Ten Bad Beauty Habits to Break

Sleeping with Your Makeup On
Your skin needs room to breathe if you wear makeup, and your eight hours of beauty sleep is just the time to give it a break. Remove the dirt and grime of the day and re-apply your skincare products. As you sleep your body repairs itself – including your skin – so give it the nourishment it needs. Besides, your clean pillowcase will thank you!

More Years, More Coverage
Not true, as we get older, the texture of skin changes. Larger pore size, fine lines, age spotting. The more coverage, the heavier the product. This can actually draw attention to what you are trying to minimize because it settles in the larger pores and fine lines. Tinted moisturizers are a great alternative to foundation.

Over Plucking/Shaping your Brows
Groomed brows give the eyes support and frame the face; however if brows become sparse, try filling in the brows using an angle brush and a matte shadow the same tone as your hair rather than a pencil. You will achieve a more natural look.

Dark Lip Liner with Pale Lips
Lip liner should enhance your lips and provide longer wear to your lip color. Begin by lining the upper lip from right corner to center then left corner to center so both sides match, and the same on the lower lip. Then, feather the pencil across the whole of your lips to avoid the two-tone effect as your lipstick wears off.

Products with Mineral Oil
Eliminate products that contain mineral oil. Mineral oil actually occludes the skin, resulting in trapped sebum and debris, causing blocked pores and breakouts.

Not Keeping Your Makeup Brushes Clean
Cleanliness is important for your makeup brushes. Think about it: You apply your makeup to the delicate skin on your face, and the very susceptible, sensitive areas around your eyes and lips. Your brushes should be cleaned regularly with a gentle cleanser in hot soapy water. Be sure to rinse well to remove the cleanser. Dry Brushes flat, not upright as the water can seep into the handles and potentially ruin the wood.

Rinsing Hair with Hot Water
Always rinse your hair with cool or tepid water as it will seal the cuticle and smooth the hair.

Blow-drying or Diffusing
If you currently blow dry up, or diffuse the hair upward or upside down, consider changing your ways. Blow drying down the hair shaft will seal and smooth the cuticle. When diffusing, diffuse down and scrunch up. Finish your blow dry with a cool setting.

Not Moisturizing Your Body Daily
We lose as much as half a pint of water daily simply through skin evaporation. Drinking water replenishes your body, and moisturizing your skin helps to seal in the moisture.

First Signs of Aging
Your hands, neck, décolleté and eyes often show the first signs of aging.
Always wear an SPF! It can be in your moisturizer, foundation, lip balm or anything that offers at least an SPF15. The sun is the biggest factor to premature aging. You don't have to be a sun worshiper, or spend hours in the sun to get incidental sun exposure – you just have to be unprotected. So wear your sunscreen, even the winter!

For your hands, use a hand cream with or followed by an SPF15 daily.
For your face, when cleansing or applying moisturizer and/or treatment products to your skin, don’t ignore your neck and décolleté. Massage the product into your skin with upward strokes from the bottom up, around to the back and even behind your ears.
For your eyes, be faithful to an eye cream with plant-based ingredients. Eye creams are very refined and will address the needs of the delicate skin in that area. Apply a small amount with your ring finger and tap in around the orbital bone.

Picking, Biting, Filing and Peeling

• Picking: Picking any part of your skin is a bad beauty habit. If you pick at your face (i.e. pimples), it causes a breakdown of the follicle wall and will cause damage to collagen therefore leaving and indented scar on the face over time. Resist the urge to pick and let pimples, bumps or scabs heal on their own time.
• Biting: Biting your nails not only makes you look nervous and your nails look unkempt, it wreaks havoc on the nail plate and surrounding areas of your skin, as well as introduces bacteria which can cause infection. Try keeping your nails polished and manicured. That way, if you put all that work into making them look nice, you'll be less likely to bite them.
• Filing: Never file back and forth in a sawing motion across the free edge of your fingernail. This can disrupt the layers of the nail plate and cause splitting and peeling. The correct way to file your nails is from right side to center then left side to center.
• Peeling: Peeling or picking your nail polish will often remove layers of your nail. This will result in damage and weakening of the nail plate.