Source: Magnific.com
Cleansing your face might feel the simplest skincare step to follow, but it could be damaging your skin if done wrong. Yes, cleansing is often where the most damage happens. Wrong cleansing practices can harm your skin superficially as well as internally.
It can cause stubborn breakouts, dry patches, or premature wrinkles, or strip away your skin's natural defenses, leaving it vulnerable to environmental damage and irritation.
In this blog, we will address 5 cleansing mistakes that can be sabotaging your glow, and how to fix them.
Over-Washing Your Skin
If you are an individual with greasy, oily skin and you tend to feel irritated and wash your face repeatedly, this practice can damage your skin.
Washing more cannot reduce oil. In fact, the more you wash your face with strong cleansers, the more your skin overcompensates by producing more oil, leaving you with a surface that is both irritated and excessively oily.
The Solution: Ditch the heavy-formulation cleansers containing sulphates. Instead, try out gentle and low-pH formulas that can work mildly without stripping your skin's natural oil. Switch to cleansing twice a day, morning and night, in your AM and PM skincare routine.
If your skin is combination to dry, use hydrating face cleansers that take care of your low sebum in the skin and moisturise afterwards.
Using Too Hot Water
You may feel hot water comforting, especially in cold temperatures. But showering under too cold water or washing your face repeatedly with cold water can take your sebum away. This can further make your skin too dry to handle, inflamed, and even more sensitive.
If your skin is dealing with reactive skin conditions, cleansing with hot water can make it more prone to dryness, redness, and flakiness.
The Solution: On the other side, ice-cold water isn’t the solution either, as it fails to effectively dissolve daily oil build-up and grime.
Cleansing with lukewarm to normal temperature water can help. It can dissolve the sebum, dirt, and makeup without disrupting your skin's protective barrier. When taking showers, try to angle your face away from the direct stream or save your cleansing step for when the water has cooled slightly
Skipping the Pre-Cleanse Hand Wash
Your hands come in contact with door handles, phones, keyboards, money, and countless other surfaces throughout the day, picking up bacteria, dirt, and grime along the way. They can be a thriving playground for millions of unseen bacteria, viruses, and environmental toxins.
When you don't wash your hands before start cleansing your face, the dirt and bacteria find their way to reach your face, giving rise to new problems. Moreover, when you rub your face while cleansing, those unwanted, dirty substances can go deep into your open pores, causing inevitable blemishes and underlying inflammation.
The Solution: It's the simplest. Just ensure you wash your face every time you decide to cleanse your face. Use mild soap and water as a non-negotiable primary step before cleansing. It will take no more than 15-30 seconds and makes your cleansing routine more hygienic and healthy.
Ignoring the Neck and Jawline
Most people think that cleansing their faces is enough, often ignoring their necks and jawlines. But you must know that these areas are exposed to sweat, pollution, product runoff, and everyday grime, just as your face is, and need the same cleaning and nourishment.
Avoiding your jawline and neck can let them collect buildup from hair products, pillowcases, and phone contact throughout the day. Over time, this neglect can result in clogged pores and dullness.
The solution: Whenever you cleanse your face, ensure you extend your cleansing motion beyond your jawline and down through your neck every time you wash your face. Use the same product on your neck and jawline that you are using on your face.
Using Wrong Facial Cleanser
Do you choose your skincare based on trends or what you see on social media? This can be problematic if the product does not align with your skincare concerns, needs, and most importantly, your skin type.
If you choose a formulation made to strip away excess oil from a teenager, it will completely wreck the skin of someone fighting dry, mature skin.
The Solution: Identify your skin type and choose a cleanser accordingly rather than going with your roommate's face wash for a skincare disaster. If your face feels dry, flaky, and tight right after washing, it might point toward your cleanser being too harsh.
It means your cleanser is stripping your sebum. You can also talk to your doctor and look for dermatologically tested formulas that cleanse thoroughly to retain your natural glow without disrupting your natural acid mantle.
Conclusion
Cleansing seems like just a simple, one-step solution for keeping the dirt and sebum away. But it is much more important and plays an integral role in maintaining your overall skin health. You must not splash water on your face, rub a facial cleanser for 5 seconds, and call it cleansing.
Washing your face properly is the foundational cornerstone of any successful skincare journey and needs to be performed carefully with a cleanser suitable for your skin type, suitable skincare actives, and in a proper way.
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