5 Reasons Why You Should Bare It All This Summer & Ditch Your Makeup

Find out why you may be breaking out in the heat and how you can prevent it

For some reason I have no memory of this intense of heat in my first Florida summer last year.

I had only moved to Miami two years ago now and I certainly didn’t anticipate the intensity of these heatwaves.

With temperatures rising above 35 degrees (Americans do your own conversions I use Celsius) everyday NOT including humidity I find myself looking for different hair, makeup, and clothing choices to appropriately handle the fact I’ll be sweating all day.

Not to mention I’m still an avid no deodorant girl so I have been experimenting with the cleanest of deodorants that exist just to deal with this particular matter.

But without dwelling on my hygiene choices…I started contemplating whether it is also healthy for me to even WEAR makeup in this type of environment.

Other than the occasional annoyance when I forget I defined my eyebrows and sweep my brow with my hand only to create a dark brown streak on my face, I was not sure if anything negative happened to my skin while I was wearing makeup in heat.

What I found was that it really CAN have some negative impacts on your skin.

Here’s some of the negative consequences extreme heat and direct sun can have on your skin when you are wearing makeup:

1. BREAKOUTS

A study was conducted that looked at the effect of temperature on skin and found that an increase in temperature results in an increase of sweat production ( no duh ), an increase in water loss and therefore, increase in sebum production.

What is sebum ? It is the natural oil our epidermis layer (skin) creates to detoxify and maintain the ph levels of our skin. In essence, it’s our natural face oil. Our body creates too much of it on two occasions: changes in hormones (menstruating, stressed, etc) and heat. When we overproduce oil on our face it leads to breakouts. Which often leads to more makeup, so it’s an endless cycle unless you cut out the source.

2. Interrupts our natural processes

Makeup essentially suffocates our skin. Girl, you look incredible but your skin is screaming.

Layers of foundation, concealer, and powders prevent your skin from sweating which can create a build up of bacteria. This congestion can not only result in immediate breakouts, but continuous breakouts as your skin tries to push out allllll of the sitting dirt buried deep into your skin. This is definitely something that happened to me when I first moved to Florida and I could not get my skin right. Check out the picture below.

3. But what about eye makeup ?

Eye makeup may not be advisable either. When your skin is sweating it enters a vulnerable state as your pores open up and breathe. So anything that’s not 100% clean that is sitting on our skin is going to be absorbed into our bodies. Mascara can lead to a build up in bacteria and create eye infections. You should be wearing sunglasses to prevent UV damage anyways so you can easily ditch the eye makeup !

4. Doesn’t it add an extra layer of sun protection ?

Short answer: yes and no.

There are mixed answers on whether makeup protects your skin while sunbathing. A recent study claimed that adding an extra layer of makeup on top of your sunscreen provided an extra layer of protection. However, a differing study claims the opposite.

So what do we do? Probably, decide for ourselves. What I know for sure is the human bodies processes are intricate and anything that may obstruct that should be avoided. So ultimately the best skin protection would be sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, and possible trips to the shade every now and then.

5. What if I need to wear makeup?

There are definitely situations where makeup isn’t able to ditch. Weddings, events, trips… there are tons of reasons you may not be able to avoid wearing makeup. Even today I needed to wear makeup while filming content outside.

So what do you do ?

Keep it simple. It’s important to wear oil-free makeup due to the excess sebum, and as close to clean and vegan products as possible. Cream or gel products are recommended over powder and if they have built in SPF then even better. Products containing ingredients such as dimethicone help with moisturising the skin, reducing water loss, and are non-comedogenic meaning they do not block pores. Always make sure you’re using clean brushes when applying to prevent any further dirt from entering your pores.

3 Clean Beauty Brands I Recommend:

So go bare and practice safe sun protection!