Fashion

Are You Getting The Most Out of Your Beauty Sleep?

by Miki Hayes

With all the beauty-related woes circulating these days, bedtime can be stressful. What do I do with my hair while I sleep? If I sleep with it tied up, my locks could suffer breakage and I'll have that awful hair-tie dent in the morning. If I sleep with it down, my hair could get tangled and make me break out if it's touching my face too much. And of course I'll have to try to snooze on my back allll night. I don't want to wrinkle prematurely or cause my lashes to suffer breakage and fall out.

These are some of the worries that are totally justified when sleeping on a cotton pillowcase. Since cotton is a rougher material, it causes more friction when you sleep on it. That means hair (including lashes and brows) and skin cannot as easily move when you move. This leads to tangles, breakage, and compression wrinkles. And you know why cotton is such a great material to work out in? It absorbs sweat and moisture so you feel drier and more comfortable. While this is a great quality to have in athletic gear, it's not so great for your face — especially after you've slathered on that expensive moisturizer and eye cream. Yep, that cotton pillowcase will try to suck all that moisture out of your face (and hair, too).

Okay, let me turn on my infomercial voice right quick. YOUR WORRIES ARE OVER, FOLKS. ACT NOW TO GET THE HAIR AND SKIN YOU'VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF! But for real, make these changes to feel free to sleep however you damn-well please.

Switch to a Silk or Satin Pillowcase

The benefits of these slippery pillowcases are pretty fantastic:

  1. Less breakage in hair and lashes
  2. No bed-head since hair is freer to slide around
  3. Retain moisture in skin and hair
  4. Maintain skin's elasticity and prevents wrinkles

Wash Your Pillowcase at Least Once a Week

Now that breakage, dryness, and wrinkles are being kept at bay, keep acne away too by making sure to wash your pillowcase often. It can quickly become a hotbed of bacteria and dead skin cells (ew!) if you don't.

Images: /; Wolfgang LonienFlickrSelenaLovely720/YouTube; Giphy