Can You Overdo Skin Care?

Scrub It (But Not Too Often): The plethora of facial scrubs now available anywhere from your dermatologist to your local drugstore makes it easy to exfoliate as often as you’d like. But skin care experts caution that, while exfoliation is important for uncovering new skin and sloughing dead skin cells, over-exfoliation can leave skin raw, red and irritated. This is because skin cells need time to turn over.

Clean as a Whistle: There’s no such thing as skin that’s too clean, is there? Actually, over-washing you skin can disrupt the delicate moisture balance in our skin, drying it out and leading to excess sebum production since your skin tries to overcompensate for moisture loss. And overdoing it on the cleanser doesn’t provide additional benefit other than costing more. So what’s the proper amount of washing and cleanser? Experts recommend using a dime-sized amount of cleanser once in the morning and once or twice (if you have a lot of makeup to take off) at night.

Give Me Moisture: Serums and retinoids are great for improving skin by adding active ingredients like Vitamin C and Vitamin A to skin. But over zealous use can lead to active ingredients sitting on your skin, leading to dryness, redness and peeling. Use no more than a pea-sized amount for your whole face and start with three times weekly and working up as your skin tolerates the product.

Can you moisturize too much? Actually, yes. Frequent overuse of moisturizer can disrupt our skin’s normal oil production, and using too much of it can cause your skin to become dependent on it for moisture, creating tired and dull-looking skin. Overuse of moisturizer leads to clogged pores, breakouts, and dull skin because the excess moisturizer doesn’t get absorbed. Instead, it suffocates your skin. Use a nickel-sized amount for your whole face once or twice a day.