Mistakes You Make When You Shower Every Day

Drying your skin

You do not need to rub the towel on your skin to absorb water. Instead, dry gently with soft patting motions to avoid damaging the skin. As time passes, our skin gets older, and we should take extra care to prevent damage. As you get older, your oil glands poop out on you, so you're much more prone to dry skin. You have to adjust your bathing habits accordingly.

Lather More Than Once

One wash often isn’t enough to break down all the residue and product build-up, especially if you haven’t washed your hair for a few days. Think about what you’d do with a muddy t-shirt: You’d remove the big pieces of dirt and mud before you put it in the washing machine. Similarly, when you wash your hair twice, the first round gets rid of the superficial gunk, while the second actually cleans it. How do you tell if you need to double up? Not being able to work the shampoo into a rich lather is a telltale sign that you need to rinse and repeat.

Soaping your whole body

Soap is formulated to dissolve dirt and oil, allowing water to wash it away. The skin on arms and legs generally doesn’t have a lot of oil to give up, so cleaning them with soap is like drawing water from a stone—your limbs are left bone dry. Minimize soaping to only the oily and odor-causing parts of your skin such as your face, armpits, buttocks, groin, and feet.

Conditioning Your Roots With Unneeded Chemicals

You should be applying your conditioner from the middle of your hair to the tips, while steering clear of roots. (Your scalp makes enough oil naturally to keep the roots moisturized, so adding conditioner there on top of it is overkill.)

Washing for too long

Like hot water, lengthy bathing dries the skin too much, resulting in rashes and itching. The optimal duration of a shower is about 10 minutes.

Waiting too long before moisturizing

The best time to moisturize is as soon as you finish patting dry, when your skin is still damp. Make use of the ambient heat from the shower and humidity in the bathroom and put on moisturizer within minute. Lotion soaks into skin best when it’s a little damp.

Every other day

Shampooing and conditioning your hair every single day puts a strain on it. Frequent washing dries it up, so it overcompensates by becoming oily quicker. What you can do, however, if you live in a very polluted environment or exercise daily and sweat a lot, is give your hair a rinse with water, no shampoo, every other day. It’s refreshing, it does remove some of the grime that accumulates on your head and it doesn’t dry it.

Bar soap

Another biggest yet common shower mistake is using bar soaps. Traditional bars of soap can strip the skin of oils because they are an alkaline substance. Your skin’s pH should be 5.5 and these bars have a pH of 9, which makes your skin feel dry and tight. Soap causes skin’s pH to rise, which makes it acceptable to external factors like infection, allergens, and international factors such as stress and diseases. If the bars of soap are shared, they can spread bacteria. Be sure to keep your germs to yourself and use a liquid soap if you are going to be sharing a shower.

Be careful with old sponges

It might seem like something that isn’t important. But, using the same pouf for a long time is a great health risk. You could say that it’s similar to what happens to tooth brushes when they’re used too long. You should keep the humidity of the environment in mind. This is because they usually create the perfect conditions for bacterial and fungal growth.

The solution is not using a sponge for more than 4 weeks (maximum).

The most recommendable thing is to use a shower glove or hand towel. But, don’t forget to dry it after each use.

Peel your skin

Simply rubbing body wash on your skin or using a wash rag does not provide the exfoliation your skin needs to bloom. You should be using a rough loofah to remove dead skin cells. Just be sure not to scrub too roughly on your skin. Removing dead skin cells is the goal, but you don’t want to be too harsh on your skin.