3 Surprising Things That Could Be Damaging Your Skin

*This is a collaborative post*

When it comes to getting your skincare right, there’s a lot of information you have to learn. It’s not as simple as the old route of “cleanse, tone, and moisturise” – or at least it isn’t if you want your skin to look it’s best. The modern version of the old tale would be something like:

• Cleanse
• Cleanse again (we all know double cleansing is something we absolutely should be doing, right?)
• Exfoliate, either physically or with the new chemical cleansing options such as AHAs and BHAs
• Tone
• Apply serum
• Moisturise

That’s not quite so simple as we might have been lead to believe.

Of course, even if you do all of the above, your skin can still be troublesome. You spend a fortune on products and nevertheless, you can’t quite seem to get your base right. Skin problems can have a real impact on self-esteem, so it’s worth investigating the surprising ways and unusual things that could be having an impact on how good your skin looks and feels.

Touching Your Face Too Much

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If you struggle with adult acne, then a surprising cause might be a habit you don’t even know you’re doing: touching your face.

Our fingers have natural oils on them, which we then tend to add to with hand creams. When you touch your face, these oils are transferred onto your skin – and can potentially clog the pores.

What To Do About It: To see if this is a problem for you, try and count the amount of times you touch your face in an hour. You’ll likely be surprised by just how frequent it is; it happens when you brush your hair out of your eyes, when you’re trying to think through a dilemma, when you’re using absent-mindedly watching TV. If it is an issue for you, you’ll become more aware of it, which should help you to reduce the number of occurrences.

Sleeping On Your Side

If you have fine lines or wrinkles beginning to develop, then there’s a good chance it’s being caused by sleeping on your side. As you snuggle down into the pillow at night, your skin is compressed. That’s fine when you’re younger, but after the age of 25, your body isn’t producing collagen – the compound that keeps skin elastic – in the same quantities. As a result, your skin isn’t able to spring quite back to normal in the morning. The result? Those fine lines and developing wrinkles.

What To Do About It: Try and train yourself to sleep on your back. This isn’t easy; most of us choose a sleeping position early on in life, and getting out of the habit is tough. Try and position yourself right on the edge of the mattress to encourage yourself to stay on your back; if turning over means falling out of bed, you’re less likely to do it!

Hard Water

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Hard water is incredibly common in the UK; you can usually check with your water company to see how hard it is. In Leicestershire, that’s Severn Trent, who handily have a postcode checker to determine how hard your supply is. Your own water supplier will likely have the same function on their website; use it and see if it’s a problem for you.

Hard water plays havoc with skin. It’s been linked to at least exacerbating – if not outright causing – eczema. It also tends to leave more mineral deposits on your skin, which can clog pores and cause a number of skin problems. If you have problems with acne or your skin tends to look dull and dry, then there’s a good chance that your water is at the root of the problem.

What To Do About It: A water softener can make a big difference to your water quality. It might be worth heading to Best Spy to read up on these ingenious machines and see if one might be suited to your household. They’re relatively easy to install yourself, or you can ask a plumber for assistance. If that’s outside of your budget, then you can buy shower heads which claim to soften water – but these can be unpredictable.

As a last resort, wash your face in cheap bottle water from a supermarket and see if it makes a difference. It also helps to try and keep your face away from the shower spray; the less contact with water, the better.

Managing skincare is all about understanding the different behaviours and aspects of life that can contribute to your skin health. Hopefully, after reading the above, you will have a better idea of the underlying issues that might be contributing to your skin woes.