Washing face is an activity that we have to carry out every day in our daily life.
As the saying goes, combing one’s hair frequently and washing one’s face frequently do not show any bad luck.
The bright and clean face not only reveals a positive and upward mental outlook, but also is the most direct manifestation of external beauty. The high forwarding rate of the online spreading of face-washing education posts and the large sales volume of face-washing books sold in bookstores all reflect people’s attention to face-washing.
However, there are different opinions on these online posts and non-professional books. Sometimes the methods taught in them are even completely opposite. Should we wash our faces how?
Next, let’s explain in detail some common controversial points in the problem of washing face.
Hot water VS cold water
Some people say that hot water is good and clean. Some people say that it is good to wash your face with cold water and your skin is firm!
Let me say, it makes sense. Hot water is helpful to wash off the grease on the skin surface and has strong detergency, while cold water shrinks pores and temporarily makes the skin look firm and smooth, each with its own advantages.
However, good things also need to be used correctly, suitable for a person to have good results.
Now, let’s take a few minutes to analyze the specific situation and whether what people should wash their faces with what water.
Generally speaking, this classification is based on [skin type].
Our skin is mainly divided into five types: oily, neutral, dry, mixed and sensitive. Apart from sensitivity, which refers to susceptibility to allergy due to a little stimulation, the other four are all distinguished by sebum secretion.
So, how do you judge your skin quality? Just wash your face.
After washing your face with clear water, don’t wipe anything, and how long will it take to feel the tightness disappear:
- Disappearance within 20 minutes is oily skin. Disappears in 20-40 minutes, neutral skin; It takes more than 40 minutes to disappear, that is dry skin. However, some people have oily forehead and nose, while the rest are neutral or dry, which belongs to mixed skin.
People with different skin types need different water temperatures to wash their faces:
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Dry skin: Don’t use hot water, your skin can’t secrete much grease, wash too clean, skin is easy to dry and desquamate, but it is not good, use cold water is good;
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Skin with grease overflow: If the skin on your face overflows with grease, then choose hot water at about 38 ~ 40 ℃, which is slightly higher than the skin surface temperature but will not feel hot. Wash off all the grease mixed with dust and oily bacteria to avoid future trouble.
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Allergic skin: If your face is often allergic to redness, or has just been exposed to the big sun and uses inappropriate cosmetics, which is a little spicy, use warm water at 36 ~ 37 ℃, which is basically the same as the surface temperature of human skin, thus avoiding cold and hot stimulation to sensitive skin.
Multi-foam Facial Cleanser VS Non-foam Facial Cleanser
Bubbles in facial cleanser are mostly caused by saponifiers, so multi-bubble facial cleanser is usually a little more alkaline.
Seeing this, the girls may be nervous: alkaline, will it corrode the skin and wash my face old?
In fact, the pH value of our skin itself is about 5.5 to 7.0, the forehead and scalp will be slightly alkaline, and the face outside the forehead is still weakly acidic like most of the whole body, which can completely withstand some weakly alkaline substances such as facial cleanser without being [corroded]. This is called [alkali neutralization] in medicine.
It is still the same as the water temperature. People with different skin types are suitable for different facial cleansers:
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Oily skin: Bubble facial cleanser alkaline slightly big so little, decontamination is certainly stronger, for oily skin is a good thing, wash clean. However, after washing the face with facial cleanser, still should pay attention to moisturizing care, otherwise, the oil on the skin is washed off, the skin will feel tight again, quickly secrete some sebum out, the cleaning effect is difficult to last.
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Neutral skin: Soft soap or fat-free skin cleanser with alkali content less than 0.2% should be selected.
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Dry skin and sensitive skin: these two kinds of people, you should choose facial cleanser with high fat content. Such facial cleanser is usually low foam, and some even have no foam. This kind of facial cleanser is mild and irritating. Although detergency is not strong, but dry skin does not have so much grease to wash away anyway.
After washing, air drying VS wiping
Many people, especially those in arid areas in the north, will feel dry and tight skin, mistakenly thinking that they will not dry their faces after washing and allow them to dry slowly, which can make water stay on their faces for a longer time, thus replenishing water. Even some people often apply wet towels to their faces repeatedly in an attempt to achieve the moisturizing effect.
In fact, these ideas are totally wrong.
The correct approach is always to wash and dry instead of air-dry.
The ability of stratum corneum to absorb water is not static. When the external humidity is high, the difference between the concentration of water inside and outside the skin becomes smaller, and the absorption of water by the skin will also decrease, even the absorption ability of other substances will also decrease.
When air-drying, as evaporation takes away heat, the water will gradually cool down and become [cold and wet compress]. At this time, skin blood vessels contract, blood flow slowly, skin gets less support and becomes drier.
Moreover, repeated wet compress will make the skin drier.
It sounds contradictory, but as the lipid distributed in the stratum corneum is the barrier to prevent water loss, repeated wet compress is like repeatedly eluting sebum, destroying this barrier, causing the skin to lose more water and become drier than before wet compress.
Some people may already have realized that washing hands repeatedly will always make them dry, even if they are just washed with water.
Wash clean VS wash frequently
Under normal circumstances, the oil layer of the skin is in a state of dynamic balance, and its secretion is affected by some sex hormones and individual nutritional status.
Generally speaking, the androgen level of adolescents is relatively high and the progesterone level of pregnant women is high, which may promote sebum secretion.
However, local cleaning does not change these systemic factors. So no matter how clean you wash, just wish you could turn out the hair follicles and wash them. The factors that can affect sebum secretion have not changed. After about 3 hours, the cortex will still return to its original state.
Therefore, for people with exuberant oil secretion, it is better to wash cleanly than to wash frequently: wash before getting up, wash before going to bed, and wash after meals.
Even if all the faces are washed with clear water, it is better than washing them only once or twice a day with strong decontamination facial cleanser.