Skin, being the largest organ of your body, needs just as much care as your internal organs. Your skin health isn’t just defined by how it looks on the outside but also by how nourished it is from the inside. There’s a reason why you spend hours treating your skin with the right skincare products and eat everything that can help keep it nourished.  

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Skincare today has become one of the most talked about topics so much so that there’s no dearth of information about it. With all the information that you consume daily, it’s common to fall prey to misleading facts and myths about skincare. While some articles say that sunscreen is absolutely essential to your skin health, others call it harmful and cancerous. You’ll find some articles that advice you to cleanse many times a day and others that warn you not to cleanse more than twice a day.

There’s no reason for how these skincare myths came into practice. While a few of them were promoted by people with limited scientific knowledge, others have been passed down from previous generations.  

It’s understandable how certain pieces of information make you become conscious of what you put on your skin, but there are certain myths that do more harm than good.  

Here’s few of these skincare myths that are either stopping you from giving yourself a healthy skin or are harming your skin: 

1. Oily Skin Doesn’t Need Moisturizer

As someone who has believed in this myth for a really long time, I can vouch for the fact that oily skin needs to be moisturized just as much as dry skin does. I never cared to moisturize my oily skin as a teenager and lived in the belief that slathering moisturizer on my skin would aggravate my oily skin woes and make my face look way too shiny. 

Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Oil, by no means, can be a substitute for moisturizer. In fact, moisturizer plays a huge role in regulating the oil production in your skin by providing it with the necessary dose of hydration that keeps the oil glands from being overactive.  

2. You Only Need Sunscreen When It’s Sunny Outside

This is another common myth that many people still choose to believe in. They skip sunscreen when it’s rainy outside or when they are inside their home. This myth is one of the reasons why your skin suffers from dryness or sudden acne breakouts. 

UV rays can penetrate through the windows of your home and through the clouds when it’s rainy outside thereby causing irreparable damage to your skin. So irrespective of the weather outside, make sure that you have enough SPF slathered on your face to protect it from the harmful effects of UV rays. 

3. Natural Skincare Products Are Safer Than Chemical Products

This is another skincare myth that I grew up believing in. It was only after talking to a skincare expert that I got to know that natural skincare products aren’t necessarily good for your skin. There are many organic or natural products with ingredients that may cause an allergic reaction on your skin (think of essential oils and astringents).

Similarly, to say that chemical products are harmful for your skin is yet another myth that many people believe in. In fact, there are many chemical products out there that are absolutely magical and can help treat a lot of your skin woes that no natural product can. 

The effectiveness of a skincare product doesn’t depend upon whether it’s organic or chemical-based. It rather depends on its ingredients and the research that goes behind creating it. 

4. The More You Exfoliate, The Cleaner Your Skin Gets

Your skin doesn’t get cleaner by exfoliating too often. In fact, over-exfoliation is a recipe for many skin-related issues including a damaged skin barrier, redness, irritation and dryness. While exfoliation is necessary to get rid of dead skin cells and clogged pores, it isn’t required to be done more than once or twice a week. 

5. Higher SPF Provides Better Protection

The SPF in your sunscreen doesn’t decide how protected your skin would be. As there isn’t much difference between the percentage of protection provided by different levels of SPF, it doesn’t matter whether you go for SPF 30, SPF 50 or SPF 70. Whatever the SPF level is, the effectiveness of a sunscreen depends upon how often and how diligently you apply it. 

Always make sure that you apply an adequate amount of sunscreen on all the visible parts of your body and reapply it every two hours if you are out in the sun.   

6. Day Cream Is Different From Night Cream

Though many brands sell different moisturizers for day and night, there is no evidence to suggest that night creams are formulated differently than day creams. In fact, you can use your day cream in your nighttime skincare routine, and it will be just as effective as it was during the day. 

There are, of course, day creams that have SPF that isn’t really required during the night. While some women like to go for thicker, ceramide-rich moisturizers during the night and lightweight formulations during the day, there’s no evidence to suggest that you can’t use them interchangeably. 

7. There Is One Universal Way To Get Good Skin

While there are certain rules about skincare that should be followed by all, like cleansing your face, moisturizing and protecting it with SPF, there is no one skincare routine that will work for all. 

There are a lot of things that come into play while deciding what skincare routine might work for you.  Oily skin has different needs than dry skin. Similarly, someone living in humid weather conditions will have different skincare requirements than someone living in cold weather conditions. Even genetics play a huge role in what your skin might or might not need. So, it’s incredibly important to have complete knowledge of your skin to figure out the right skincare regimen that will work for you. 

Now that you know what some common skincare myths are, it’s time for you to rethink your skincare routine. Remember that there’s no quick fix for any of your skin concerns. Your skin is unique in its own way and it’s your job to keep giving it as much love as you can. Besides taking utmost care of your skin, always keep looking for information to be double sure of what you choose to believe in.