because shaving leaves hair follicles unharmed; it just seems as if it affects them because shaving enhances women’s perception of this hair to notice it.
11. Blackheads Are Caused By Dirty Skin
Blackheads are entirely normal, because everybody has them, and dirty skin is absolutely not the reason why. Instead, they are caused by sebum and dead skin cells blocking hair follicles and creating an open bump, or comedo, which then oxidizes and darkens. That is why it is not advisable to over-cleanse to treat blackheads, as this will make them worse and the skin will compensate with the creation of even more oil. Use salicylic based products that penetrate your skin to deep exfoliate and clear out the pores.
12. Eyebrows and Hair Colour Should Match
The same goes for eyebrows and hair, an old rule that leads to a not very natural effect. Light-haired women may dye eyebrows a couple of shades darker for structure to the face and similarly brunettes may do the opposite: just as dark hair looks so severe, a dark brow doesn’t complement the hair all that well either. In short, the eyebrow is much more important for a beautiful appearance than the color!
13. Drinking Lots of Water Prevents Dry Skin
Most of us think drowning our dry skin problems in literal tons of water is the answer or prevention, however while dry skin can certainly be symptomatic of something much more sinister, the most common culprits behind dry skin are environmental: skin care (or its absence thereof), arid weather, and over-dosing in the sun or the water. You can notice a difference in your skin by sleeping with a humidifier in the room or using products which contain moisturising ingredients like hyaluronic acid.
14. Nail Cuticles Should Be Trimmed Regularly
Cuticles are part of the nail and provide a gap between the nail plate and your skin. So when you trim them they actually provide you a direct entrance to the bacterium and infections. Instead, use an orange stick to push cuticles down and apply some oil onto them every night so that your nails appear neat and trimmed.
