4 Skin-Damaging Habits You Might Be Unconsciously Doing With Your Hands

Your skin is delicate and valuable. Many products and services are present to aid in attaining and maintaining the healthy skin you’ve always wanted. However, although technology and Science introduce new discoveries and methods, there are things which they cannot control regardless of their affordability and great quality. What are those things? They’re people’s habits. Yes, aside from pollutants and stress, skin is damaged by what you do to it using your hands.

The hands do a lot to the skin. As surprising as it can be, your hands aren’t just used to apply beauty cream and lotion to your skin, you also use them to harm it. “Oh no?!” Oh, yes, you do! Unlike availing skincare products and services, you do that effortlessly and sometimes, unconsciously. Sometimes, you’ll just be shocked that you already have a dark mark or a wound on your skin. And that is because there are some unavoidable and sometimes unnoticeable habits that people do cause harm to the skin.

Peeling Your Skin Around Your Fingernails

Sometimes, when the skin around your fingernails become dry, there are little portions of the skin that crack and peel but not fall off. It’s just that sometimes, you look at your thumb and see a little piece of skin peeping. It makes you really curious or really annoyed. Should you touch and pull it? NO. You shouldn’t bite it too. Although you pulled a small skin portion, it will hurt a lot and can actually cause your finger to swell. The worst thing that could happen is peeling off a tiny part, but getting along skin portion because you didn’t stop unless you got it removed. Ouch!

Popping Pimples

One pimple is itchy and painful. You probably get annoyed seeing it, especially if grows larger. One of the worst mishaps you experience with a pimple is when it’s accidentally or abruptly hit or touched by a hand or a thing like eyeglasses. You hate how bad you look with it especially if the yellowish liquid (pus) is peeking. Should you touch or pop it? NO. You pop it to remove it, but popping it will just worsen and make it redder and more swollen. Scars and dark areas can also appear. Your hands or the object you’ll use to pop it might be dirty and cause irritation and infection.

Picking Scabs from Wounds

When open and/or moist wounds are in the process of healing, the skin above it becomes crusty and dark brown, and it’s called scab. People who get scabs from wounds tend to remove them by peeling them off. You want to remove the dark thing on your skin, but should you remove it off irresponsibly with your hand? NO. Scabs actually protect your damaged skin or wound from being bigger chances of infection since it’s covering it while the repair is in progress; that’s why you notice that the skin where the scab is resting on doesn’t feel anything if you touch it. Some scabs are easy to be removed, but some are still fresh and attached to the skin–when you pick them off, you may reopen the wound or form another one. A scar, worse than it’s supposed to be because of the wound, will also appear after picking scabs.

Scratching Insect Bites

Insects like bugs and mosquitoes are sneaky creatures that suck your blood, and you don’t even notice while they do it. They actually seem like thieves walking so lightly. You just find out that you’ve been bitten by an insect after seeing a red, itchy bump on your skin, and you’re like, “Where, when and how did I get this thing?!” Insect bites come in different sizes, but the annoying thing is that they’re all itchy! The worse thing is they also come in different itch intensities but the bottom line is they’re itchy.

So what do you usually do? You scratch it! You unconsciously scratch it when you’re watching TV, using your phone or just when one hand is free.  But should you do that? NO. You might think you’re just lightly scratching it, but later on, you’ll feel a stinging pain and notice you already have a wound. Too much scratching can lead to mild pain in the skin. You know there’s a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you scratch it. You scratch it because it wants to be scratched, and if you don’t, it feels like something’s screaming under your skin. It may also result in infection if the bite is reopened or the skin is broken, especially with dirty fingernails.

Most of the above-mentioned habits involve itchiness, and truly, it’s so hard to put your hands away from your skin whenever it’s itchy. Too much and uncontrollable scratching, peeling, popping, picking and scratching are unhealthy and dangerous to your skin. For you to avoid the harms of doing those, find simple alternatives like gently rubbing or patting with your hands and not with your fingernails. There are ointments and medications so that these habits can be lessened.

You might be using a lot of beauty products and following skin care tips from celebrities or beauty experts, but remember that it’s not just the do’s which you must observe but also the don’ts. Not all skin damage is caused by external factors and by time, sometimes, it caused by your hands and your awareness.

AUTHOR BIO:

Nicole Ann Pore is a daytime writer for Geniale, a holistic Medical Aesthetics, and Skin Cancer Centre in Australia that aims to provide brilliant experience, treatment, and result to its guests. | Nicole graduated Cum Laude from De La Salle University-Manila, the Philippines with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts. “To God be all the glory”

Updated on 10-08-2020