The beauty industry is always coming up with new and inventive routines to make you look younger. Simple skin routines have given way to hundreds of different cosmetic therapies that often seem very odd. But these are all developed by professional companies so they must be good for you, right? You’d hope so but that’s not always the case. There are a lot of beauty treatments and products that do you more harm than good. If you’re doing them on a regular basis you could do yourself some long lasting damage.
Working out the good beauty products from the bad can be difficult because, obviously, they’re always going to tell you it’s great for you. This list should help you to separate fact from fiction.
Teeth Whitening
There is a pretty big market for teeth whitening products these days, which is weird because your teeth aren’t naturally that white. That doesn’t stop people from wanting to make their teeth dazzlingly white. The thing is, lots of these teeth whitening products are terrible for your teeth. They tend to contain hydrogen peroxide which does no favors for the enamel on your teeth. It’ll chip away at it and weaken your teeth. The thing is, the effects aren’t going to be permanent so you’ll have to keep using them over and over if you want to keep them white. However, the negative effects will be permanent. As long as you’re taking good care of your teeth they should be a healthy color and there’s no need to use teeth whitening products.
Moisturizer
You use moisturizer to stop your skin from drying out. If you’re using it daily but it doesn’t seem to have an effect, you might be wondering, why is my skin so dry? Moisturizers themselves are not a bad thing but if you aren’t using them correctly then you’ll do more damage to your skin. There are all sorts of varieties of moisturizer, all suited to different skin types. Finding the right moisturizer for your skin type is the only way to be sure that it’s doing you some good. The three main skin types are dry, oily, and sensitive. Most products will specify which skin type they’re for so finding the right one needn’t be a struggle.
Lash Extensions
Lash extensions are a life saver for anybody that regularly uses false eyelashes. You don’t have to mess around putting on a new set of eyelashes every time you go out and you don’t have to deal with peeling them off every time either. It sounds like a winner but it’s not the miracle solution that you might think. Each lash has to be applied using a strong glue and then you need to touch them up every few weeks. Because you wear them for so long, you risk permanently damaging your real eyelashes. That means if you ever want to stop using them you might not have any natural eyelashes left. You’re also putting yourself at risk of eye infections that you can easily catch from the glue.
Tanning Oil
It should be obvious that tanning oil is bad for you but that doesn’t stop loads of people from using it. Most people use sunblock when they’re outside in the sun to stop UV rays getting through to their skin. Tanning oil does the exact opposite which is why it’s a terrible idea to use it. It magnifies the sun’s rays with the aim of getting you a better tan. While it’s true that you will get a better tan in the short term, you’re massively increasing your chances of getting skin cancer and you’ll age a lot faster than normal as well.
Hair Dyes
Hair dye is one of the most common beauty products out there but there’s a chance that they could be doing you some serious harm. Studies done on rats have shown that there’s a chance that long term use could be linked to cancer. There’s also the chance that your body will get used to the chemicals over the years and one day, you can have an allergic reaction to the hair dye, even if you’ve used it loads of times before. The results of a hair dye allergy are not pretty and you want to avoid it at all costs. Most of these problems tend to be associated with darker hair dyes and the research isn’t too extensive so it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should never dye your hair again, but it’s probably best not to do to it all the time. If you’re looking to lighten your hair you can always use lemon juice as a natural alternative.
Eyeshadow
Eyeshadow, in general, isn’t a bad thing but certain brands contain harmful chemicals. Aluminum powder is the worst offender, usually found in metallic colored eyeshadow. Extended exposure to aluminum powder has been linked to an increased risk of cancer so it’s worth checking the ingredients in your eyeshadow before you use it. Wearing it every now and again isn’t going to do you much harm but try not to use it for your daily makeup.
Perfumes
The bad news is, most of the perfumes you got in your cupboard right now are probably packed full of harmful chemicals. The rules about listing ingredients aren’t that strict for perfumes so there are often lots of things in there that aren’t properly labelled. Generic words like fragrance are often used to hide some of the worse chemicals so you should avoid anything that uses words like that in its ingredients list. Lots of the chemicals in perfumes have been linked to allergic reactions and researchers are starting to suggest that second-hand perfume is a problem much like second-hand smoke is.
Luckily for you, all this doesn’t mean that you have to stop wearing perfumes completely, you’re just a bit more limited in what you can buy. There are new ranges of perfume on the market that are made from essential oils and don’t contain any of the nasty chemicals that you find in normal perfumes.
It would be great if you could trust the word of beauty companies but you can’t always be sure. Always check the ingredients list before you use anything.
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