A good skin care regimen can keep your largest organ healthy and glowing and make you feel good about yourself. A bad regimen, though, can wreak all kinds of damage, especially on the delicate skin of your face.
At Med Physique Center for Aesthetics in Austin, Texas, our aestheticians understand the importance of good skin care, and they have the knowledge and expertise to provide you with the best options for every different kind of problem or flaw. They also want to educate their clients about the skin care trends they should avoid, so they’ve put together this guide on the worst offenders.
Many regimens can damage your skin. Here are a number of those that can do more harm than good.
Beauty influencers all over social media recommend DIY solutions to rejuvenate your appearance but beware of the claims. The products combined to create these at-home serums or face masks are often pulled from over-the-counter merchandise without adequate quality control. The active ingredient concentration is uncontrolled and can damage sensitive skin, causing irritation and even chemical burns.
Applying scrubs containing nut shells or similarly harsh exfoliants directly to the skin and scrubbing hard is more likely to damage skin cells than cleanse them. In addition, exfoliating too much or too vigorously can also cause the skin to overproduce oils, leading to acne outbreaks and an oily tone.
Then there’s the rampant claim across social media platforms that ordinary baking soda, used as a mask, is a great way to cleanse your skin. And the trending #bakingsodafacemask claims that the household powder clears acne quickly. Neither of these is true, and using baking soda on your skin can do much damage.
Baking soda is highly alkaline and can damage the skin’s barrier, leading to dryness and contact dermatitis. It can also create micro-tears in your skin, opening the door to infections or rashes.
You’re much better at introducing chemical exfoliators, such as alpha hydroxy acids (e.g., lactic acid or glycolic acid) or retinol, into your regimen. The acids are used in professional chemical peels, and retinol is a powerful anti-acne medication.
It’s lovely pulling off a face mask and seeing the impurities on the mask instead of on your face. However, OTC peel-off masks may also remove your top layer of skin and the muck. In addition, the products used in the mask can become lodged in pores, leading to irritation and acne.
We recommend coming into Med Physique Center for Aesthetics for a professional-grade face mask that does nothing but pamper your skin.
Using essential oils for daily skin care is another trend that can do more harm than good. The “natural” nature of essential oils may seem tempting, but they’re too concentrated to be applied by themselves on your skin. Even if you mix it with a natural carrier oil, it can still clog pores and irritate those with sensitive skin.
Our aestheticians recommend a professional-grade cream designed for your specific skin type. The results will be more effective, and they’ll last much longer.
Microneedling is a cosmetic treatment that addresses the fine lines and wrinkles of aging skin and blemishes, such as age spots. It uses a roller fitted with hundreds of tiny needles that you roll over the skin, causing micro-injuries in the tissue. These injuries lead to a burst of new collagen production, which fills in the lines and restores the taut, resilient nature of the skin of your youth.
While microneedling is a great in-office treatment, at-home microneedling devices aren’t as safe and can’t achieve the same results. In-office treatments adjust the needle depth according to the patient’s aesthetic goals, and they can be performed in a sterile fashion.
At-home microneedling devices can’t adjust the needle depth, aren’t necessarily sterile, and can result in contact dermatitis, the spread of bacteria and infections, and sometimes even permanent scarring.
Your best and safest option would be to schedule an in-office treatment with one of our licensed aestheticians.
Want to learn more about what’s good for your skin and what you should avoid? Call Med Physique Center for Aesthetics at 512-361-2650, or book a consultation online with us today.
