We’ve all been there. We’ve seen a hot stuff celebrity who has amazing lips/legs/skin pushing a beauty product that seems to give her said amazing lips/legs/skin. Or our grandmothers have scared us to death about not sleeping with a bra on lest we want our girls to head south before their time.
Beauty myths are all around us and we thought it was high time we burst the bubble surrounding some of the most ridiculous (and long-held) beauty myths.
Chip Resistant Nail Polish
Gels, selac, minx. They’re all touted as the next phase in nail adornment and boast a chip proof polish. While these lacquers may last longer than your $10 mani, they certainly won’t last forever.
Anti-Aging Cream
Anti-aging creams promise to reverse the effects of aging like crow’s feet, wrinkles, dark spots. While they may help to minimize these traits, no product will ever completely reverse the aging process, aside from Botox. Skip these creams and false claims and take care of your skin, health and age gracefully.
Plunk One, Two Will Grow Back
Gray hair is having its moment in the spotlight. But before Stacy London and Linda Fargo popularized it, gray hair was dreaded. The myth that if you pluck it, you anger the Gray Hair Gods and two grow back in its place is a bunch of whooy. Not that you should go plucking your hair out.
Chocolate Gives you Pimples
Thank goodness this is a myth or the chocolate industry would take a big hit. Chocolate doesn’t give you pimples, a poor diet does. So as long as you’re not eating your weight in fudge you should be ok.
Black People Don’t Get Sunburn
Who knows where or why this myth came about. But somewhere along the way, African-Americans started to believe that sunscreen was something you put on the porch door. Contrary to this, black skin does need SPF protection and African-Americans are susceptible to the sun’s harmful rays and ills such as skin cancer.
Pumping Your Mascara Wand
Pumping the mascara wand to get more “masc” seems like it makes sense. Except it doesn’t really work. Instead it pumps air into your tube that can dry it out and decrease its lash popping power.. Skip the pump!
Cocoa Butter Eliminates Stretch Marks
Stretch marks, or our predisposition to get them, comes from a host of factors including genetics. Creams and lotions that claim to eliminate stretch marks are mostly baloney. Stretch marks appear due to weight gain or loss and once you have them, they usually can’t be erased.
Split End Repair
Ask any red blooded American woman what her hair woes are and it’s sure to include split ends. They are a fact of life. Once the hair shaft has split there’s not much you can do outside of trimming. No amount of olive oil, mayonnaise mask, miracle pomade is going to fuse the hair back together. Preventing split ends is key, by gentle hair maintenance, deep conditioning and regular trims.
Spot Reduction
Rock hard abs, tight thighs, we all want our version of the perfect body. But doing a billion crunches hoping to melt away your ab flab isn’t going to cut it. Spot reduction has long been dispelled in the fitness community. Good ol’ cardio, healthy eating is the way to reduce overall body fat, thus reducing in the areas you want.
Brushing your Hair will Make it Grow
Rapunzel, Rapunzel throw down your hair. If you’re after long locks, constant brushing and manipulation isn’t the way to go. While regular head massages can stimulate follicles for hair growth, constant brushing & combing can actually cause breakage and unnecessary hair shedding.
Do tell, what beauty myths did you used to believe?
I was guilty of the pumping the mascara thing until I learned that not only does it not work, catching that air in there breeds bacteria and that was enough to make me stop! And as far as black people getting sun burn? I’m notorious for that and people still look at me crazy when I’m slathering on sunscreen.
I learned about the at home gel manicure the hard way! Thought I had scored big when I caught one on sale at Walgreens. It went on kinda smooth and looked decent but by the next morning they were chipped something horrible. Luckily they refunded me my money. Back to natural nails I go lol
[...] dispells some of the most common beauty myths, including split end repair, chocolate as an acne trigger, and the efficacy of anti-aging [...]
A poor diet is not the only cause of pimples. If a person has a genetic predisposition to acne, they can eat the healthiest diet in the world, keep their stress low, and follow a fantastic skin-care regimen and they will still get pimples. Please dispel that beauty myth too!
Amen – please, please, let’s stop blaming people for things beyond their control! I can’t tell you how many teenagers I knew who felt they somehow deserved their zits because they had not eaten “correctly” (whatever that might have meant). Acne is not a punishment for your sins!
Thank god about the chocolate thing.
Also samovar: I’m living proof of that, haha. I’ve got acne all over my back and face, and I’ve tried literally all the topical meds that my dermatologist has provided. I also eat the type of diet recommended for healthy skin. Finally the good doctor put me on oral meds – some antibiotics – which helped a little, and then I went on birth control so she took me off the antibiotics so that it wouldn’t interfere with the hormones. “It’s ok,” she said. “The pill is another kind of acne solution we prescribe anyway, so you’ll be fine.” Except for the part where my acne came back full force, only this time it was more cystic and painful. You can imagine my joy at this development! I hate this. I’ve complained about it to my clearer-skinned friends and they just told me to wash my face more often. :I
I believed for years that African Americans couldn’t sunburn because I literally have met only one black person my entire life who ever has. Many of the black and South Asian folks I grew up with wore sunscreen anyway because they were worried about getting darker if they spent a lot of time in the sun during the summertime.
So I guess that’s another myth that needs to be dispelled: Sunscreen doesn’t stop you from tanning. It prevents sunburns and sun poisoning, while decreasing your chances of developing skin cancer. But it does not stop you from getting darker if you’re outside all day at a BBQ.
The only other myth I’d add a point to is the one about stretch marks. You can also get stretch marks during your growth spurt. The skin stretches faster than it can normally grow during that time period, so us tall chicks often develop them during our tween and teen years as well.