Bad beauty habits. We all have them, whether we realise it or not. What we thought were good habits might even turn out to be incredibly detrimental to our skin, nails, or hair!
Be it nail-biting, hair-twirling, lip chewing, or spamming your skin with too much product, we all have a beauty quirk or two. But some of these quirks may just be the thing that is undermining your beauty regimen and negating all your efforts.
Here are some bad beauty habits you need to break and how you have them under control:
1. Overloading on Skin Products
Often, we purchase a product in the hopes that it will be the solution to our skincare problem(s). But then another facial treatment comes along with promises to improve your skin and we can’t help but buy it. Pretty soon, we’ve amassed an arsenal of skincare products that we either don’t use regularly or use simultaneously.
Going overboard with skincare products can cause skin sensitivity as the powerful ingredients in the products may not work well with each other. As a result, the skin’s outer layer may start to peel, causing irritation and redness. So be sure to slowly incorporate new products into your daily beauty routine and use just one new product at a time.
2. Licking Your Lips
We all know chewing our lips is bad. But did you know that licking your lips can also result in drier, chapped lips? You might think it would help to moisturise your lips, but the saliva actually dries them out more. If you apply (flavoured) lip balm regularly, be sure not to lick your lips as this will put you through a cycle of licking your lip balm, drying out your lips, and then reapplying more lip balm to treat your dry lips.
To break this habit, look for a long-lasting, flavourless lip balm that contains hydrating ingredients as shea butter, aloe, almond oil, coconut oil, wheat germ oil, jojoba oil, sunflower oil, or cottonseed oil. These ingredients are effective in providing moisture and sealing it in.
3. Picking at Split Ends
How tempting is it to break off your split ends? We know. It can be hard to resist when you spot split ends. But while the tears in your strands leave them looking dry and damaged, breaking your strands would only worsen the problem. Instead of half an inch of frizzy hair, you may end up with a few inches of split ends, or even split ends up the entire hair shaft! These thinner strands of damaged hairs will then tangle around healthy hairs and cause those to splinter and break as well.
The only solution to split ends is snipping them off. Don’t get too hung up over have slightly shorter hair. Uniform and healthy-looking ends in fact make your hair look thicker and longer.
To fix split ends on your own, separate your hair into small sections and twist each section like a corkscrew. The uneven lengths of split ends will show, so you can easily snip them off.
4. Hair-Twirling
Twirling hair is often the result of long hair and boredom. It’s mostly harmless until it becomes a chronic habit, which can then result in serious damage to your hair and scalp. All the added stress you put on a regular basis can lead to hair fall and breakage in the long run, so hands off your tresses!
5. Nail-Biting
Nail biting is a nervous, mindless habit that typically begins in childhood. Chronic nail biting can result in bleeding, or worse infection.
It’s hard to break this habit because you usually don’t realise that you’re doing it. But you could try sucking on a mint whenever you feel like biting your nails or have already started, or you could slather on some hand lotion that tastes icky when you put your fingers in your mouth. Alternatively, you could try getting regular manicures that are far too pretty to be destroyed by a nail biting!
What other bad beauty habits do you have and how do you break them? Sound off in the Comments section below!
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