The One Thing You Shouldn't Do In The Shower

Showering is something you do almost every single day, but you very well could be doing it all wrong. It turns out the one thing you shouldn't do in the shower is much more common than you'd expect. You might be saving some extra time when you wash your face while you scrub the rest of your body, but it's actually doing some serious damage to your skin. Once you hear the science behind it, you'll want to get that face wash out of the tub, ASAP.

It seems like washing your face in the shower would be no big deal. You have water and cleanser, so you're good to go, right? Wrong. Washing your face in the shower is actually much different than it is in the sink. “I recommend that my patients wash their faces at the sink [instead],” Dr. Tanzi told The Gloss. “[You can gauge the temperature more effectively] and should use lukewarm to cold water, which is better for delicate faces.”

Most people want to warm up in the shower, but when you're using the hot water to clean your face, you can be instantly drying it out instead of putting moisture back into it. Drying your face out isn't even the worst of it either. According to HelloGiggles, the skin on our faces is much more sensitive than on the rest of our bodies, and many of the natural oils can be stripped with the hot water you might use in the shower.

For those of you with sensitive skin, the damage isn't done there. Dermatologist Dr. Rachel Nazarian told Marie Claire "Hot water and temperatures will dilate blood vessels and capillaries. That can leave skin red and aggravate conditions like rosacea, which ultimately leads to broken and permanently dilated vessels." So while you think your killing two birds with one stone, you're really just hurting your face.

If this doesn't convince you to take the extra time, then maybe this little fact might. When you dry your face with a towel, you're actually putting more bacteria in your face, according to The Gloss. Instead of using a towel after you shower, celebrity facialist Joanna Vegas told the publication you should actually be using a paper towel instead. The extra time will save you in the long run, so do your skin a favor and skip the in-shower face wash.

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