By MELISSA DEDRICK
I know a bit about beauty. I’m no Zoe Foster but after working behind a beauty counter at a major department store, I know a thing or two.
First of all, yes. I understand that walking onto the beauty floor of a large department store can be intimidating. There are ladies trying to squirt perfume on you, there are bright lights, white coats and BB, CC and DD creams everywhere.
And those ladies? They want to sell you stuff. All the stuff. Right? That’s what most people think and it’s sometimes true.
HOWEVER. That’s not always the case. Beauty counter types like me don’t just spend our time trying to get you to add more tricky things to your daily beauty routine. In fact, I find that I actually spend a lot of time helping customers understand and fix the things they’re already doing wrong.
The good news is this: there are many common skin issues you can tackle yourself with just a bit of knowledge. So let’s do this. Here are 6 of the most common skincare mistakes women are making right now. And why you need to stop making them immediately.
1. Using makeup wipes to wash your face
For the love of the skin gods, do not cleanse your face with makeup wipes. No matter what the packet says, using a makeup wipe is not an efficient method to cleanse your face. Makeup wipes are totally brilliant at getting off makeup but it takes more than rubbing a pre-moistened towel over your face for 10 seconds to cleanse your face of a day’s worth of makeup, air pollution, and dirt (from your hands) that has begun to settle into your pores. Always use a proper cleanser (no, soap and water does not count). Makeup wipes are not the every day answer. Save them for when you’re travelling or you’re just taking your make-up off after work to refresh it before you go out.
2. Skipping the moisturiser when you have oily/acne prone skin
If you’ve got oily or acne prone skin, it’s natural to get spooked by the thought of smothering cream on top of your face. It’s just going to make it more oily, right? WRONG.
Our faces get oily when the sebaceous glands are working overtime to produce natural oils in the skin. The drier the skin on your face gets from the winter winds and the hot showers and the no moisturiser, the harder these glands work to produce MORE oil in order to combat it’s dry desert surface. So the more you don’t moisturise and hydrate your face, the oilier it’s going to get. By using an oil-free moisturiser morning and night, your skin will remain hydrated without adding extra oils that your skin doesn’t need.
3. Using harsh scrubs
Let’s just put it this way, nothing good has ever come from scratching your face with a hand full of apricot kernels.
Of course it’s very important to exfoliate your skin a couple of times a week, but pretty please don’t scrub and scratch your beautiful face with harsh facial scrubs.
I know it’s satisfying to feel as though you’re really getting in there with those huge buffing seeds and cleaning that face good, but all you’re doing is scratching the crap out of your face.
Top Comments
I cannot tolerate any kind of foam cleanser because I have dry, sensitive skin. I have been searching for an organic cleanser that wouldn't make my sensitive skin burn on my cheeks and would also moisturize and not leave my skin dry after cleansing. The Made from Earth Green Tea Cleanser is perfect for me - no foam and It feels so soothing, smells heavenly, and as suggested on the package, I often leave it on for several minutes as sort of a treatment mask for my dry skin before rinsing it off.
I will never use anything else after finally finding this
Thank you for the nice article Melissa.