your fav skincare beliefs are problematic

i've seen a lot of misinformation floating around and i'm so over seeing it left and right without any critical or medically supported thought attached. so i'm going to address some of the most common offenses that i see

myth #1: mineral oil suffocates skin

wrong wrong wrong, mineral oil is extremely harmless to skin and if you want to use baby oil to remove your makeup that is 100% safe and i support that. chemically, mineral oil is composed of giant hydrocarbons and cannot form a solid at room temperature. therefore mineral oil will not clog pores because forming a solid simply isn’t within its chemical properties. i wouldn’t recommend using baby oil as a moisturizer though, only because there are better moisturizers out there that’ll help your skin stay protected in the daytime and aid repair during the nighttime. but the point remains, you have nothing to fear about mineral oil.

myth #2: vaseline is bad for skin

like mineral oil, vaseline is also extremely safe for use on the lips and skin, including facial skin. i wouldn’t recommend using it as your only moisturizer because it's only an emollient but it wont damage your skin in any sense. it's a very common misconception that skin needs to “breathe” but skin actually has zero relation to the respiratory system and gaseous osmosis via skin is essentially negligible for our purposes here. hospitals widely use vaseline to protect sensitive areas of the skin on burn victims in order to speed along the healing process

myth #3: apple cider vinegar is essential for clearing up acne

acv is extremely acidic and i know a ton of people swear by it for clearing up acne and i can see how acv antibacterial properties would help w/ that. however acv is so acidic even when diluted a reasonable amount, the ph of an acid (or base for that matter) does not change and thus stays very acidic which i don’t see as a good thing in the long run. if you add a significant amount of water to acv to heavily dilute it then you’re just putting water on your face and the antibacterial benefits of acv will be very small. based on its chemical properties, i think there are other acne solutions that are much better suited for the skin like salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide which can be found in both high end and drugstore products

myth #4: toner is necessary for a skincare routine

toner is only necessary if you have a great toner with no bad ingredients like denatured alcohol or irritating plant extracts. with modern facial washes today, a toner is not necessary because a good facial cleanser will not dramatically alter the ph of your face thus eliminating the need to use a toner to re-establish your skin’s natural ph. therefore a toner technically does not need to be specific to any one skin type because its purpose is not to hydrate or control oil. toners nowadays are now formulated with extra ingredients that can be good for skin. addressing this myth, a toner is not necessary in a skincare routine, only if you find a toner that has good ingredients that are beneficial for skin is it a good idea to use a toner.

myth #5: wash your face with hot water to open pores, then finish washing with cold water to close pores

the biological structure of pores does not enable them to open or close, the end

myth #6: you don’t have to wash your face in the morning

you absolutely need to wash your face in the morning after you wake up. not only will washing your face help your makeup glide on smoother, but it will cleanse your face of dead skin cells and secretions that accumulate on your skin while you’re asleep. your skin (like the rest of your body) does most of its growth and healing while you’re asleep, so there's actually a lot that happens during those nighttime hours and its essential to the health of your skin to cleanse in the morning.

myth #7: i have dark skin so i don’t need to wear sunscreen

even if you have dark skin and don’t burn the same way a light skinned person would, your skin still needs the same amount of protection from uv rays because unfortunately uv rays don’t racially discriminate. wearing spf every day is a very simple way to prevent skin cancer which is a very scary reality for many people of color

myth #8: i have extremely oily skin so i don’t need to moisturize

you not moisturizing your skin might actually be contributing to your skin over producing oil. introducing a moisturizer into your skincare routine gives your skin a chance to chill out and stop overcompensating. your skin believes it's drier than it is, so it overproduces oil to combat that.

myth #9: this moisturizer says its all natural so it must be good for my skin

poison ivy is all natural but you wouldn’t put that on your face. just like how not all synthetic ingredients are bad for skin, not all natural ingredients are good for skin. for example, lavender oil has zero skincare benefits and is actually a proven irritant for skin. many plant extracts and essential oils found in skincare are unnecessary and can cause irritation.

myth #10: exfoliating with a facial scrub is important

facial scrubs usually do more harm than good. st ives is notorious for its awful facial scrubs that actually tear micro lacerations into the surface of your skin which leaves you open to infection and breakouts. i strongly prefer chemical exfoliation with a beta hydroxy acid or alpha hydroxy acid instead of a physical facial scrub because a chemical exfoliant has the ability to penetrate deeper down in the pores to eliminate buildup of dead skin cells which causes blackheads. a physical exfoliant only scrubs at the very surface of the skin which isn’t very effective for longterm skin health. facial skin is extremely delicate and you don’t want to harshly rub grainy sharp particles against it. even if you haven't experienced negative effects of using a physical scrub, there's still a high risk of developing skin problems later down the road. be very gentle with your skin.

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im ending this post by reminding everyone to do their own research and not trust everything they hear from random sources. anyone, even licensed estheticians, can be uninformed about biochemistry and how it affects the skin. i get my info from being a chemistry/chemical engineering double major and spending a lot of time at nih dot com and the us national library of medicine reading studies and articles.