After a long exhausting day of work it can be tempting to kick off your shoes and go straight to bed. But doing that could harm your skin especially when you sleep with your makeup on.

Going to bed without removing your makeup can damage your skin and degenerate your overall appearance. So no matter how tired you are or how late in the night it is, you should make it a part of your daily routine to remove your makeup. Here are some reasons why you should never neglect this as part of your routine.

It causes inflammations on your skin

Makeup coupled with the dust and dirt in the air and the dead skin cells on your face can clog your pores. When your pores are clogged, your skin will develop inflammations in form of acne. If you have acne-prone skin, leaving makeup overnight can cause the acne to flare up.

Foundations can be the worst when it comes to clogged pores and acne flare ups. Even lipstick left overnight can cause the skin around your lips to be inflamed. So remember to wipe them all off.

It can lead to premature aging

Makeup left on the skin for too long can cause your skin to break down. The break down damages your skin cells which will lead to premature aging. It will also increase the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines on your skin.

To verify this, an experiment was conducted by the Daily Mail not too long ago, on a woman who applied makeup without cleansing her face. This caused her to age 10 years in 1 month!

It’ll make your complexion look dull

When you don’t remove makeup from your face before sleeping, the makeup cakes on your skin as your head presses against your pillow. The layer of makeup makes it difficult for your skin to shed off the old skin and reveal the new skin. This is what is usually responsible for the dull lifeless skin colour.

The makeup left on your skin clogs the pores and creates dark circles around your eyes reducing the overall vibrance of your face.

It can cause irritation

Makeup contains certain elements in its formula that can cause irritation. Elements like dye or perfume could cause irritation if left on the skin overnight. Eye products, especially mascara and eyeliners, can also irritate the sensitive lining of the eyes. If you have sensitive skin, the effect of the irritants can be aggravated to cause itchiness or excessive flaring of the skin.

It can cause infections

Makeup on its own does not cause infections. However when mixed with dirt in the environment and sweat, makeup can act as a carrier of infections. So any cut or opening caused by an acne breakout will get contaminated with the dirt and sweat-ridden makeup. This will make your skin get infected. The same goes for eye products that somehow find their way into your eyes while you sleep.

It will cause your lips to be chapped

Many lipsticks contain wax. The wax causes your lips to dry up. As you use lipstick everyday the loss of the natural moisture of your lips causes your lips to dry and the skin to crack. Not removing your lipstick before going to bed will accelerate the drying and make the chapping worse. This could lead to abrasions and your lips may bleed.

It weakens your eyelashes

Mascara can accentuate the beauty of your eyes but allowing it to stay all night can make your delicate eyelashes weaken. The formula contained in mascara can be too hard on your eyelashes. When you don’t remove your mascara it makes your eyelashes brittle, prone to breakage and eventually start shedding faster.

So makeup needs to be wiped off every night before bed time. No excuses.

Do you wipe your makeup off every night?