Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Though cliched, a lot of us seem to take this common and well-known adage about beauty as fact. However, along with this hackneyed beauty maxim were a series of beauty myths we took for truth when they were nothing more than old wives’ tales and superstitions.
Hearsay such as lip balm being addictive, retail is always better than wholesale clothing, snake venom as an alternative to Botox and hair extensions causing you to go bald-these misconceptions are just a fraction of what we used to believe as kids.
With all that we are misleading to believe as impressionable children, it is be quite a surprise how we manage to distinguish fact from fallacy but as adults, there are still some erroneous notions as regards beauty that we continue to believe until today.
If you want to have a healthy beauty regimen, it is high time for you to dismiss these urban legends lest they harm your appearance. Here are five of the common beauty myths that you have likely heard and used to believe finally kid-debunked.
1: LIP PLUMPERS ARE EFFECTIVE IN MAKING YOUR SMOOCHERS BIGGER
Truth: We have all seen those drugstore lip balms, lipsticks and even glosses that would promise you larger and fuller lips after application. True enough, these lip products do have an effect of making your lips swell to a size bigger than your usual pucker by temporarily irritating them.
Though you may be getting your desired results, these lip products are not exactly a good thing. Your smackers may seem plumper for the moment, but the irritation may cause permanent damage and scarring to the sensitive lip cells.
2: NAIL HARDENING PRODUCTS WOULD GIVE YOU STEEL NAILS
Truth: Some nail polishes would boast of making the tips of your cuticles stronger and even prevent them from breaking. But on the contrary, these products would only achieve the opposite effect and instead of making them stronger, constant usage of them would give your nails a tendency to break.
These products contain formaldehyde which hardens and creates a bond between the strands of keratin protein in your nails. Essentially, this would make your nails stronger but, albeit less flexible and even more brittle making it prone to breakage.
3: PERMANENT HAIR REMOVAL LASTS FOREVER
People-especially women-have wanted always wanted to achieve a level of perfection in beauty which is why some individuals have recently committed to getting rid of their body hair-forever! Methods such as laser hair removal and electrolysis promise you a hairless body by killing hair follicles at the root.
However, this does not mean that you would remain hairless perpetually as even if you manage to eliminate the entire root, there is no real guarantee that it would not return. Hair growth is a stimulus, and this is never permanently remove-even with new age methods such as the ones mention here.
4: PARABENS HAS A CARCINOGENIC AGENT
Truth: It seems like everything causes cancer nowadays-bacon, processed food and hey, even beauty products. Parabens has been notoriously identified as a preservative with the potential to cause cancer. Despite the flak they get for being known as that, Parabens is actually a very essential component in beauty products.
Parabens are put in formulas in small amounts so as to prevent the growth of disease-causing microbes. If you use any cosmetic sans this preservative, then your ordinary tube of lipstick or compact foundation powder is a potential breeding ground for these microbes (yeast, fungi, bacteria, etc.) which may cause serious health problems.
5: ORGANIC IS ALWAYS BETTER
Truth: At one point in our lives, we have all heard these organic-loving snobs proclaim how much better organic products always are. According to them, organic foods down to organic beauty products are superior to those that use chemical reagents as alternatives. But unlike organic food, organic beauty products do not have any real “organic” and “natural” products to substantiate their claims.
A beauty product could claim that it is ninety percent natural and be telling the truth because it is using ninety percent water while the rest of the ingredients are artificial. The truth is, these products are not essentially better than their preservative-laden counterparts, and they are certainly no better for the environment. In fact, they may even be less effective than your conventional cosmetics. So be wise about choosing your beauty products, just because it is lauded for being organic, it does not mean it is immediately better.