sheabutterbitch:

Things you need to stop putting on your face

I’ve seen lot’s of posts on here post about what you shouldn’t put on your face, I’ve studied holistic skin care for a very long time and some of those lists are true…some not so much and are blown out of proportion but overall they never provide insight as to why you shouldn’t use these things. So since I’ve gotten a few asks regarding some DIY skin care methods, I just decided to make this list.

lemon / This is probably the most frustrating one, I see this everywhere as a method to get rid of dark marks and it makes me cringe every time. Lemons are very acidic, with a pH of 2 so they’ll not only irritate your skin but also disrupt the natural pH of the acid mantle. The amount of citric acid varies depending upon the lemon, you never really know exactly how much you’re putting on your face. This can be especially dangerous because there is also phototoxicity there, once your skin makes contact with the sun you could even get a chemical burn.

sugar / Lots of people recommend sugar scrubs as a good exfoliating method and it is…it’s just too abrasive for your face. It creates tiny lacerations in your skin and disrupts your lipid barrier which causes dryness and flakiness. To make it even worse, the destruction of your lipid barrier prolongs the healing process of your skin. Which defeats the purpose of exfoliating because it won’t be soft, it’ll cause more flaky skin and it’ll be terribly dry.

toothpaste / This method is as old as I can remember, people suggest using toothpaste as a spot treatment to put directly on your acne. Toothpaste will rapidly strip your lipid barrier, the pH in toothpaste also affects your acid mantle. Toothpaste also contains lot’s of irritants, everything from sweeteners to whatever it is that causes it to foam up.

baking soda / I seen someone suggest this today… I can’t believe people still do this. Pretty much causes the same problems as the sugar, it’ll affect your pH and then strip your skin of the properties that defend against bacterial infections.

Alternatives
• instead of lemon for dark marks, try aloe vera gel
• instead of sugar or baking soda, try green tea
• instead of toothpaste, try a clay mask