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An additional 3 skin care myths demystified

Reading all these posts make you wonder what you actually knew about skin care all this time! Whether you like it or not, there are many more myths which are proven to be really myths and should not be trusted in the posts to follow.

Myth no.1: If your skin gets cooled or starts tingling when you apply something, it means the product is working and is good.

This is entirely wrong! In fact, the tingling and cooling of your skin proves that it is being irritated and not helped. This tingling sensation is your skin responding to irritation which will slowly but surely lead to inflammation.

In fact, the products which cause such sensations actually damage your skin’s healing process and makes scarring worse, leads to the breakdown of collagen and elastin and can lead to an increase in the growth of bacteria which triggers pimples.

Ingredients like mint, peppermint, menthol and camphor are actually counter-irritants used to induce local inflammation to help reduce inflammation in the deeper and adjacent tissues. In other words, what they do is substitute a form of inflammation to another which is not good for your skin.

No matter what triggers skin irritation or inflammation, or how it occurs, it impairs the skin’s immune and healing response. Moreover, if your skin does not show it or does not look irritated, applying these irritants to your skin still creates the damage which adds up over time.

Myth no.2: The right products can help control oily skin.

While this may be possible, it involves a very complicated and confusing process. Its androgens and estrogen (the male and female hormones) which trigger oil production. It’s not actually possible to topically alter the production of these hormones using cosmetics.

However as the sebaceous gland also produces active androgens which increase sebum extraction, the stress-sensing skin signals like irritation and skin inflammation can trigger the production and release of androgens. This in turn leads to the production of more oil which in turn can clog pores. While this makes topical inflammation and irritation bad for the skin, it does not imply that it affects the body’s hormones production.

Myth no.3: You need to drink more water if you have dry skin.

Dry skin is not a consequence of lack of moisture, and drinking water does not make dry skin look or feel better. In fact, on comparing the water content of dry skin and normal or oily skin, there’s not much of a difference. Moreover, it’s not actually good adding too much of moisture to the skin.

Too much of moisture like soaking in a bathtub is actually bad for the skin as it disrupts the skin’s outer barrier by breaking all substances which keep skin cells in good shape and proper functioning.

No wait! There’s more to come, in fact, the last in this series of skin care myths demystified comes up in the next blog!