In a world where everyone craves perfection, having perfect, spotless and glowing skin is every woman's desire. From costly facials to messy home remedies and changing that skin care routine every now and then , we all do our best to achieve that level of perfection. Little do you know that some of these promising skin care products can actually damage your skin. With blackheads and whiteheads being one of the most common skincare concerns amongst people, pore strips are something that the beauty industry has been benfeting through a lot. Where using pore strips can be a quite satisfactory experience that provides visible results, the advertisers and sellers wouldn't tell you the downsides of these pore strips. Well as always we are here to save you from this damaging product that can actually do more harm than good to your skin. Let us take a deep dive into this article and learn about the downsides of using these porestips and its side effects for your skin.
What Are Blackheads?
Assessing the treatment before learning about the illness is not a good idea and hence learning about pore strips and its side effects before getting to know what it is used for isn’t really the plan. As pore strips are an invention used to take out those stubborn blackheads from beneath your skin, it is important to first know what these blackheads actually are and what causes them.
In simple terms blackheads can be understood as the clogged hair follicles that appear as small black bumps on the surface of the skin. These blackheads are the result of blockage in the skin pores caused due to dead skin cells, oils, sebum or bacteria.
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These blackheads are formed due to the reaction of open pores with the oxygen present in the air which turns these clogged pores to turn black in colour. The reason behind the occurrence of these blackheads is not your cleanliness habits but the change in hormonal levels is a major contributor. This change can be caused due to puberty, pregnancy, stress or other such changes that your body might be going through.
What Are Pore Strips?
Before jumping in and knowing about the benefits or side effects of any product, it is important to know about what it actually is and what it is actually used for. As the beauty industry has been growing rapidly in the past few years, various brands have been coming up with solutions for different skin concerns and as consumers, we like to try almost everything.
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Used to get rid of blackheads and whiteheads, pore strips are something that have created their space in people’s regular skin care routine. A glue-like adhesive that consists of various ingredients pore strips get attached to the top layer of your skin and peels it off when removed. These pore strips are helpful in removing dead skin cells, oil, dirt and dust from the skin. By doing so it gives an appearance of improved pores for a short period of time. It is important to know that these pore strips just rips off the top layer of skin and hence only removes the superficial part of a blackhead whereas the problem still remains there underneath your skin.
Downsides of Using Pore Strips
Where these pore strips might seem like a quick solution to the problem of stubborn blackheads, by now you know that it just works on the superficial level and does just half of the job. Where this skin care product is not even able to perform its promised function properly, you would be surprised to know that it can lead to other skin problems. From drying out the skin to changing the size of your pores, these strips can do more bad to your skin than any good. Read on to know about the side effects of using these commercial pore strips.
#1. May Enlarge the Size of Pores
Well well, here's the truth about the pore strips that people have been hiding from you since long. Pore strips that claim to clear those clogged pores and remove black heads actually cause enlarged pores and more damage to your skin. These might improve the appearance of your skin temporarily but leads to enlarging the size of pores by reducing the elasticity of the skin. This increase in the pore size can lead to bigger and tougher blackheads in the coming future.
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#2. Can Cause Irritation
Pulling out that adhesive substance from your skin can be really harsh and harmful. It can hurt your skin to an extent that it might result in irritated and red skin in the affected area. Moreover using these pore strips can be harmful for people with sensitive skin or for the ones who are on some kind of acne medication.
#3. Makes the skin dry
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As these pore strips are adhesive and stick to the top layer of the skin, when removed they can leave your skin to look damaged and flaky. Not just this but it can also cause broken capillaries around the usage sight and lead to a condition known as the spider veins.
#4. Might lead to Infection
Where making your skin look dry and flaking and leaving it irritated was not enough, use of pore strips can also lead to various kinds of skin infections. As these strips leave your pores open by peeling off the top layer, it exposes it to the environment that leads to the collection of dirt, debris and bacteria in these pores which results in skin infections.
