Guilty as Charged!
Jennifer Watts
- Shampooing your hair every day
Who doesn’t love the rush of a nice hot shower? Umm...your hair maybe? You don’t have to stink it up to give your mane a little reprise. Pick up a shower cap or take a long hot bath and try and space out lathering your locks. And if you must, must wash the do’ once a day then skip product and save those natural oils.
- Shaving with a less than perfect razor
Ingrown hairs are an unnecessary evil. Keep them at bay by investing in a good multi-blade and changing it often. And a little olive oil or aloe vera shave cream wouldn’t hurt either.
- Slathering on too much product
Like the hairdresser always tells you – you only need a pea-sized amount. So why is it that whether it’s face cream or conditioner we’re lopping it on like the end is nigh? Take it down a notch and only use what you need. The bonus? You’ll save yourself some money in the process.
- Towel drying your hair like a fanatic
Imagine for a second drying a friend’s hair in the manner you might do your own? You might not have that friend for much longer. And while we are all time starved it’s important to remember that it’s your hair we’re talking about – not two sticks you’re rubbing together on Survivor to try and make fire. Remember, squeeze and blot, squeeze and blot.
- Brushing wet hair
Comb sales must have plummeted after 1955 when it stopped being cool to tuck it behind your ear. But they do exist for a reason. And that reason is to comb your hair. Again, probably something we’ve all been told by a well-wishing hairdresser once or twice in our lives -- using a giant paddle brush to smooth out wet hair after a shower will lead to breakage and split ends and a frizzy mess. It may be a time-consuming pain to work those little teeth through the knots but imagine the shiny mane you’ll be sporting if you take the time.
- Not flossing
Oprah says working the string regularly will take ten years off your looks. While this may or may not be true (err on the side of not) flossing really does have its merits. Besides healthy gums and a sparkling smile you’ll have clean teeth – and let’s face it, who cares what shoes you are wearing if you have last night’s corn stuck in your canines.
- Getting too little sleep
We’ve all done it before. “Sure I can have one more drink, I’ve only got to work at ten!” Fast forward to two hours of shuteye later with a sallow complexion and a serious case of rabbit eyes. The things we do to ourselves! And it’s not just post-party, even getting too few hours of the z’s on workdays because we’re spending too much time Facebooking or watching late night reality TV reeks havoc on the system and ages us faster than is humanly fair. While life is undoubtedly busy, take a page from the Diva Mariah (who reportedly sleeps fifteen hours a day in a sauna surrounded by humidifiers) and get your beauty sleep.
- Sunscreen goes on your face?
Life’s a beach and then you lather. Generally everything from your shoulders to the back of your knees. But what about your face? Rubbing five tablespoons of generic SFP on your kisser may seem like a good idea, but is it really? You wouldn’t use foot scrub as a body wash because you know that different parts of the body have different types of skin. The same goes for your face. Whether you are at the beach or not make sure you’re packing a specially formulated facial sunscreen to keep the burns (and wrinkles) at bay.
- Water,water everywhere but not a drop to drink
Wake up. Have coffee. Go to work. Have more coffee. Enjoy a diet coke with lunch. Unwind after a long day with a glass of merlot. Yes, technically they are all liquids, but the above contribute to serious dehydration, which makes you the following: hungry, tired, bloated, moody, and bitchy. Just imagine, all of the aforementioned can be avoided by punctuating your everyday libations with a little of the H20.
- Using dirty makeup brushes
After a $100 blowout at MAC we come home to pat and prep our faces with the latest colours and shades – and slather it all on with a makeup brush set our mom gave us for Christmas in 1998. Yikes! If not cleaned regularly and updated reasonably, millions of funky bacteria can nest and grow in the bristles of those brushes. Which you then wipe on your face. Yum. Kind of defeats the purpose of the designer war paint, don’t you think?
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