You may be one of those wonderful people who religiously cleanses your skin before you sleep each night, or you may be like myself and occasionally (or frequently tsk tsk) uses the excuse of too tired, too much Prosecco, or no wipes to hand! We all know that we should take off our makeup before we sleep but not doing so on the regular is truly damaging. Here are some of the worrying things that could happen...

1. PREMATURE AGING, WRINKLES AND LINES

Makeup as we know can block the skin, and leaving it on for longer than needed can really suffocate it. Over time skin starts to lose it's elasticity and ability to repair properly so help it out a bit by gently removing makeup and the daily grim so that it can really regenerate itself overnight. Otherwise you will really leave it dull and speed up the appearance of wrinkles.

2. CONGESTION

No, I don't mean blocked sinuses, but blocked and clogged skin. Your skin is full of teeny tiny holes in very thin dermal layers, these can get clogged up with makeup, oil, dead skin, dirt and grime from the day. You really should double wash at night, once to remove dirt and makeup and the second to cleanse and treat the skin itself. Not sure about you but one cleanse definitely does not remove all my makeup. You do not want to put on that gorgeous serum or night cream mixed in with some left over scum that you have missed on your face.

3. INFLAMMATION + SPOTS

Most of us have a red tone to our skin, some people are affected by rosaccea too so, leaving makeup on overnight (as well as the rest of the daily grime from pollution and dust) can end up irritating the skin. You may not notice it visibly overnight but it will build up and become trickier to unclog those pores which in turn can lead to spots. White heads, black heads, larger cysts and bumps. If you are concerned about enlarged pores too, it is said that dirt, oil, grime in pores not only clogs them up but can in fact stretch them over time. So get cleansing!

4. MILIA 

What is Milia? These are little white spots under the skin's surface and sometimes called milk spots. Thisis caused by dead skin cells, and sometimes excess product and makeup getting trapped in your pores. They are very hard to get rid of naturally as you need to be consistent so you may eventually need professional removal methods, so it would be pretty devastating to get Milia from such a simple task as cleaning your face properly morning and night.

So hopefully these reasons will be enough of a wake up call to ensure that you get into a great habit of cleansing your skin at night, even if you do not wear much or any makeup, it is SO important to take away any nasties and dead skin that might accumulate over the day. Lastly, you don't want any of that grime to be transferred onto your clean pillows right?

What should I use?

If you wear a lot of makeup I recommend:

A alcohol free makeup remover (not wipes) on eyes and face, followed by a gentle cleansing face wash, second wash with the same or an anti-aging one, tone, serum and moisturise main areas (forehead, cheeks) a tiny amount as your preference.

If you wear minimal makeup:

Gentle eye makeup remover or Miellar water, followed by gentle cleanser, still double wash. You can use less product just wash twice still. Follow with your normal tone, serum, moisturising routine as you desire,

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions, Jen xx