9 things you must NOT apply on face

Bhubaneswar:  Who doesn’t wish for a perfectly radiant face; pimple-free and spot-free! After all, it plays a pivotal role in catalyzing their self-esteem.

From special diets to exercises and several herbal and cosmetic products, men and women exhaust every option to make their skin, especially faces, look perfect. However, there are certain things that people have been using on their faces without realizing they do more harm to their skin than good.

Here are nine such things that one should not apply on their face:

Coconut oil

This oil doesn’t go well for every skin type. Coconut oil takes time to get properly absorbed in the skin and things get worse for people with oily skin. Massaging coconut oil on oily skin blocks its pores. Then follow acne, pimples and blemishes.

So, if your skin type is oily, coconut oil might not be your thing. However, people with dry skin could benefit here.

Lemon juice

Vitamin C found in citrus fruits like lemon ticks so many boxes when it comes to immunity and good health. But, it might not be the elixir you had imagined for clear and glowing skin. We have all, at some point in time, come across the proposition that raw lemon juice is a unanimous answer to several skin-related issues like acne, spots, tans, blemishes, excess oiliness, etc.  Some studies say otherwise.

Apparently, on regular application of lemon juice on the skin, a chemical content in the juice called Psoralen, makes the skin sensitive towards the sunlight.  Thus, instead of lightening the skin, it rather burns it and also causes irritation when a person steps out in the sun, after washing off a lemon juice mask from the skin.

Toothpaste

People often use toothpaste to pop acne out or scrub away blackheads. The strong chemical constituents in the toothpaste damage the skin by drying it out and thus, causing more skin irritation.

Hot water

Washing face with hot water is not a good idea. Doing so wide opens the skin pores, thus, letting essential moisture escape. As a result, the skin becomes dry and prone to acne, burns and breakouts.

However, if washing face with cold water is inconvenient, lukewarm water would be a reasonable option.

Baking soda

For its alkaline properties, baking soda is often used as a DIY to treat acne on the face. However, skin experts don’t quite encourage the practice as it causes repulsion in the skin’s normal pH balance and causes breakouts.

Expired sunscreen

A layer of expired sunscreen on the face doesn’t protect it from the harmful UV rays of the sun. On the contrary, it damages the facial skin and leads to infections.

Waxes

Practicing the ‘waxing’ way of body hair removal is fair. But, using the same trick on the face is not quite smart. Facial skin is way more sensitive than body skin. Thus, waxing it exposes it to sun damages, rashes, and also allergies in more sensitive cases.

Body lotion

A blunder people often commit is that they apply body lotion on the face when they run out of face cream or moisturizer. The goal is to moisturize anyway, right?

Not quite so. Vital as the process of moisturizing is in the face-care regime, choosing the right product for the face is equally important.  The chemical composition of body lotion is denser and greasier than what the face needs. So, instead of moisturizing, it clogs the skin pores and later leads to acne, breakouts and even allergic reactions in some cases.