April Fools Me Once… Don’t Make These Beauty Mistakes Twice!

Life is a process and – as humans – we all make mistakes. But while we learn and grow from our mistakes, your skin is not always as forgiving. We’re here to outline a few common skin faux pas you may have committed and don’t want to let happen again! 

Unsupervised active ingredients / At-home chemical peels

We all want to be an expert. After browsing a Wikipedia or WebMD page or two, we basically are, right? If only! When you are handling raw, pharmaceutical-grade ingredients, be wise and trust someone who has been through the training and knows both ingredients and your skin. A licensed aesthetician should help you pick the products and ingredients that go on your skin. Everyone knows an Amazon peel-gone-wrong story, and the damage that those products can leave may take years to undo. Even if you think you have “tough” skin or have tried it in the past, don’t press your luck again. To learn more about ingredients and what they can do, click here. 

Suntans 

Hardly anyone is innocent of this. We aestheticians dream that one day future generations will start wearing sunscreen earlier and never lay out. Embrace your natural skin tone and protect it. We hate to break it to you, but a suntan is actually sun damage – the excess melanin the skin creates from sun exposure is an effort to protect itself. Even for deeper skin tones, it’s just as important to prevent future sun damage by taking precautions in the sun. This means wearing (and reapplying) a broad-spectrum sunscreen PLUS a hat in direct exposure. Shade is your friend. Shop SPF here. 

Tweezing your brows 

The pendulum has swung with eyebrows and it has hit a beautiful place. Back in the 1990s and earlier 2000s it was all about an overplucked, arched eyebrow. Then came the Kardashians and suddenly it was all about doing up your brows THICK, DARK, and BOLD. And now we have the best of both worlds – a natural brow. Embrace your shape, fill in gaps, and if they grow a little wild – have your aesthetician reel them in every now and again. Tweezers are only for the occasional unruly hair, full unibrow, and chin hairs. Trying to shape your brows fully with tweezers will do long-term damage and throw off your brows’ natural hair growth cycle. 

Makeup on dry skin 

For a flawless makeup application, the canvas is everything. And we don’t mean primer – we mean cleansing, toning, applying a serum, and applying a moisturizer to avoid the dreaded flaking, caking, and dry patches that can happen throughout the day. Makeup will look most flawless not by adding more, but by smoothing and moisturizing the skin first. There’s a reason you can always find a moisturizer and refreshing spritz in every makeup artist kit (hello Rosehip Oil and ISO-Rose Hydrating Mist!) We’ve all made the mistake of thinking more is better when it comes to foundation, but start with the perfect canvas and you’ll be confident in your glow all day. And don’t sacrifice clear skin when it comes to makeup, check out some of our picks for non-pore clogging foundations.