Pas-sosyal: 5 Skincare Practices That Are Messing Up Your Skin

I've heard a lot of skin care myths from the totally ridiculous to the more logical sounding ones. I even practiced some of such skin care regimen (which I did not know made my skin worse) until /r/SkincareAddiction.

Here are five of those logical, and probably well-known beauty practices you could be doing and is bringing more harm than beauty:

1. Steaming

Image from sifascorner.com

Most articles would say steaming is done to "open up the pores and let out impurities". Facial steaming could lead to skin damage when misused. Sure, it can help soften the clogged oils, but it can also dehydrate and irritate skin, and give it broken capillaries (can only be removed by laser treatment). Leave the steaming in the hands of professionals.

2. Skipping moisturizers because your skin is oily

Those with oily and/or acne prone skin might have heard this advice not to moisturize because it may aggravate the skin's condition. Unfortunately, this is counter-productive as skipping on the moisturizer will make the skin more oilier as it tries to compensate for the lack of moisture on the skin. Thankfully, there already are lots of moisturizers in the market which are light and friendly on oily skin.

3. Shunning away from mineral oil

Did you know some laxatives have mineral oil in them?

Do a Google search and you will see lots of articles dismissing mineral oil as unsafe (carcinogenic) because it is a petrochemical byproduct, and that it is comedogenic. This stemmed from the lack of distinction between refined and unrefined mineral oil, wherein the latter is classified as a carcinogen. The truth is, mineral oil (highly refined) is not carcinogenic and non-comedogenic and observable reactions such as breakouts or allergies might be caused by the fragrance in baby oils (essentially mineral oil and fragrance).

4. Washing more often (more than twice a day)

Another common advice for people with acne prone skin is to wash more often as this will keep the skin clean, thus preventing acne. However, excessive cleansing can irritate and dry the skin out. For very sensitive skin, washing often exposes the skin to irritants (like SLS/SLES) more often than necessary.

5. Drinking more water to get rid of dry skin

This practice is not only useless (dry skin can be caused by other things such as poor health, side effect from medicine, thyroid disorders, among others) but it can also disrupt the skin's outer barrier, making your skin drier. Ironic, isn't it?