With SO much skincare and beauty advice floating around, it can be really hard to discern which nuggets to believe and which to discard.
Below the About Face team debunks 7x common skincare inaccuracies. (Have you heard / read something that you don’t know whether or not to believe? Feel free to run it by us at hello@aboutfaceskincare.com!)
MYTH TO AVOID #1: Coconut oil clears acne.
Coconut oil is a wonderful cooking aid, with lots of health benefits. However, this is a product that should stay in the kitchen, and off your face…
Coconut oil is occlusive, which means that it effectively blocks your pore-openings, trapping anything inside from getting out. Applying a skin-clogging agent to the skin is the last thing that acne sufferers should be doing.
“People with acne should definitely not apply coconut oil to their skin in hopes of acne clearance. A much better option would be something that accomplishes the opposite, and helps flush out the pores, instead of something that completely clogs them” shares Raelle Levicke, lead aesthetician at About Face.
MYTH TO AVOID #2: Lemon juice evens out skin discoloration.
Lemon juice is another ingredient that can have it’s benefit in your life, but it’s best to leave in the kitchen.
Naomi Fenlin, owner and founder of About Face Skin Care reveals the myriad of reasons why you should not apply lemon juice to your skin:
There is so much variety in WHY skin discoloration occurs; sun-damage, hormones, acne, etc., and there are so many different TYPES of skin; light, dark, oily, dry, sensitive.
When professionally compounded into medicated skincare products, citric acid (lemon juice) can be a wonderful ingredient for your’s health and brightness.
But when you don’t know the exact condition you’re trying to treat, nor how your specific skin should be treated, adding pure lemon juice to your skin makes you vulnerable to a host of unwanted complications. Irritation, sun burn, blotchy light patches, and even skin darkening can result from topical lemon juice application. These issues likely wouldn’t occur if using a professional product, with professional guidance, instead.
MYTH TO AVOID #3: Collagen supplements eliminate wrinkles and plump the skin.
If it sounds too good to be true…
“When you take a collagen supplement, it diffuses throughout your entire body. The collagen is not just going to solely benefit your skin, and it definitely will not only benefit your face.” says Nicole Ciasullo, a Philadelphia nurse cosmetic-injector.
“Don’t waste your money on products that claim to deliver collagen to the skin through the digestive tract. It’s just not going to happen.”
MYTH TO AVOID #4: Biotin makes hair grow faster.
Studies show that although Biotin (and other hair-growing supplements) can improve the strength, thickness and quality of hair, the speed of hair-growth is predetermined purely by genetics.
“Hair is going to grow at a certain speed, no matter what.” Fenlin says. “You can’t change it.”
MYTH TO AVOID #5: Facial exercises get rid of wrinkles.
For almost every part of life, excerise can only benefit you. But the face?
Despite the recent press this concept has received, facial excercises (like the other myths described here) may actually cause the opposite of the desired result.
Repetitive muscle contractions cause your skin to wrinkle (example: the lines that show up on your forehead when furrowing your brow, or the lines from your lips to your nose when you smile.) Regularly giving your facial muscles a “workout” will only speed up the process, making these lines more prominent and deeper.
“Wrinkles form in the skin due to repetitive muscle contraction underneath the skin,” says Sarah Sidiqi, NP, injector at Philadelphia’s About Face. “You’re actually going to accentuate the wrinkles by doing facial exercises,” she adds.
Instead, this may be the one time that you’ll hear the recommendation: resting the area will be more beneficial for you than excercise.
MYTH TO AVOID #6: Oily skin doesn’t need moisturizer.
When it comes to properly living with oily skin, it is important to find hydration-balance.
“If your skin is in the oilier side, it still needs moisturization,” advises Briana Potito, About Face skincare expert.
“In fact, if you have oily skin you need to be diligant about moisturizer (even if it’s very light-weight) because as long as your skin never gets dry, it won’t over-produce oil to compensate,” she says. “It’s all about regulation.”
“You just have to find a moisturizer that is appropriate for your skin,” Potito says. (This is the most popular choice for her Philadelphia acne patients.)
MYTH TO AVOID #7: Certain skin types don’t need SPF.
Nooooooooo!!!!
Everyone, no matter ethnicity or skin type, needs to use sun protection!!
“Some people think that certain types of skin and skin tones don’t have to wear SPF,” Fenlin says. “And while it is true that darker skin types do have inherent sun protection factors because of the melanin in their skin, that’s only going to be 3 to 5 SPF.”
ALL SKIN TYPES need to have at least 30 to 50 SPF to completely guard against the sun’s harmful rays, she says. “We see skin cancer and sun damage occurring even in dark-skin patients, all the time. No one is totally safe, sun safey is a MUST that needs to be practiced by EVERYONE.”
(If you think applying sunscreen is a nuisance, this may be the answer to your prayers.)