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Some people like to remove their makeup at the end of a hard day of work, and other people hate it. But whether you like it or despise it, it’s essential to keep your face healthy and to ensure you’re not ruining your appearance with chemicals. So how bad is it to actually leave your makeup on overnight? Can the chemicals in the makeup harm your face while you’re sleeping? In this article, we’ll see whether it’s really so bad to sleep with makeup on.
The science bit!
Makeup alters the surface chemical composition of your face in such a way that elements and dirt in the air can grasp onto your face and cause unnatural skin growth. Modern scientific research has found that leaving your makeup on overnight can lead to free radicals inhibiting the growth of collagen. This can lead to poor skin quality, blotchy lines and sometimes even oily skin as your body tries to compensate for the damage already done.
Turns out that your skin pores are actually extremely important to the health of your face. They excrete oils and chemicals that provide natural and healthy skin growth and development, and keep your face free from harmful kinds of bacteria that will prey on your cells. However, if you regularly leave your makeup on overnight, you are effectively removing this handy barrier!
The chemicals in most makeup aid in blocking your facial pores, which is bad news for your skin. It can no longer be cleaned by natural chemicals, and bacteria can build up and feast on your face. Yes, we’re not joking. The germs will start to eat you. This can cause acne, and if you often leave your makeup on at night, then you’re probably in for a really bad case of facial spots.
Premature ageing
It’s also apparent from scientific research that allowing your skin natural freedom and access to normal air is super important, too. It doesn’t need explaining that makeup completely takes this away from your facial skin and prevents it from cycling through its normal maintenance cycle. That doesn’t sound like any fun. When your facial skin cannot correctly build and maintain itself, it can develop horrible wear and tear lines from unnatural growth and the breakdown of collagen. The worst news? Over a prolonged period of time as you sleep in your makeup, you’ll develop a case of premature ageing. Not removing your makeup before going to bed can make your face look sore and wrinkly, which is terrible.
The verdict and a little more!
Okay, so makeup doesn’t do any favours for your skin if you leave it on overnight. But is it okay to wear mascara or eyeliner overnight? Surely that wouldn’t cause any damage? Actually, it will be just as dreadful! The chemicals in mascara and eyeliner are typically irritants to the surface of your eye and the skin surrounding it. When you leave eyeliner and mascara on overnight without removing it, you’re likely to rub these chemicals and residue into your eye as you sleep. For example, if your pillow rubs against your head and eyes, the chemicals can seriously irritate the surface of your eye.
So, what does this mean? Well, it’s certainly not good. These chemicals can damage your skin, again, they’ll block your skin pores preventing natural excretion of oil and cleaning chemicals, plus they’ll attract more nasty bacteria to your eyes! As the bacteria grows, it can cause some pretty horrible eye diseases and conditions and lead to overall degraded eye health. There are many unfavourable consequences that go along with this buildup of bacteria, but the most common is the development of “hordeolums”, essentially tiny, sore bumps on your eye.
There you have it. Yes, leaving your makeup on overnight is a really bad idea and it’ll effectively defeat the purpose of investing in beauty products in the first place, because over time you’ll be actively destroying your facial health. You’ll experience premature skin ageing, wear and tear lines, eyes diseases, bacteria buildup and a whole heap of other nasties.
