Yes, cleaning your makeup brushes on a regular basis is inconvenient, but the alternative is swiping a bacteria-filled brush all over your face every day and then needing even more makeup to cover the embarrassing acne it leads to. Wash your makeup brushes so your skin doesn’t become an acne landmine all the time.
Gently exfoliating your skin one or two times a week is a safe habit, but exfoliating can becoming addicting because it feels so good. It’s easy to cross over to the side of over-exfoliation and not even realize that you’re harming your skin. When you exfoliate too much, your skin becomes irritated, inflamed, and more vulnerable to sunburns.
Gel manicures are popular because they last for so long, but the price you pay for polish that doesn’t chip isn’t worth it. The chemicals used in gel manicures can irritate your skin, but the biggest danger is the UV light used to set the manicure. Resting your hands under the UV light causes damage and can lead to skin cancer. No manicure is worth that.
No one actually enjoys the process of waxing, especially since the areas we wax are so sensitive. The issue with waxing is that it causes follicle damage and leads to sparse brows. Additionally, the wax can rip your skin, which in turns puts you at risk for infection when the deeper layers of skin are exposed to our germ-infested world.
Everyone enjoys the sensation of clean skin and tight pores, which is why steam cleaning is so addictive. Even though the steam helps open your pores and flush out makeup, dirt, and sweat, it can also severely dry out your skin. When your skin is excessively dry, it will overproduce oil and become prone to breakouts. The extreme heat can also cause capillaries to burst under your skin, and that’s never a desired look.
It’s important to take care of your cuticles in order to maintain nail health, but cutting them too much can do more harm than good. If you try to cut more cuticle than necessary, you expose the tender skin around your nail to the germs of the world, and that can lead to an unsightly, painful, and serious infection. Be gentle with your cuticles, and cut as little as you can.
Sometimes washing your face at the end of the day feels like too much of a hassle. If you go to bed with your makeup on, however, you open yourself up to all kinds of negative side effects. The skin on your face is extremely touchy, and leaving all of the mascara, foundation, and pollutants from the world on your skin equals breakouts, loss of lashes, and rashes.
Painting your nails all the time can be annoying, but the alternative is bad for your nails. If you leave polish on for too long (anything longer than the first chip is too long), then you’re drying out your nails. Your nails need to breathe, otherwise they’ll be covered in white marks, ridges, and and can even begin to split.
Waterproof mascara is the worst thing you can do to your lashes—it can cause you to lose lashes, which you need to protect your eyes from debris and dust. It might stay on through an entire white water rafting excursion, but it won’t come off without serious elbow grease, actual grease, and the sacrifice of several lashes. Avoid wearing it all costs if you want to keep your lashes intact and your eyes safe.
Tightlining is a classic beauty trick to create the illusion of thicker lashes and bigger eyes, especially for those with hooded eyelids. But doesn’t it feel a little… wrong? According to a study for Eye and Contact Lens Science and Clinical Practice, you might as well draw directly on the cornea! As with nearly nothing involving close-contact with the eyes, unwanted particles can travel into the eye 30% more when lining the waterline and cause nasty infections.
Pure-white teeth is another on the list of unrealistic beauty expectations that ultimately harms your health. Most teeth-whitening products use hydrogen peroxide that leads to weakened tooth enamel and increased sensitivity. Plus, the whitening effect is temporary, which leads to repeated use and worse long-term harm done to your teeth.
Quick-and-easy highlighting sounds like a miracle product until you realize the effects of the chemical bleaching mixture. Not only will products like Sun-In dry out your hair and cause breakage, split-ends are worsened threefold when useing hot tools simultaneously.
Lash extensions are a semi-permanent solution for sparse and dull eyelashes if you’re way past scrubbing off mascara every evening. But at what cost? Because each lash has to be glued on individually, the risk for human error skyrockets. Also, eyelash damage, lash loss, and eye infections are more possible due to the types of glue used. Eyelashes are designed to deter outside particles from reaching your eye, so extensions almost render them purposeless.
Using reusable materials for makeup removal is definitely commendable in the world of polluting makeup wipes and cotton pads, but make sure that the washcloths you use with micellar water aren’t harming you in a more targeted way. All we’re saying is that most generic washcloths and towels are too abrasive for the skin, potentially causing irritation and inflammation, which ultimately causes overall worse appearance.
The obsession with smelling like a meadow of spring flowers is a noble desire, yet not so healthy. Be picky about the fragranced lotions and moisturizers you use, especially if you have sensitive skin. If that’s just too much to think about, try fragrance-free alternatives that achieve the same goal just without the smell!
Some nights call for hairspray that truly locks every strand of hair in place like a glue that you actually want in your hair. Using mega-hold spray every day is pretty unnecessary. Ethanol-based sprays can dry out and irritate your scalp, while extended use can have similar effects on top of hair loss and thinning.
Throwing out expired makeup seems obvious, but it’s not surprising that most people continue using makeup past the use-by date. It’s just eyeshadow, right? What’s the big deal? We know it’s hard to keep track of each product's life-expectancy, but not paying attention to expiration dates means using bacteria-harboring blush basically guarantees pesky breakouts on your once-glowing face.
