BN Beauty: Using Cellphones, Air Travel & More! 5 Everyday Habits that Cause Breakouts

When it comes to beauty, there is sometimes nothing worse than an acne breakout. You may have scrubbed, wiped, exfoliated, cleansed and even applied a face mask and not only gotten bad results, but seen that the acne has gotten worse.

Breakouts are often caused by dirt and bacteria from all around us. So even when we do the right thing by washing our faces at night, and having a beauty routine, there a few basic daily habits that could be countering all our hard work.

Here are a few of them;

1. Using Cellphones
The cellphone is that accessory we just can’t do without, but it may be doing some major harm to our faces. As we move our phones from places like table surfaces, our handbags, pockets and more to our faces, they transfer dirt from all those places. So when you start to break out on your cheeks and around the corners of your mouths, it may be time to clean your phone’s surface.

This can be done by using a wipe to gently clean the screen and speaker, so your face can come in contact with a clean phone every time.

2.Your Yoga/Exercise Mat
Hey #FitFam, this is for you. The workout mat is an important part of your workout routine, but what may be more important is making sure you clean it. After all that sweating and position changing, your exercise/yoga mat could be a threat zone for your face and body. This could lead to breakouts because you re-use that mat everyday.

A great way to keep your mat clean is to go over it with a wet wipe, and carry a clean towel with you to place over the mat so your face does not come in direct contact with it.

3. Your Pillowcases
This is a very common culprit. Pillowcases are usually the last place your face visits right before you go to bed, and in this case may be the worst. At night, your skin regenerates and goes to work repairing damage,  regenerating skin cells etc; so imagine your skin doing this on a dirty surface. Your pillow/pillowcase may be harboring bacteria that has been building up over time and that gets transferred to your face on a daily basis as you go to bed.

A quick solution? Change/wash your pillowcase every week; this way you almost always have a clean one to sleep with.

4. Your Hands
Just like our cellphones, our hands are also a serious source of breakouts. We use our hands to perform different tasks through out the day and touch our faces at least 2000 times a day. This allows all manners of dirt come in contact with our faces and could lead to breakouts on our jaw lines and chin.

You can avoid this by washing your hands a couple of times a day to keep hands clean.

5. Air Travel
You may be in first class or economy, but there is no escaping dry air on a plane. Because of how compressed the air is in a plane, your skin could turn dry which would cause it to be dehydrated, dry up and retain oil. This then leads to acne build up. 

To avoid this, simply apply a moisturizer or hydrating serum before you board the flight to help soften and hydrate the skin; and a mild exfoliator after you land to remove the surface cells that accumulated during your flight.

We hope we’ve helped you banish those breakouts. If you’ve got some tips on daily habits that cause breakouts, go ahead and share them with us.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime/Felix Mizioznikov