No matter how many sets of wipes, cleansers or fancy bottles of micellar water we might have in our bathroom cabinets, we’re all guilty of sleeping with our makeup on sometimes.
Perhaps you’ve come home from work exhausted with just enough energy to put on your pyjamas and crawl into bed. Maybe you’ve stumbled through your bedroom door a little worse for wear after a night out and have fallen asleep there and then. Or, maybe you just can’t be bothered.
After all, how much damage can it really do? We asked an expert. A lot, apparently.
“It’s vital to remove your makeup each night,” says Dermalogica‘s Education Manager of the Dermal Insititue, Emma Hobson.
“Our skin needs to repair itself at night and allow several process to occur, including our oil production dropping and our skin temperature and pH fluctuating. The skin is also hotter and more acidic during nighttime.”
The combination of these factors means skin is likely to be drier (dehydrated) and more vulnerable to irritation at night. (Post continues after gallery.)
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“Removing your makeup is such an important step in your daily skin care regimen to prevent skin sensitisation, as well as the challenges of increased skin congestion and possible eye irritations and infections,” she says.
“Don’t forget you also need to remove your SPF off your skin each night too.”
“But I don’t do it regularly.”
Even if it’s only on the odd occasion that you sleep with your makeup on, it doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.
“One offs are of course much less detrimental than doing it regularly, however that one night can still be the trigger causing an eye infection or your next breakout,” Hobson explains.
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