The Worst Skin Care Tips On Pinterest
I love Pinterest; I am sure you love Pinterest too. Pinterest is my favorite way to save recipes, look for recipes, and organize articles I find about skin care and esthetics on the web. Unfortunately, when it comes to skin care advice, Pinterest isn’t always the best source of information. On Pinterest, you’ll find DIY skin care recipes that use everything in your kitchen from egg whites to cinnamon to lemon juice and yogurt.
Even though I am all for the occasional DIY facial mask or toner, some of the skin care advice on Pinterest can be downright dangerous for your skin or even your health. Find out here what Pinterest skin care advice is best to avoid and why.
Using Lemon Juice On Your Face
One of the most popular DIY skin care tips on Pinterest is to use lemon juice on your face – mix it with baking soda or sugar for a facial scrub, put it in a mask, or use it as a toner. According to Pinterest, the possibilities are limitless when it comes to lemon juice and skin care. Sorry to burst your bubble but you shouldn’t be putting lemon juice on your skin. Why? When applied to the skin any sort of citrus including lemons can irritate the skin and break down the protective oils on the surface of the skin since the pH of lemon juice is much lower than that of your skin.
Additionally, lemons contain a chemical called psoralen which makes your skin very sensitive to light; this chemical takes 24 hours to wear off. During the time it takes that chemical to wear off you could easily get sunburned while outdoors or develop blisters. This chemical also causes skin inflammation when exposed to light. Another thing about citrus or lemon juice to keep in mind is that citrus drinks also breakdown sunscreen, so you need to reapply sunscreen after consuming citrus drinks during the summer.
Using Glue or Gelatin To Make Pore Strips
People love pore strips. While I understand the appeal of pore strips as an esthetician, they definitely are not my favorite way of getting rid of blackheads on your nose. But no matter what I say to people – pore strips can irritate your skin or even stretch your pores – they will probably keep using them. Unfortunately, Pinterest and the internet, in general, abound with recipes for making pore strips from gelatin or by simply spreading glue on your nose, waiting for it dry, and peeling it off.
Once again – please don’t do this! Spreading gelatin on your nose will do nothing to help remove blackheads – period. As for spreading glue on your nose – that will definitely irritate your skin by exposing it directly to chemicals that are not meant to get anywhere near your face. If you insist on using a pore strip just buy them or use a clay or charcoal mask on your nose.
Making Your Own Sunscreen
Please, please, please whatever you do, do NOT make your own sunscreen! I really can’t think of a worse DIY skin care product. Why is it so bad to make your own sunscreen? Because there is simply no way to know how effective the product you made at home is at shielding you from the sun’s harmful rays; you have no way of knowing what SPF number your homemade sunscreen has. Lab Muffin wrote a great article that breaks down all the reasons why DIY sunscreen is such a terrible mistake citing such issues as ingredient percentages, particle size and clumping, and the lack of stringent testing.
You could damage your skin by using DIY sunscreen or worse make yourself vulnerable to skin cancer. There are so many excellent sunscreens on the market that there is absolutely no reason to make your own.