What If You Wore 100 Layers of Makeup?

Do you know what you’re putting on your skin? Makeup can highlight your best features, smooth out imperfections, and help you feel confident.

And sometimes, you’re just too tired to wash it off before you go to bed. You could get away with this for one night without causing too much damage.

But what if one night turns into two, then three, then four, and then 100 days go by, and you still haven’t taken your makeup off? What would you look like? Can makeup cause acne? Or cancer?

Your skin is your body’s largest organ. It protects you from the environment, keeps you warm, and allows you to feel the world around you through temperature and touch.

But we are making it hard for our skin and our bodies to stay healthy. The average woman puts around 515 different chemicals on her skin every day. What could all these chemicals be doing to your body?

While your skin acts as a shield, it’s also permeable. All the things you put onto your body can soak through your skin and into your bloodstream.

Parabens and formaldehyde are two notorious chemicals that are often used as preservatives. You may see parabens on ingredient lists in makeup, moisturizers, hair care products, shaving creams and gels. They caused a huge stir in 2004 when scientists discovered them in samples of breast cancer.

But there’s been no scientific evidence that parabens cause cancer. Scientific studies have shown that the body breaks down and excretes parabens, concluding that they’re safe to use in cosmetics.

Formaldehyde is a different story, since this preservative is known to cause cancer. But companies have set maximum safe limits to keep their products cancer-free.

So if the chemicals aren’t an issue, why would it be a bad idea to leave your makeup on for 100 days? Well, first off, you’d be fighting an endless breakout. All those layers of makeup would trap the dead skin cells, which create the outer layer of your skin, called the stratum corneum.

Dead skin cells are what clog your pores and allow acne-causing bacteria to grow. So your pores would become bigger and deeper.

To cover up this bad breakout, you’d be tempted to put on even more makeup. But that would only make the issue worse.

And every day, your skin is exposed to unstable atoms called free radicals. These seep into the middle layer of your skin, the dermis, and break down collagen.

This leads to wrinkles. Makeup can accelerate this aging process by trapping those free radicals. So your skin would start breaking out and becoming wrinkled. But that’s not all.

Your skin would get drier each day due to inflammation. And it’s beginning to flake. To make matters worse, your skin wouldn’t be able to absorb products correctly. Acne and wrinkle-fighting creams wouldn’t work.

I’m sorry, but your complexion is not looking so great. Maybe you should try a new skincare regime. Try washing your face twice a day with a gentle cleanser. And follow up with some moisturizer. And use sunscreen if you’re going outside.

Luckily, your skin can recover if you treat it well. You might not be able to get rid of your new wrinkles completely, but they’d become less noticeable as your skin regenerates. By the way, even if you don’t wear makeup, you should still use this skincare routine.

You’ll look young and healthy longer if you wash away the free radicals, chemicals, and dead skin cells that accumulate every day. If not washing your face for 100 days has consequences, what would happen if you didn’t clean your entire body?