Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing?

We’re all looking for a way to make our personal beauty shine… as evidenced by the fact that the cosmetics industry brings in over $55 billion each year. However, sometimes the more we try, the more we’re hurting. Certain beauty regimes, especially when done too frequently, are actually doing long-term damage to our health and beauty.



Health Is Beauty
If you’re ever tempted to indulge in unwise beauty practices, remember that simple concept. Health is beauty. Everything that we do to enhance our personal appearance has its root in making ourselves look healthy. Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, those indicators of good health are what make us appealing to others. That means clear, glowing skin, radiant hair, bright eyes, and straight, white teeth. These things don’t go out of style!

Therefore, the base of every beauty regimen should be health. I know--that’s not as easy as it sounds! Popular media is always changing its mind concerning what’s healthy and what’s not. Will eggs make you healthy and strong, or cause cancer? Is chocolate good or bad? How much water is the “right” amount to drink?

The confusion applies for beauty habits and products as well. I like to live by the mantra “all things in moderation” when I’m confused about what is and what is not healthy. There are plenty of beauty habits that we have that are just fine… in moderation. But once we try harder and harder at the same thing in order to achieve better and better results, we start doing damage. Here are some examples:



Styling Your Hair
There are a million things that we do to our hair to cause long-term damage. The most common culprit is blow dryers. Anytime we expose our hair to extreme heat, it can cause irreversible damage. This includes curling and straightening irons, too. Although your hair should be able to recover from occasional use, daily torment will start to take a toll.

Damage isn’t restricted to heating apparatuses, either. The damage can start with the way you treat your hair when it’s wet. Tugging, twisting, brushing, breaking, and stretching can all strain and break your hair when it’s wet and delicate. This can encourage split ends, flyaways, and lank, dull hair.

Go easy on your hair. Dye it with discretion, dry it kindly, and give it a chance to recover in between stylings. And in case you despair at the advice to avoid blow-drying, there ARE ways that you can blow dry your hair without causing as much damage. Stay away from the highest heat setting on your dryer. Hold the dryer far enough away from your hair that the cuticles (the outer layer of your hair that provides that shine and healthy texture) aren’t damaged and destroyed.



Exfoliating Your Face
Exfoliating your skin sloughs off dead cells and leaves you with a freshly glowing look. However, exfoliating too often can be a problem. In fact, certain washes and exfoliants can strip the natural moisture of your face, causing imbalances that result in dry skin, acne, and difficult spots under the skin.

Always get exfoliants that are made for the delicate skin of your face, instead of body wash. And although you like the way your skin looks after exfoliating, use moderation in order to keep your skin healthy. Exfoliating once or, at most, twice a week will do the trick!

Too Much Makeup
Makeup can enhance your natural beauty and disguise flaws. However, too much makeup can actually work against you. For example, if you have a skincare regime that leaves you naturally glowing, and toner that balances out the colors in your face, and then you cake those great effects under layers of foundation and cover up, you’re missing the point.

Layers of eye makeup can do the same thing, making your eyes look heavy and dull, instead of dramatically accented. It’s smart to use makeup that’s all part of the same line in order to be sure that they enhance and complement each other.



Whitening Toothpaste
Few people actually read the indications on their toothpaste packaging. However, if you look at most whitening toothpastes, they’ll tell you that they’re to be used ONCE a day.

Obviously, you should still be brushing your teeth more than once a day. Most of us do it every morning and every night. However, you’ll want a second option for toothpaste if your regular go-to is whitening toothpaste. Most whitening toothpastes achieve their results with harsher-than-usual abrasives. These can be good, because they contribute to removing stains caused by smoking, coffee, wine, and berries. However, they can also wear down the enamel layer of your teeth unnecessarily, and irritate gums.